59 Groups Call for Assistant Education Secretary Catherine Lhamon to Resign for Violating Oath of Office

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Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

59 Groups Call for Assistant Education Secretary Catherine Lhamon to Resign for Violating Oath of Office

WASHINGTON / September 21, 2023 – Fifty-nine organizations today are calling for the resignation of Assistant Education Secretary Catherine Lhamon for repeated violations of her Oath of Office. The Statement was released at a press conference held today in Washington, DC.

When Lhamon became a federal employee, she took this Oath of Office: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

Unfortunately, in the process of developing a new Title IX regulation (1), Lhamon has broken three key provisions of the U.S. Constitution:

Article 1, Section 1: Authorization of Congress to exercise “All legislative Powers.”

Congress passed Title IX in 1972 with the understanding that Title IX was designed to apply to the male and female sexes (2). Title IX was not intended to include protections on the basis of gender identity. Lhamon’s proposed Title IX regulation would change the definition of “sex,” representing a dramatic usurpation of Congressional authority.

First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”

In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court defined sexual harassment as conduct that is “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.” (3)

But the Department of Education’s proposed regulation rejects the Supreme Court’s definition of sexual harassment, proposing that speech would only need to be “pervasive” or “severe” to violate Title IX. One federal court has ruled such a definition to be “staggeringly broad.” (4)

Fourteenth Amendment: No State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Dozens of federal courts have affirmed a series of due process rights for college students, including the rights to an impartial investigation, elimination of pro-complainant bias, notice to the accused, cross examination, access to evidence, and evaluation of evidence (5).

But Lhamon’s proposed regulation would severely weaken or eliminate the following due process protections for students accused of a Title IX infraction:

Independent and impartial investigations
Unrestricted access to evidence
Right to a live hearing and cross-examination

For these reasons, 59 organizations have endorsed a Statement calling for Lhamon’s immediate resignation from office (6).

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