After the Biden administration spent four years “weaponizing” her division, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon says that she needs more “energized attorneys” to help her spearhead new initiatives to protect rights that have been trampled on in the past years.

The priorities pursued in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division by her predecessor Kristen Clarke — prosecuting pro-life activists, suing states over election integrity efforts and targeting police departments — are going to change, Dhillon told the Daily Caller News Foundation during a Friday interview.

Under her leadership, Dhillon said the Civil Rights Division will continue its core mission, while expanding to new areas of focus including defending the Second Amendment, ending race discrimination in employment, securing parental rights and fighting antisemitism on college campuses. 

Some current and former career attorneys in the division are claiming the shifts in policy will undermine civil rights enforcement. Last week, around a dozen senior lawyers in the division were reassigned, Reuters reported.

“We have changed the priorities, not the mission, the priorities, in each of the sections in the Civil Rights Division,” Dhillon told the DCNF. “Some personnel here have decided that they’d rather make their careers elsewhere.”