by Charles F. Coleman Jr. | Nov 7, 2026 | Civil Rights, Opinion, Politics, White House
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. A conservative culture warrior who as a private attorney represented Donald Trump during the House committee’s Jan. 6 investigation, she quickly delivered on the administration’s goals to roll back civil rights protections and reversed many the hard-fought gains of Kristen Clarke, her predecessor at the Civil Rights Division.
Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Heritage Foundation figures like Russell Vought, Brendan Carr and Kevin Roberts all connected MAGA culture war with efforts to roll back civil rights, making the leader of the DOJ’s civil rights unit of paramount importance. Dhillon delivered what MAGA wanted.
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Though the departure of a civil rights chief who fixated on imaginary discrimination against white men might seem like a step in the right direction, we won’t know that until we know who Trump will replace her with.
But in the meantime, we can point out just how bad Dhillon was for civil rights. Take, for example, allegations of discriminatory policing. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has historically investigated allegations of mistreatment of Black people and other marginalized groups by law enforcement officers. When police civil rights violations required federal intervention, the division led that effort and entered into consent decrees with law enforcement agencies to grant injunctive relief, often mandating additional training and accountability measures.
There were examples of such consent decrees in cities across the country before Trump became president in 2017,
by Ebony Davis | Nov 7, 2026 | Civil Rights, immigration, News
Houston Mayor John Whitmire announced Friday that police will no longer notify federal immigration authorities about administrative immigration warrants during routine encounters unless a person is arrested for a crime punishable by jail time.
The shift, announced days after Democrats swept key statewide races in Texas, marks a significant change in how Houston police cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Whitmire, a Democrat, signed an executive order changing the Houston Police Department’s procedures for contacting ICE, saying the move would ease fears in immigrant communities while maintaining public safety.
“I have directed the chief and HPD through an executive order that we will change our policy in regarding contact with ICE,” Whitmire said at a news conference Friday. “I do this to begin a healing process, reduce fear and anxiety across our community.”
Under the order, officers will no longer notify ICE about administrative immigration warrants during routine stops that do not result in an arrest. Police will still contact ICE if someone arrested for a new crime punishable by jail time also has such a warrant.
Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz said officers have already received updated instructions.
“If our police officers pull someone over for a minor traffic infraction and they write a citation, that person receives the citation and goes about their day,” Diaz said. “HPD will no longer contact ICE if they have an administrative warrant and they are not arrested.”
The announcement follows Democratic victories in Texas, including Gina Hinojosa’s defeat of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, James Talarico’s U.S. Senate win and state Sen. Nathan Johnson’s election as attorney general. Democrats also captured the lieutenant governor’s office with Vikki Goodwin and
by Mitch Perry | Nov 6, 2026 | ACLU, CAIR, Civil Rights, first amendment rights, Florida, News, Ron DeSantis, Schools
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has suspended operations in Florida, the organization has announced. It did so after a federal judge rejected an emergency request Wednesday by the Muslim civil rights organization to stop the state from designating the group and its state chapter as domestic terrorist organizations, allowing the designation to take effect while its legal…
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by The Associated Press | Oct 6, 2026 | Civil Rights, News
Christa Pike, a Tennessee inmate who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, is awake and speaking as she receives treatment at a hospital, her attorneys said Tuesday.
Pike’s attorneys said her prognosis is still “unclear” and said she faces “a long recovery.”
“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement. “Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented.”
Her attorneys said they are grateful for the first responders and the medical team at the hospital “who treated Christa like a human and have provided exceptional care to her.”
The statement was the first indication that Pike has improved since an ambulance carried her away from a Nashville prison last Wednesday.
Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital as they attempted to put her to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. The lethal injection drug didn’t kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were left burned and blistered.
As recently as Sunday, her attorneys said Pike had remained unconscious and on a ventilator since the failed execution attempt.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike’s legal team, said the development “bodes well for a good recovery.” But, he added, it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her.
“She’s still in the ICU,” he said.
by Elise Jordan | Oct 6, 2026 | Civil Rights, elections, News, News Analysis
For the second installment of MS NOW’s “The Voter Files,” we convened four groups of Detroit-area voters in Dearborn, Michigan, to hear how they plan to vote in the state’s open Senate race between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
In Maine, the subject of our first installment, Sen. Susan Collins’ long tenure has kept the Senate race local. Michigan’s Senate race is fully nationalized. The voters we heard from were Black Democrats from Wayne County, swing voters from Macomb County, Muslim Americans from Dearborn and Jewish Democrats from Oakland County, and they talked about the race in the language of fear. They fear that worsening economic instability is eroding their long-term security. The Muslim and Jewish participants are far apart on El-Sayed, but both are also concerned about their physical safety, and they described that fear in strikingly similar terms.
“What has changed? A lot of divisiveness, a lot of violence, a lot of race baiting,” said one Wayne County voter. “I’ve been a poll worker since 2004, and what I’ve been seeing at the polls now is a lot of people coming in angrier.”
Writing off Rogers, waiting on El-Sayed
Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed dominated the deliberations, with each group expressing a distinct, unfulfilled desire for what they need to see and hear from the Democratic candidate before they vote for him. Though Rogers came within about a third of a percentage point of winning Michigan’s other Senate seat in 2024, the voters we spoke with — in theory, he only really ever stood a chance with the Macomb swing voters — overwhelmingly dismissed him. “Carpetbagger” and “Florida” were the words
by Selena Kuznikov | Oct 4, 2026 | Civil Rights, Congress, elections, News, White House
President Donald Trump has spent much of his second term waging an assault on mail-in voting. But suddenly, he’s calling on Republicans to vote any way they can — including by mail.
“If your state has early voting, do not wait,” Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social on Saturday. “Go out and vote. Vote early. Vote by mail or vote in person on Election Day, November 3rd, so we can defeat the radical left Dumocrats in a midterm victory that is too big to rig.”
His call to action comes 30 days before the midterm elections, with Republicans at risk of losing control of Congress and facing competitive challengers in traditionally red territory as some GOP candidates distance themselves from Trump.
On Saturday evening, at a rally for Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted and GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump stopped short of telling the crowd to vote by mail. But he urged them to turn out like never before — including early — which he has previously criticized.
“Early voting begins October 6th and ends on Sunday, November 1st,” he said. “Go out or…,” he said, pausing, “just vote on Election Day, November 3rd. I think we’re going to have a big surprise because they don’t know what’s happening.”
Trump didn’t elaborate on what kind of “surprise” — though Democrats and election integrity experts have raised concerns about potential election meddling. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday on Fox News that the Justice Department plans to send poll monitors to “every state to make sure that our elections are carried out legally, fairly and appropriately.”
For years, Trump has made baseless claims
