At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke to Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon about DEI and election integrity.
00:05And thank you so much for being here with us.
00:09DOJ and your department are doing such important work to root out anti-Semitism, to root out DEI,
00:19and I think in that process you are doing an admirable job educating people on what has been going on.
00:30in this country, and I appreciate that and the way you've drawn attention to what has happened on our nation's campuses
00:39and trying to divide people on racial and ideological lines.
00:44I appreciate what you have done there, and I know President Trump has said many times,
00:53bringing this country together, uniting this country is something that is very important to him.
01:00And in Tennessee, we've got some great universities.
01:04They do wonderful research work.
01:07They do great workforce development work, and they're doing all they can to be certain that we remain competitive on the global stage.
01:18And while I appreciate the efforts that they are making to adhere with not only our state laws,
01:27but with the President's directives and his executive orders and to root out these DEI initiatives,
01:36they are still having to deal with the few woke activists that are within their ranks.
01:43And just today, yesterday, and again this morning, there were videos released from three Tennessee universities.
01:55And I have talked with two of those university presidents, and we've discussed the work that they are doing.
02:07But within their ranks, some of these professors that are so given to DEI will not let it go.
02:13And so they take other programs, and they're telling people, well, this is how we're getting to DEI.
02:20This is how we're covering it up.
02:22This is how we're using language to form workarounds.
02:27And I think that one of the things this has shown me, looking at all this video footage the past couple of days,
02:37is how deeply rooted the left is in this DEI effort and how they are trying to manipulate today
02:50and to keep hold of that DEI effort.
02:54They will not let it go.
02:56So, as you are working with these universities that say they're trying to comply,
03:03that are hiring outside auditors to come in,
03:06how do you work with them and help them root out these activists
03:11and change the way they, these activists, are trying to influence the students?
03:20What can you do there?
03:22Well, thank you, Senator.
03:23The way we're starting with the first tier of universities that we have requested data from is requesting data.
03:30And so we are beginning to receive thousands and thousands of pages.
03:33And we have data crunchers in the DOJ who are helping us analyze the data.
03:37But we're also relying on whistleblowers like the ones you just referenced and the Vanderbilt and the other schools that are engaging in this behavior.
03:44And they're helping us expose the defiance of federal law.
03:48And, you know, it's very interesting.
03:49I've heard a lot of lofty phrases here.
03:51But we saw, this is not unusual compared to what we saw in the Brown v. Board of Education era.
03:57There were, a decree came down from the Supreme Court that separate but equal was illegal.
04:02And yet throughout the United States, particularly in the South, where I grew up too,
04:07we saw government officials openly defying those orders by rebranding and using different methods.
04:13And it took decades to root that out.
04:15I hope it won't take decades to root this out, but we see similar defiance like we saw with the Dixiecrats today in American institutions.
04:23And I went to University of Virginia Law School.
04:25They have done the same thing that you're describing as rebranding and simply saying that we're going to keep doing things,
04:31use a shell game and confuse the government.
04:33We are not confused.
04:34We will get to it.
04:35And I think the biggest hammer that's going to cause change is the United States policy to simply stop wasting American taxpayer dollars
04:44and sending them to institutions that openly and blatantly violate federal law.
04:48And we are doing that throughout the government.
04:50I'm proud to be part of that effort.
04:51And we are very vigilant and will not rest until we have completely eliminated these discriminatory policies
04:57in our institutions of higher learning that receive federal funding, Senator.
05:00Right.
05:01One thing I wanted to touch on, and I'm running out of time.
05:04When you went through your confirmation, I talked to you about election integrity.
05:08And I know you're doing some work on that.
05:11So, Mr. Chairman, I would like just if she can respond briefly on the election integrity issue.
05:18Senator, we at the Civil Rights Division enforce the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act,
05:24and National Voter Registration Act.
05:26And on each of these fronts, we are active.
05:28We are opening investigations.
05:30We are seeking information from states.
05:32Numerous states have received requests regarding their list maintenance requirements and failures thereof.
05:38They are non-compliance with the Motor Voter Law and National Voter Registration Act.
05:42And, of course, reference has already been made in this hearing to discriminatory coalition districts
05:47that are out of compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
05:49And there will be much more to come as we work our way through inquiries, facts, petitions from governments and so forth.
