[Senate Hearing 117-193]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 117-193

                        NOMINATIONS OF CATHERINE
                        LHAMON, ELIZABETH BROWN,
                         AND ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
                          LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   ON

EXAMINING THE NOMINATIONS OF CATHERINE ELIZABETH LHAMON, OF CALIFORNIA, 
   TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, WHO WAS INTRODUCED BY 
  SENATOR MURRAY, ELIZABETH MERRILL BROWN, OF MARYLAND, TO BE GENERAL 
 COUNSEL, WHO WAS INTRODUCED BY SENATOR VAN HOLLEN, AND ROBERTO JOSUE 
 RODRIGUEZ, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 
  PLANNING, EVALUATION, AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT, WHO WAS INTRODUCED BY 
FORMER REPRESENTATIVE GEORGE MILLER, ALL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

                               __________

                             JULY 13, 2021

                               __________

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                                Pensions
                                
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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          COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont          RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, 
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania       Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          MITT ROMNEY, Utah
                                     TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
                                     JERRY MORAN, Kansas

                     Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
               David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
                  John Righter, Deputy Staff Director
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               STATEMENTS

                         TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2021

                                                                   Page

                           Committee Members

Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
  and Pensions, Opening statement................................     1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State 
  of North Carolina, Opening statement...........................     3
Van Hollen, Hon. Chris, a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Maryland, Statement............................................     6
Miller, Hon. George, a U.S. Congressmen from the State of 
  California, Statement..........................................     8

                               Witnesses

Lhamon, Catherine, Takoma Park, MD...............................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................    11
Brown, Elizabeth, Bethesda, MD...................................    12
    Prepared statement...........................................    13
Rodriguez, Roberto, Washington, DC...............................    14
    Prepared statement...........................................    16

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.
Murray, Hon. Patty:
    Letters in support of the Catherine Lhamon, Elizabeth Brown, 
      and Roberto Rodriguez Nominations..........................    37
Collins, Hon. Susan:
    Letter in support of the Catherine Lhamon Nomination.........    96
Burr, Hon. Richard:
    Letters in opposition to the Catherine Lhamon Nomination.....    98

 
                        NOMINATIONS OF CATHERINE
                        LHAMON, ELIZABETH BROWN,
                         AND ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ

                              ----------                              


                             July 13, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
       Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 
430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, Chair 
of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Baldwin, 
Murphy, Kaine, Hassan, Smith, Rosen, Lujan, Hickenlooper, Burr, 
Collins, Cassidy, Murkowski, Marshall, and Tuberville.


