Harmeet Dhillon

Harmeet Kaur Dhillon
Born (1968-10-02) October 2, 1968
Chandigarh, Punjab, India
Residence
Alma mater
Occupation Lawyer
Home town Smithfield, North Carolina
Political party Republican Party (United States)
Spouse(s) Dr. Kandwarjit Singh (divorced)[1]
Sarvjit Randhawa (2011)[2]
Parents
  • Tejpal Singh Dhillon (father)
  • Parminder Kaur Dhillon (mother)
Family Mandeep Singh Dhillon (brother)
Website www.dhillonlaw.com
Notes

Harmeet Dhillon (born October 2, 1968) is an American lawyer and Republican party official. She is the former vice chairman of the California Republican Party, and the National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California.[10][11] She owns a law practice called Dhillon Law Group Inc.[12]

Biography

After attending grade school in Bronx, New York while her father completed his medical training, Harmeet Dhillon grew up in Smithfield, North Carolina, but for five years her mother drove her 45 miles (72 km) to a private school in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the summers, her mother took the children to spend two months with their grandparents in India.

She entered Dartmouth College at age 16, and wrote for the conservative student newspaper, Dartmouth Review. In her junior year she became an editor at the Dartmouth Review. During that time the Review was criticized for publishing an article attacking the college president James O. Freedman, comparing Freedman, who is Jewish, to Adolf Hitler. Dhillon "denied that the column was anti-Semitic, saying its point had been misinterpreted by people trying to twist the issue to their own ends." She added, "I could see if you were Jewish, you could be offended, possibly." She said she had asked several Jewish staff members to read the column before its publication and they told her they were not offended nor did they expect the column to be viewed as anti-Semitic.[13]

Following graduation, and prior to entering law school, she married a Sikh physician in an arranged marriage. She studied law at University of Virginia School of Law, and served clerkships at the U.S. Department of Justice and for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

She was an unsuccessful candidate for the California Assembly from San Francisco in 2008, in a district with only 8% registered Republicans. She polled 17% against Democrat Tom Ammiano, the strongest Republican result since 1994. Her mother had raised her $250,000 campaign war chest from the Indian-American community.[3] She ran for the California Senate in 2012.[5]

Dhillon filed a lawsuit in April 2017 against UC Berkeley on behalf of the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR) and Young America's Foundation for freedom of speech issues, particularly the school cancelling Ann Coulter's speech.[14] She also called out Howard Dean as an "amateur" lawyer after he tweeted, "Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment."[15]

In August 2017, James Damore, the Google memo writer, hired Dhillon to be his lawyer against Google. Dhillon's firm has said it is also willing to represent more employees from Google that have similar stories to Damore.[16] However, Dhillon has already lost an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board.[17]

Dhillon has represented a racial and religious discrimination lawsuit in 2007; she cited a ruling from New Jersey which required fire fighting departments to accommodate the beards of Muslim men.[18] Dhillon has also given interviews in which she has condemned the Republican party for alleged discrimination against non-whites and criticized her competition as "another white guy to blend into the snowstorm."[19] She has also been heavily criticized by Republican activists for her ties to ACLU, as well as her past contributions to the political campaigning of Kamala Harris.[20] A prominent conservative blog called Dhillon "dangerous" and argued that her appointment to the Department of Justice would be "a shocking betrayal of conservative values." [21] Despite marketing herself as a First Amendment lawyer, Dhillon has a history of suing individuals to suppress their freedom of speech: for example, she has filed a frivolous lawsuit against an anonymous blogger simply because he used her photo in a blog post. Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief against Dhillon, and the vexatious lawsuit was dismissed. Dhillon was criticized for her self-serving and meritless lawsuit: "the plaintiff in this case should have known better than to waste the court’s time on such an outrageous claim."[22]

Career Accomplishments

Dhillon was elected to the California Republican Party's Board in 2013 and became the National Committeewoman for the Republican National Committee in 2016.[11] She also gave the opening prayer at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Punjabi, a first at the RNC.[23]

She is a former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union.[5]

In early 2017, Dhillon interviewed to be the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Trump Administration Department of Justice.[24] However, Trump eventually chose Eric Dreiband for that position.

