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Congressional Republicans are aiding and abetting the Department of Justice’s campaign of retribution against civil rights organizations and anyone who dares disagree with them. It began with law firms, universities, and even elected officials, and now extends to civil rights organizations, whose mission is to protect the public, uphold the Constitution, and make sure all Americans are able to enjoy the freedoms that make our country great.

Today’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is a defining moment for our democracy and a direct test of whether every American has an equal and effective voice in the political process. The Court has taken a dangerous step backward, weakening one of our nation’s most critical civil rights protections. By undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, this decision makes it harder to challenge discriminatory maps and opens the door to further dilution of Black political power and the voices of communities of color.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement in reaction to news of another threat of legal intimidation against a member of the civil rights coalition, the Southern Poverty Law Center, as retaliation for doing the important work of protecting people from hate and discrimination

Harmeet Dhillon was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights on April 3, 2025, by a vote of 52 to 45, over the strong objections of civil rights organizations who warned that she had spent the bulk of her career actively working against the civil rights laws she would be confirmed to enforce. Her record before DOJ was clear. As a lawyer for the Trump campaign in post-2020 election litigation, she promoted unsubstantiated claims about election fraud. She opposed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, designed to ensure that voters would be protected from racial discrimination. She also filed more than ten unsuccessful lawsuits challenging California's voting programs. As we have said: "Harmeet Dhillon is not a civil rights lawyer and has no business leading the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.”

Birthright citizenship is not a policy preference. It is a constitutional guarantee enshrined in the 14th Amendment, which affirms that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens. This principle has stood for more than 150 years as a safeguard against discrimination, exclusion, and the creation of a permanent underclass. It is one of the clearest expressions of who we are as a nation.

Today's executive order on federal elections is a recipe for chaos, disenfranchisement, and constitutional crisis, wrapped in disingenuous narratives about access to the ballot.

The decision by the United States Department of Justice to seek dismissal of charges in the case of the violent killing of Breonna Taylor is a gross miscarriage of justice. This Department of Justice has made crystal clear that it will not protect the basic civil and constitutional right for a Black woman to be safe from police violence in her own home.

Today, with the confirmation of MarkWayne Mullin as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, we are reminded that the fight for civil and human rights is not a chapter in our history. It is the battle of this moment. And this moment demands both clarity and action.