Catherine E. Lhamon, Assistant Secretary, Office for Civil Rights

Catherine E. Lhamon is the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, where she has served since the United States Senate confirmed her in October 2021 following President Biden’s nomination for her in May 2021. From January through October 2021, Assistant Secretary Lhamon served as Deputy Assistant to President Biden for Racial Justice and Equity, where she managed the President's equity policy portfolio.  From December 2016 until January 2021, she chaired the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to which President Obama appointed her. She also served in California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Cabinet as Legal Affairs Secretary from January 2019 through January 2021. Before these roles, Lhamon had also been Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, to which President Obama nominated her and the Senate confirmed her in 2013. In addition to her government service, Lhamon has litigated civil rights cases at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, National Center for Youth Law, and Public Counsel Law Center. Earlier in her career, 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.