Dhillon led the unsuccessful effort to remove Chad Mayes as the California State Assembly Republican caucus leader in August 2017.[25]

Her law firm, Dhillon Law Group, successfully represented former BCR president Troy Worden in October 2017, dismissing a temporary restraining order and defeating the permanent restraining order brought against him by antifa member Yvette Felarca.[26]

She is considered a "super lawyer" by the website Super Lawyers, a directory that helps people find "top rated lawyers in the U.S."[27]

She represents James Damore, author of the "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber" memo.[28][29]

References

  1. ↑ Levine, Daniel S. "Harmeet Dhillon: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
  2. ↑ "Republican activist takes on class-action suit against Google". India Abroad.
  3. 1 2 Garofoli, Joe (Apr 24, 2011). "Harmeet Dhillon, Republican leader with S.F. twist". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  4. ↑ "Harmeet Kaur Dhillon | Dhillon Law". Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  5. 1 2 3 Anderson, Bruce. "Former Review editor Harmeet Dhillon '89 leads the Republican Party in one of the nation's most liberal cities". Darthmouth Alumni magazine. Retrieved 2017-08-01. MAY - JUN 2013
  6. ↑ Levine, Daniel S. (March 10, 2017). "Harmeet Dhillon: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Retrieved 2017-08-02.
  7. ↑ McFADDEN, ROBERT D. (September 10, 1995). "An Angry Man, Ugly Epithets, a Gun". New York Times. Retrieved 2017-08-02.
  8. ↑ Barns, Rebecca. "1990s Class Notes ... 1993". UVA Lawyer. Retrieved 2017-08-02. Fall, 2016
  9. ↑ Vassar, Alex; Meyers, Shane. "Harmeet Dhillon, Republican, Candidate biography". One Voter Project. Retrieved 2017-11-25.
  10. ↑ Mehta, Seema (July 19, 2016). "California lawyer delivers Sikh prayer at GOP convention". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  11. 1 2 "National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon". GOP. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  12. ↑ "Litigation Boutique Firm - Legal Services | Dhillon Law Group". Dhillon Law Group. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  13. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/06/us/satire-by-dartmouth-publication-under-heavy-fire-as-anti-semitic.
  14. ↑ Svrluga, Susan; Wan, William (2017-04-24). "Lawsuit filed against UC Berkeley for canceling Ann Coulter speech". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  15. ↑ "Howard Dean BTFO by sexy Sikh Trump delegate Harmeet Dhillon. She's suing Berkeley over banning Ann Coulter and the San Jose police for not protecting Trump supporters. Show her some love pedes! • r/The_Donald". reddit. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  16. ↑ "The Google mmo writer has hired a GOP official to be his lawyer and she's already gathering facts". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  17. ↑ "Google Legally Fired Diversity Memo Author, Labor Agency Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  18. ↑ "Gut Check Interviews Harmeet Dhillon on MSNBC". YouTube. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  19. ↑ "Meet the SF Republican the Justice Department should hire". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2018-07-10.
  20. ↑ "S.F. GOP leader SLAMMED by Republicans". SF Gate. Retrieved 2018-07-10.
  21. ↑ "A Dangerous Candidate for the Top DOJ Civil Rights Job". Powerline Blog. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  22. ↑ "Fair Use Triumphs in the Munger Games". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  23. ↑ "California lawyer delivers Sikh prayer at GOP convention". Los Angeles Times. 2016-07-19. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-11-11.
  24. ↑ Cadelago, Christopher (March 10, 2017). "Harmeet Dhillon, California Republican leader, a candidate for Justice Department post". Sacramento Bee. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  25. ↑ Megerian, Chris. "California Republicans tell Assembly GOP leader Chad Mayes to step down". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  26. ↑ "Restraining order against UC Berkeley College Republicans leader dismissed". East Bay Times. 2017-10-30. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  27. ↑ "Top Rated San Francisco, CA Business Litigation Attorney | Harmeet Dhillon | Super Lawyers". Super Lawyers. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  28. ↑ Julia Horowitz (August 23, 2017). "Fired Google engineer James Damore hires prominent Republican lawyer". CNNMoney. Retrieved September 1, 2018.
  29. ↑ Ethan Baron (January 16, 2018). "Google foe James Damore's lawyer has deep history defending conservative views". The Mercury News. Retrieved September 1, 2018. Dhillon argues that Google broke the law by punishing Damore for his political views and his complaints about working conditions.
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