A group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives heard about challenges faced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, both in reviewing complaints of discrimination and enforcing serious consequences to quell them.
Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, spoke with the legislators in a roundtable discussion on Sept. 20, when she explained that her team of approximately 400 investigators had not increased since the Bush administration, resulting in staff carrying too many cases and taking too long to resolve them.
Lhamon said she could not “manage that complaint volume with the staff that I have” and that each person carried about 51 cases. “You cannot do civil-rights work effectively with a caseload that is that high,” she told the lawmakers.
Attending were Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Kathy Manning (D-N.C.), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.).
Lhamon described the multiyear process of revoking a university’s federal funding, which includes an investigation and a chance to comply with the department’s findings. Should a judgment come, legal appeals that could reach as high as the Supreme Court might take years.
She also noted that the department lacked the ability to force a school to fire faculty members for violations.
