Catherine Lhamon, Education Department assistant secretary for civil rights, said her office is aware that some schools are doing things such as retaliating against students for filing complaints and allowing perpetrators to remain in school.
“For those schools, my office and this administration have made it clear that the time for delay is over,” Catherine Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, told the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Lhamon said that, since the beginning of President Barack Obama’s term in 2009, her office has investigated more than 100 such cases. Through them, she said, the office is aware that some schools are doing things such as retaliating against students for filing complaints and allowing perpetrators to remain in school.
However, Lhamon said, many colleges and universities are “stepping up to the challenge of addressing the problem of sexual assault.”
At the hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said federal officials should be mindful of the federal limits in these cases because federal oversight should be “helpful and not burdensome.”
“Whatever we do here, I think we need to make sure that we don’t suggest to anybody that we in Washington should be primarily responsible for making the campuses safe,” said Alexander, who served as education secretary under President George H.W. Bush.
Alexander also questioned Lhamon about where her office had been given the authority under which it issued guidance to colleges and universities about how to handle such cases. She said she was given such authority by way of her appointment.
