Vice President Kamala Harris cast her vote on Wednesday to break the U.S. Senate’s 50-50 tie and confirm leftist activist Catherine Lhamon to be assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
Lhamon previously held the same position in the Obama administration. It was during that time under former President Barack Obama that Lhamon used her authority to scale back due process for people accused of sexual misconduct and usher in a new era of campus kangaroo courts.
As The Federalist’s Emily Jashinsky noted in a monologue on Hill TV’s “Rising”:
The guidance issued in 2011 and enforced adamantly by Lhamon made federal funding contingent upon schools denying due process rights to accused students, denying cross-examinations, requiring a ‘preponderance of evidence’ standard over ‘clear and convincing’ or ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standards, and defining sexual violence broadly to include ‘rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion,’ but with zero definitions.
These rules were widely criticized by people on the left and right side of the political aisle. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the notorious left-wing U.S. Supreme Court justice who passed away last year, criticized the Obama-era Title IX guidance “for not giving the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard.”
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos used her time in the Trump administration to reform these provisions but Lhamon and the Biden administration have already promised to “restore” the provisions implemented under Obama.
.@BetsyDeVosED presides over taking us back to the bad old days, that predate my birth, when it was permissible to rape and sexually harass students with impunity. Today’s students deserve better, including fair protections consistent with law https://t.co/Kxn5teeYnE
— Catherine E. Lhamon (@CatherineLhamon) May 6, 2020
President Joe Biden first announced his nomination of Lhamon in May, months after she finished her stint as legal affairs secretary to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The White House touted her experience working as deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and Equity and her time litigating civil rights cases for various organizations such as the ACLU Foundation of Southern California as reasons to reinstate her to her old position.
“The Senate has just narrowly confirmed a far-left activist, Catherine Lhamon, to serve as assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. During her time in this position under the Obama administration, Ms. Lhamon led the charge on policies that allowed males to enter girls’ private spaces, violated the free speech and due process rights of students, and encouraged harassment of religious schools,” Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner said in a statement. “Now that she is back in this role, ADF will be watching closely to see if Ms. Lhamon decides to pick up where she left off. If she, or any government official, attacks the fundamental freedoms of students and religious schools, ADF will remain steadfast in our commitment to advocate for safety and equal opportunities for women, free speech, and religious liberty.”
