{"id":160996,"date":"2026-08-19T15:48:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/19\/doj-civil-rights-attorneys-leaving-to-save-their-law-licenses-whistleblower-tells-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T23:48:55","slug":"doj-civil-rights-attorneys-leaving-to-save-their-law-licenses-whistleblower-tells-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/19\/doj-civil-rights-attorneys-leaving-to-save-their-law-licenses-whistleblower-tells-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Civil Rights Attorneys Leaving To Save Their Law Licenses, Whistleblower Tells Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government Accountability Project forwarded a 25-page whistleblower disclosure<\/a> to four congressional committees on behalf of former DOJ civil rights attorney Haley Van Erem. It\u2019s a damning indictment of the Department of Justice\u2019s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, an initiative set up to deal with the rise in anti-Semitic threats and violence, but that mostly operates as a cudgel to reverse engineer probes and legal attacks against institutions of higher learning in an effort to harass schools into settlements where no cognizable violations existed. <\/p>\n

Law and fact \u201cwere subordinate to political priorities rather than the enforcement of civil rights,\u201d the underlying disclosure explained. \u201c[A]nd were implemented at the expense of regular decision-making and enforcement processes that exist to protect against constitutional and statutory violations and unwarranted, arbitrary and capricious agency actions in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among many redactions throughout the disclosure, one jumps out. As The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> Quinta Jurecic noted:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019re not alone!<\/p>\n

Van Erem isn\u2019t the only whistleblower in this case, and others aren\u2019t named in the public version, which is presumably why this section is blacked out. But the important revelation is that DOJ attorneys have started to realize that their work for this administration \u2014 work that routinely involves misleading tribunals, ignoring court orders, and, as here, pursuing bad faith claims \u2014 is likely to end up impairing their law licenses. Before this administration ends, the president might well preemptively pardon everyone who aided and abetted its lawlessness, but the actors that can still deliver consequences for lawyerly wrongdoing are local law license authorities. They still have the duty and obligation to protect the public and the legal profession by disbarring the complicit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The good news is that attorneys inside the DOJ seem to be figuring this out. Roughly 70 percent of the Civil Rights Division\u2019s attorneys<\/a> are gone, but this is the first direct acknowledgement that bar discipline concerns might be behind that.<\/p>\n

Van Erem spent nearly a decade in the Civil Rights Division\u2019s Special Litigation Section, amassing Distinguished Service Awards along the way. On March 21, 2025 \u2014 which was a Friday, because everything bad that happens to a lawyer happens on a Friday \u2014 she was told that she would soon be reporting to HHS. This move pulled her off five active Americans with Disabilities Act matters \u2014 including one where she was lead counsel enforcing a settlement covering services for children with mental health conditions. But those aren\u2019t priorities for this administration, so Van Erem was sent on 45-day renewable terms to work Title VI investigations for the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

According to the disclosure, on March 28, the DOJ informed attorneys that their investigation was \u201cbased on a New York Post article that alleged anti-Semitic activities at numerous medical school commencement ceremonies.\u201d As the document notes as an epic understatement, \u201copening an investigation based on a single article was highly unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The next day, April 1, HHS Acting General Counsel Sean Keveney, along with OCRofficials, opened a briefing with the new DOJ CRT assignees by discussing the investigations. He announced the investigations\u2019 goal was to force the schools into lawsuits that would lead to court-ordered injunctive relief requiring the schools to disgorge money received by HHS and force the universities to make up the lost grant and contract fees from their endowments. Keveney initially stated that the strategy was to include a \u201cpoison pill\u201d\u2014inserting an admission of liability into any settlement offer that a university would \u201cnever be able to accept,\u201d thereby forcing a given university into court.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A government lawyer using the phrase \u201cpoison pill\u201d should make disciplinary authorities perk up. <\/p>\n

