Dhillon Says Companies With Racial Quotas Could Be Prosecuted

Harmeet Dhillon, the attorney nominated to lead the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, said in her confirmation hearing on Wednesday that corporations that use diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) racial quotas could be prosecuted under federal civil rights law.

In an exchange with Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Dhillon was asked about a 2023 initiative from retail corporation Target to hire 20 percent more black employees, in what Schmitt said was an “overt racial quota system” prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

“Senator, if the facts are as you just described them, I believe that practice is illegal and unconstitutional,” Dhillon said. As head of the Civil Rights Division, Dhillon would be charged with enforcing federal civil rights law and bringing prosecutions against public and private entities that violate it.

In an earlier exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, regarding racial quotas and DEI, Dhillon added, “Title VII’s language is clear that racial discrimination is inappropriate in hiring, and so that is certainly a priority that I would undertake and one that I’ve undertaken in private practice as well.”

Dhillon added that “the president and Attorney General Bondi have made clear that diversity, equity, and inclusion, as it has been applied to use racial quotas to deny people equal access to education, employment, even potentially housing, and other aspects of civil life that are covered by the civil rights statutes are inappropriate, and so we’ll certainly be taking a close look at all of those and enforcing the law equally in favor of all Americans.”

Schmitt noted the utter lack of civil rights prosecutions for illegal racial quotas during the Biden administration — the grand total being zero, which Dhillon affirmed.

“My friends on the other side had a system in place that needs to fundamentally be dismantled. The left views this, again, as cultural Marxism — a way to divide the room by race, and it’s tearing this country apart,” Schmitt said. “You have a really important role that you’re going to step into when you’re confirmed — I think you’re going to get confirmed — to try to end this. We shouldn’t have … racial quotas in this country. People should be judged on their merits. We need to bring merit back. It’s not a four-letter word. It’s actually … a bedrock principle that’s made this country such a great place.”

The question about the enforcement of Title VII against racial quotas came amid a broader discussion about how civil rights law in America has been turned against certain races or groups that have fallen out of favor on the left.

“The entire civil rights bureaucracy as it currently exists is a vehicle for an entrenched new system of discrimination based on race,” Schmitt said. “The left is right about one thing, in my view: There is systemic racism that exists in America today. But it’s not Jim Crow, or redlining, or our criminal justice system; it’s the pervasive racial discrimination that exists against Asians, whites, and other disfavored groups that take place now on college campuses, in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, even in the halls of our own government. It goes by a bunch of different names, principally equity, or DEI, or CRT.”

Schmitt asked Dhillon if “reverse racism” (a term that typically means racism against white people) is “still racism,” noting that civil rights law is required to treat everyone of all races equally, despite the damage done by the Biden administration.

“I don’t even use the term ‘reverse racism,’” Dhillon said. “It’s just racism to discriminate on the basis of race.”

In her exchange with Grassley, Dhillon suggested the federal government would go after colleges and universities that appear to be violating civil rights law under Title VI.

“We have a problem throughout the United States, not just on the basis of race in universities, but also religion,” she said. “We’ve seen antisemitism sweep the nation, and it is very problematic that many people of the Jewish faith are barred by professors and fellow students from access to the classroom. So yes, in addition to race, I would see religious discrimination and other forms of discrimination on campuses as an appropriate target for the Civil Rights Division.”

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.