Catherine Lhamon ’93 Speaks on Career in Civil Rights

Peter Finnerty ’25 Staff Writer

Students and faculty gathered in Pruyne Lecture Hall for an event on the future of civil rights education with Catherine Lhamon ’93, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, on Thursday, March 23. The event, hosted by the Amherst Political Union (APU), featured a conversation between Lhamon, APU President Melanie Schwimmer ’23, and President Michael Elliott.

Lhamon served as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education under President Obama from 2013 to 2017, and was again nominated for the role under President Biden in 2021. She has also worked as a civil rights lawyer and law professor.

The event was months in the making, with Schwimmer spearheading the push, discussing the matter with the executive board and reaching out to Lhamon in August.

“I’m someone who personally has a real interest in education policy, civil rights law, especially around Title IX — I’m a peer advocate for sexual respect on campus — so this was an event I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” Schwimmer explained.

The event covered the Assistant Secretary’s role presiding over the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools. The three main areas the Office focuses on are gender-, race-, and disability-based discrimination.

“Our job is to enforce what President Kennedy called the ‘simple justice’ — that no federal funds should be used to discriminate,” Lhamon said.

Logistical practicalities can pose difficulties to enforcing this justice. Lhamon said that recordhigh case numbers have forced the 600 employees of the Office of Civil Rights to take on rigorous workloads, some having over 40 cases at once. While the Office tries to give the tools to accommodate everyone, this overextension can have concrete consequences.

As an example, Lhamon pointed to a case in which a school district placed an arbitrary cap on the number of students with learning disabilities they would accommodate.

“It’s so obviously unlawful, but they were doing it. They did it for five years, it took us five years to resolve that question,” Lhamon said. “So, some of those kids don’t go to that district anymore, and they were forced to learn in school without support all that time. There are real consequences when we take too long.”

The vitriolic national climate around education has also affected Lhamon’s work. In response to President Biden’s budget proposal, the Republican head of the committee overseeing the Office’s budget opposed Biden’s plan to increase funding for the Office.

“He [Congressman Jodey C. Arrington, ] said we shouldn’t have any more people because we would use the money to advance the transgender agenda,” Lhamon said. “So, you know, I don’t think we can see eye to eye.”

The discussion also touched on what civil rights enforcement in education will look like in the future in light of current threats to affirmative action, and Elliott and Lhamon both responded to the possibility of the Supreme Court deeming race-based admissions unconstitutional. Lhamon said that while she would personally disagree with the Supreme Court eroding affirmative action, it would still be her responsibility to enforce it.

“I enforce the law as it is. If, as we predict, the Supreme Court changes the law on affirmative action, I will enforce the law as they prescribe,” Lhamon said.

Elliott explained that Amherst filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing in favor of affirmative action. While Amherst will