On April 2, Office of Civil Rights Associate Deputy Director Daniel Shieh summarized the theory of the case: \u201cthe goal is compliance, but pulling money is the tool.\u201d On April 9, Shieh laid out a plan to systematically interview Middle East studies professors, particularly Muslim faculty, one of whom was to be interviewed not \u201cto get information\u201d but to see \u201cwhat he will say.\u201d Religious profiling to manufacture claims is generally frowned upon by\u2026 basic standards of professional responsibility. <\/p>\n

When the administration started blocking grants to Ivy League institutions, \u201c[c]an someone explain to us the authority for pulling HHS funding prior to an OCR [finding], and how it relates or doesn\u2019t relate to our investigations?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Within hours, all six attorneys received a mandatory summons by email to a 4:30 pm meeting with Keveney at HHS headquarters. The attorneys contacted Shieh and Hyams asking for permission to join remotely from their DOJ offices where they worked approximately 30 minutes away but were told to attend in person. They arrived at the meeting and Shieh and Hyams appeared very tense.<\/p>\n

Keveney then entered the room and tersely declared, \u201cNow you will see angry Sean.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nothing says a meeting is on the up and up like \u201cKeveney signaled for the attorneys not to take notes during the meeting.\u201d During the conversation, \u201cKeveney asserted that the DOJ attorneys\u2019 jobs were not to provide legal advice or make legal determinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which proved prophetic, because when the investigations turned up nothing, senior management blew off the idea of closing the probes, and instead redoubled their efforts on extracting settlements without acknowledging that the record turned up nothing. <\/p>\n

Van Erem\u2019s last day was May 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

DOJ\u2019s response, via spokesperson Kiersten Pels, is that the Department \u201cstands behind the integrity\u201d of the investigations and that \u201cwhile at the DOJ, Ms. Haley Van Erem did not work on university investigations.\u201d Suspiciously technical, since she worked on them at HHS, where DOJ sent her, for the task force DOJ created, coordinated through the division DOJ runs. <\/p>\n

Hopefully, some day, we\u2019ll see what\u2019s behind that redacted paragraph. The people doing the right thing are going to want it noted for the record.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Disbar Them All: The Only Accountability Left For Trump\u2019s Lawyers<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post DOJ Civil Rights Attorneys Leaving To Save Their Law Licenses, Whistleblower Tells Congress<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Government Accountability Project forwarded a 25-page whistleblower disclosure<\/a> to four congressional committees on behalf of former DOJ civil rights attorney Haley Van Erem. It\u2019s a damning indictment of the Department of Justice\u2019s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, an initiative set up to deal with the rise in anti-Semitic threats and violence, but that mostly operates as a cudgel to reverse engineer probes and legal attacks against institutions of higher learning in an effort to harass schools into settlements where no cognizable violations existed. <\/p>\n

Law and fact \u201cwere subordinate to political priorities rather than the enforcement of civil rights,\u201d the underlying disclosure explained. \u201c[A]nd were implemented at the expense of regular decision-making and enforcement processes that exist to protect against constitutional and statutory violations and unwarranted, arbitrary and capricious agency actions in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among many redactions throughout the disclosure, one jumps out. As The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> Quinta Jurecic noted:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019re not alone!<\/p>\n

Van Erem isn\u2019t the only whistleblower in this case, and others aren\u2019t named in the public version, which is presumably why this section is blacked out. But the important revelation is that DOJ attorneys have started to realize that their work for this administration \u2014 work that routinely involves misleading tribunals, ignoring court orders, and, as here, pursuing bad faith claims \u2014 is likely to end up impairing their law licenses. Before this administration ends, the president might well preemptively pardon everyone who aided and abetted its lawlessness, but the actors that can still deliver consequences for lawyerly wrongdoing are local law license authorities. They still have the duty and obligation to protect the public and the legal profession by disbarring the complicit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The good news is that attorneys inside the DOJ seem to be figuring this out. Roughly 70 percent of the Civil Rights Division\u2019s attorneys<\/a> are gone, but this is the first direct acknowledgement that bar discipline concerns might be behind that.<\/p>\n

