Advocates ‘deeply worried’ as Trump’s justice department halts new civil rights cases
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Call to stop civil rights cases follows order putting staff on federal DEI programs on leave as a prelude to shutting programs down. The Department of Justice has ordered its civil rights division to halt new cases, further signalling the new administration’s hostility to racial and gender equality since Donald Trump’s return to power.
The decision came amid a blur of frenzied activity across a range of sectors that sent out simultaneous signals of incipient purges and revenge against political opponents, along with a determination to act on radical campaign pledges. The call to halt civil rights cases – set out in an instruction to Kathleen Wolfe, the new acting head of the justice department’s civil rights division – followed an earlier order putting staff on federal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs on immediate leave as a prelude to shutting such programs down.
Activists called the move “unprecedented” and warned that it indicated a government intention to abandon civil rights and protections against discrimination that have been enshrined in legislation since the 1950s and 1960s. “This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, to the Washington Post. “This is more than just a changing course of philosophy – this is exactly what most people feared: a justice department that was created to protect civil rights literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.”.
