One of the government’s top civil rights lawyers since the Reagan administration told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday she will leave to become the litigation director for Lambda Legal, a high-profile exit that will put her at the vanguard of LGBT rights and likely place her in conflict with former colleagues at the Justice Department.



The departure of Diana Flynn, who has been chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Appellate Section since the ’80s, is the most recent example of legal veterans abandoning their posts since Jeff Sessions became attorney general.

“I never really expected to leave,” Flynn, a transgender woman, said Wednesday in an interview about her role as head of the influential office that seeks to sway circuit courts by asserting the government’s agenda.

She reflected on a three-decade tenure under four Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents, saying, “There have been some good times in the Civil Rights Division, regardless of the party.”

“But it appears to me — at this crucial time for LGBT rights — to make the arguments I want to make and take positions I want to take, I would be much better situated at Lambda Legal than I am at Justice,” she said.

Some turnover among lawyers is typical at the Justice Department, particularly among political appointees, but it’s less common for a high-ranking career servant who had long planned to stay on the job until retirement, especially for one to depart for a role where she could be at odds with the attorney general.

Sessions, who leads the department, has used the Trump administration’s weight to argue anti-LGBT discrimination is legal under federal law in workplaces and by businesses open to the public. He has rolled back policies that Flynn helped establish for transgender workers during the Obama administration.

Flynn declined to comment specifically on activity under the current administration — or whether the department has become politicized under Sessions — but she warned of a general push to curtail civil rights.

“I see a danger to some of the principles that have been established in the civil rights arena generally,” she said. “I see attempts to roll back specifically LGBT rights in the courts and society, and I want to be in the position where I can aggressively resist that and make the arguments that I think will be most effective.”