Statement from Secretary Miguel Cardona on the Confirmation of Catherine Lhamon as Assistant Secretary for the Office for Civil Rights

Washington: U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona issued the following statement on today’s Senate confirmation of Catherine E. Lhamon as Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
“With this confirmation, our nation has once again gained a champion who will work each day to ensure that our public schools and institutions of higher education become ever fairer and more just. I am thrilled that Catherine will reprise her role at the U.S. Department of Education as Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights. In this role, she will lead the Department’s vital efforts to ensure our schools and college campuses are free from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and disability and to protect all students’ civil rights in education. Catherine is one of the strongest civil rights leaders in America and has a robust record of fighting for communities that are historically and presently underserved. Catherine will continue fighting for fairness, equity, and justice for all of America’s students, and I cannot wait for her to join the team.”
About Catherine Lhamon
Catherine Lhamon is Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity, where she manages the President’s equity policy portfolio. Until January 2021, she chaired the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to which President Obama appointed her in 2016, and served as Legal Affairs Secretary to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Before then, Lhamon was Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, to which President Obama nominated her and the Senate confirmed her in 2013. Lhamon has also litigated civil rights cases at National Center for Youth Law, Public Counsel Law Center, and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Lhamon taught federal civil rights appeals at Georgetown University Law Center in the Appellate Litigation Program and clerked for the Honorable William A. Norris on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Born in Virginia and raised in California, Lhamon graduated from Amherst College and Yale Law School. Lhamon and her husband and two daughters are transitioning between California and Maryland.