Today, President Trump formally nominated Eric Dreiband to serve as the head of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, released the following statement in response:
It’s become so common for the Trump administration to put civil rights enforcement in the hands of people who have made it their mission to dismantle those protections that it’s become a cliché. But that doesn’t make this nomination any less dangerous. Mr. Dreiband has devoted his career to defending discrimination against women, Muslims, people with disabilities, transgender people, and many others—including by defending HB 2, North Carolina’s infamous anti-transgender law, in court. As a private lawyer, he has not simply defending his clients, he has sought again and again to weaken core civil rights laws. Mr. Dreiband has pushed his anti-civil rights agenda outside of court as well, with extracurricular activities like testifying against landmark equal pay legislation and legislation protecting against age discrimination as well as advocating against the EEOC’s important ban-the-box guidance. Mr. Dreiband is not simply unqualified for the extraordinary responsibility of leading the nation’s civil rights enforcement: he is morally unfit for the job.
This Justice Department has already made one push after another to roll back civil rights—from withdrawing life-saving guidance for transgender students, to refusing to defend transgender people’s right to equal health care, to defending vicious anti-immigrant and voter suppression laws. These actions have real and dire consequences for people’s lives. By nominating a virulent defender of discrimination to head its enforcement of our country’s civil rights laws, the Trump administration has taken yet another step in its crusade to undo decades of progress and dismantle the most basic rights we depend on. It is now up to the Senate to give this nominee the most exacting scrutiny. Together with the entire civil rights community, the National Center for Transgender Equality will be watching closely—and we will fight this nominee every step of the way.