Van Erem spent nearly a decade in the Civil Rights Division\u2019s Special Litigation Section, amassing Distinguished Service Awards along the way. On March 21, 2025 \u2014 which was a Friday, because everything bad that happens to a lawyer happens on a Friday \u2014 she was told that she would soon be reporting to HHS. This move pulled her off five active Americans with Disabilities Act matters \u2014 including one where she was lead counsel enforcing a settlement covering services for children with mental health conditions. But those aren\u2019t priorities for this administration, so Van Erem was sent on 45-day renewable terms to work Title VI investigations for the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

According to the disclosure, on March 28, the DOJ informed attorneys that their investigation was \u201cbased on a New York Post article that alleged anti-Semitic activities at numerous medical school commencement ceremonies.\u201d As the document notes as an epic understatement, \u201copening an investigation based on a single article was highly unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The next day, April 1, HHS Acting General Counsel Sean Keveney, along with OCRofficials, opened a briefing with the new DOJ CRT assignees by discussing the investigations. He announced the investigations\u2019 goal was to force the schools into lawsuits that would lead to court-ordered injunctive relief requiring the schools to disgorge money received by HHS and force the universities to make up the lost grant and contract fees from their endowments. Keveney initially stated that the strategy was to include a \u201cpoison pill\u201d\u2014inserting an admission of liability into any settlement offer that a university would \u201cnever be able to accept,\u201d thereby forcing a given university into court.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A government lawyer using the phrase \u201cpoison pill\u201d should make disciplinary authorities perk up. <\/p>\n

On April 2, Office of Civil Rights Associate Deputy Director Daniel Shieh summarized the theory of the case: \u201cthe goal is compliance, but pulling money is the tool.\u201d On April 9, Shieh laid out a plan to systematically interview Middle East studies professors, particularly Muslim faculty, one of whom was to be interviewed not \u201cto get information\u201d but to see \u201cwhat he will say.\u201d Religious profiling to manufacture claims is generally frowned upon by\u2026 basic standards of professional responsibility. <\/p>\n

When the administration started blocking grants to Ivy League institutions, \u201c[c]an someone explain to us the authority for pulling HHS funding prior to an OCR [finding], and how it relates or doesn\u2019t relate to our investigations?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Within hours, all six attorneys received a mandatory summons by email to a 4:30 pm meeting with Keveney at HHS headquarters. The attorneys contacted Shieh and Hyams asking for permission to join remotely from their DOJ offices where they worked approximately 30 minutes away but were told to attend in person. They arrived at the meeting and Shieh and Hyams appeared very tense.<\/p>\n

Keveney then entered the room and tersely declared, \u201cNow you will see angry Sean.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nothing says a meeting is on the up and up like \u201cKeveney signaled for the attorneys not to take notes during the meeting.\u201d During the conversation, \u201cKeveney asserted that the DOJ attorneys\u2019 jobs were not to provide legal advice or make legal determinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which proved prophetic, because when the investigations turned up nothing, senior management blew off the idea of closing the probes, and instead redoubled their efforts on extracting settlements without acknowledging that the record turned up nothing. <\/p>\n

Van Erem\u2019s last day was May 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

DOJ\u2019s response, via spokesperson Kiersten Pels, is that the Department \u201cstands behind the integrity\u201d of the investigations and that \u201cwhile at the DOJ, Ms. Haley Van Erem did not work on university investigations.\u201d Suspiciously technical, since she worked on them at HHS, where DOJ sent her, for the task force DOJ created, coordinated through the division DOJ runs. <\/p>\n

Hopefully, some day, we\u2019ll see what\u2019s behind that redacted paragraph. The people doing the right thing are going to want it noted for the record.<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Disbar Them All: The Only Accountability Left For Trump\u2019s Lawyers<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Government Accountability Project forwarded a 25-page whistleblower disclosure to four congressional committees on behalf of former DOJ civil rights attorney Haley Van Erem. It\u2019s a damning indictment of the Department of Justice\u2019s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, an initiative set up to deal with the rise in anti-Semitic threats and violence, but that mostly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Headshot-300x200-Qsx4e0.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}