President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary for civil rights is no stranger to the Department of Education — Catherine Lhamon held the same position during the Obama administration.
President Biden intends to nominate Catherine Lhamon to return to a position she held during the Obama administration as assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, paving the way for familiar civil rights policies.
If she’s confirmed by the Senate, Lhamon will take the lead on issues in education related to race, sexual assault and harassment, and LGBTQ rights — and she’s expected to be active and aggressive in her approach.
“My guess is that not only will they continue many of the things that they did in Obama’s second term, they will probably be more aggressive because I think that’s where the center of the Democratic Party is now,” said Shep Melnick, a professor of political science at Boston College and author of The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education (Brookings, 2018).
Lhamon served as assistant secretary for civil rights from 2013 to 2017, when she was a part of an administration that ramped up enforcement of Title IX complaints against colleges and carried out investigations that were costly and lengthy, said Melnick.