The Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions) committee is considering the nomination of Catherine Lhamon to lead the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the office which enforces Title IX/sex discrimination issues in higher and lower ed. The committee convened on July 13^th (video) to question Lhamon. The hearing confirmed many concerns among advocates for due process, equal treatment, and fairness…and disconfirmed none.

They are reconvening on July 21^st regarding Lhamon’s nomination. If you have an interest in advocating for due process, fairness, and equal treatment in Title IX matters, the time is now – as in today or tomorrow, and no later – to respectfully but assertively email Senate staffers regarding your concerns. Their contact information is available here, courtesy of FACE.

Key Concerns With Catherine Lhamon’s Confirmation

My key concerns with Lhamon returning to head the OCR are as follows:

• Her disregard for the rights of accused students sparked a tidal wave of litigation (700+ lawsuits) that has been broadly successful in state and federal courts. Judges nominated by presidents on both the left and right have issued many favorable rulings denouncing campus procedures that were effectively greenlighted by Lhamon’s overzealous one-sided approach.
• She has demonstrated a disregard toward the regulatory process. She has enforced unilaterally-issued sub-regulatory guidance letters (such as the Dear Colleague Letter) as though they were established regulations and threatened schools failing to comply with loss of funding.

The rights of complainants and respondents are not mutually exclusive. Title IX policy and enforcement should not solely be about respondents, but it should not solely be about complainants, either. We need someone to lead the OCR who recognizes what all public officials who address sex discrimination issues must realize if they are to be fair and effective: “when only one sex wins, both sexes lose.” We also need someone who is more…liberal, in the sense that they recognize traditional liberal values such as the presumption of innocence.

More Information on Catherine Lhamon’s History

The following are articles or statements that are informative regarding Catherine Lhamon and address more issues than are covered in this post:

• Statement: Nomination of Catherine Lhamon a return to ‘old, failed policies,’ by The Foundation for Individual rights in Education (FIRE)
• May opposition statement by Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE)
• Ending due process: Reinstating Catherine Lhamon at the Dept. of Education is a mistake, by Justin Dillon and Stuart Taylor, Jr.
• Catherine Lhamon Returns to Form, by professor K.C. Johnson
• Presumed Guilty: Catherine Lhamon Cannot be Entrusted with the Job of Enforcing Anti-Discrimination Rules in Colleges, by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE)
• OCR Nominee Catherine Lhamon Repeatedly Side-Steps Questions About Campus Due Process and Fairness, by SAVE

Thank you.