                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

    The Chair. Good morning. The Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. Today, 
we are holding a hearing on the nominations of Catherine Lhamon 
to serve as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the 
Department of Education, Roberto Rodriguez to serve as 
Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy 
Development, and Lisa Brown to serve as General Counsel.
    Ranking Member Burr and I will each have an opening 
statement and then we will introduce our witnesses. After the 
witnesses give their testimony, Senators will each have 5 
minutes for a round of questions. And while we were again 
unable to have the hearing fully open to the public or media 
for in-person attendance, live video is available on our 
Committee website at help.senate.gov. And if you are in need of 
accommodations, including closed captioning, you can reach out 
to our Committee or the Office of Congressional Accessibility 
Services. We received Ms. Lhamon's formal nomination on May 
13th, her Office of Government Ethics paperwork, including her 
public financial disclosures and ethics agreement on May 24th, 
and her Committee paperwork on May 28th.
    We received Mr. Rodriguez's formal nomination on April 
29th, his Office of Government Ethics paperwork on June 8th, 
and his Committee paperwork on May 24th. And we received Ms. 
Brown's formal nomination on May 27th, her Office of Government 
Ethics paperwork on June 9th, and her Committee paperwork on 
June 10th. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for 
joining us and also welcome their families, Ms. Lhamon's 
husband, Giev Kashkooli, Mr. Rodriguez's wife, Rosio Rodriguez 
and their two children, and Ms. Brown's husband, Kevin Cullen. 
We have three excellent nominees before us today, each with a 
track record showing they are experienced, committed to serving 
students, and exactly who we need in these roles.
    In 2013, Ms. Lhamon was confirmed by voice vote to be the 
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, the same position she is 
nominated for now. As Assistant Secretary, she proved herself 
as a champion for all students through her work to protect 
students' civil rights, combat sexual assault, and more. She 
continued this work as chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights and as the Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy 
Council for President Biden.
    Mr. Rodriguez has similarly proved himself as a champion 
for schools and students through his current work as Chief 
Executive Officer of Teach Plus, an education advocacy 
organization, and his work on the Domestic Policy Council under 
President Obama to increase educational equity for students, 
including his work to support community colleges, reform 
student loans, and increase Pell Grant awards. And he is also a 
HELP Committee alum who worked for Chairman Kennedy on major 
education legislation that some of us remember. Welcome back to 
you. Our third nominee, Ms. Brown, has served students at 
Georgetown University as Vice President and General Counsel 
since 2013.
    Ms. Brown also worked in the Obama administration as 
Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary and Acting Chief 
Performance Officer at the Office of Management and Budget. It 
is clear that all of our witnesses are well qualified for the 
positions they have been nominated for, and I look forward to 
hearing from them about how we tackle the challenges facing 
schools and students across our Country. Unfortunately, the 
previous Administration took major steps backward when it came 
to supporting and protecting students.
    For example, significantly reducing efforts to enforce 
civil rights protections, undermining efforts to hold for-
profit colleges accountable, and rescinding important policies 
addressing campus sexual assault. I am especially glad to see 
Secretary Cardona and the Biden administration are working to 
get us back on track in the fight against sexual assault and 
actually listening to students and survivors instead of 
ignoring them. The previous Administration's Title IX rule made 
it hard for a student to report an incident of sexual assault 
or harassment, and easier for a school to sweep this kind of 
violence under the rug.
    The Department's ongoing review of the device Title IX rule 
is a critical step toward undoing the last Administration's 
harmful policies. I hope following its review, the Biden 
administration will protect students and survivors by putting 
forward a new, strong rule to prevent schools from avoiding 
responsibility for responding to sexual harassment and assault 
by limiting their responsibility if students report to the 
wrong person, provide a robust definition of sexual harassment, 
ensure survivors can share their story in a way that avoids re-
traumatization, provide more information to the public about 
sexual harassment and assault cases, including making sure the 
public can tell which schools have requested religious 
exemptions from Title IX, and protect student confidentiality.
    Of course, the Department's efforts here are just a start. 
There is a lot more we need to do to protect all of our 
students. I am looking forward to working with the Biden 
administration to ensure every student can learn in a safe 
environment free from discrimination, harassment, and assault. 
And we must keep pushing on other fronts as well, like making 
sure every student receives a high quality public K-12 
education, families can access affordable and high quality 
child care and pre-K, students can access and persist in higher 
education while minimizing the burden of student debt, and 
schools and child care facilities are safe from pandemics, 
environmental hazards, gun violence, and more. We also need to 
tackle the deep education inequities in our Country, meaning we 
need to root out systemic racism that continues to plague our 
Nation's education system, uphold our civil rights protections 
for all students, including students with disabilities, address 
inequities in school funding, support and protect LGBTQ+ 
students, and address sexism, racism, ableism, bigotry, and 
bullying in our schools.
    Ultimately, what it comes down to is this, you should be 
able to receive a high quality education and thrive in this 
country regardless of your race, family income, disability, 
sex, or zip code. I am pleased to say that Ms. Lhamon, Mr. 
Rodriguez, and Ms. Brown have worked throughout their careers 
to make sure that is the case. I have no doubt they will 
continue to do so when confirmed, and I look forward to working 
with all of them in their new roles.
    Now, before I turn it over to Ranking Member Burr for his 
opening remarks, I seek unanimous consent to put in the record 
more than 20 letters in support of Ms. Lhamon's nomination from 
nearly 230 organizations, one letter in support of Mr. 
Rodriguez's nomination, and one letter of support in Ms. 
Brown's nomination. So ordered.

    [The following information can be found on page 37 in 
Additional Material]

    The Chair. Senator Burr.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. Count me as one that 
support Mr. Rodriguez. It is good to see you again. Thanks for 
our time together. I think we all on this dais miss Ted 
Kennedy, extremely, much. To our witnesses, congratulations on 
your nominations and welcome. These are important education 
policy positions. Today I am going to spend most of my time 
talking about the role that Ms. Lhamon will play at the Office 
of Civil Rights and the serious concerns I have from the last 
time she held that job. I have two chief concerns.
    First, if confirmed, it seems that Ms. Lhamon will charge 
ahead to unraveling significant pieces of the previous 
Administration's Title IX rule. Second, I am convinced Ms. 
Lhamon understands or at least appreciates the limits of her 
authority.
    When Secretary DeVos issued the Title IX rule on campus 
sexual assault, Ms. Lhamon tweeted about it, saying this, 
``Secretary DeVos 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 the 
law.'' Quite frankly, that is just plain offensive. This type 
of overheated rhetoric doesn't reflect the actual facts or ease 
partisan tensions on important and sensitive topics. Ms. Lhamon 
admitted in her meeting with me and her interview with 
Committee staff that she agrees with many aspects of the rule. 
Yet by her tweet, no one would know that. I imagine that she 
was taking aim at the due process protections of the rule, the 
opportunity for a hearing and cross-examination. But those two 
provisions are rooted in Federal court precedent. For example, 
the Sixth Circuit has said, and I quote, ``the due process 
clause mandates that a university provide accused students a 
hearing with the opportunity to conduct cross-examination. If a 
public university has to choose between competing narratives to 
resolve the case, the university must give the accused student 
or his agent an opportunity to cross-examine the accuser and 
adverse witnesses in the presence of a neutral fact finder.''
    The Third Circuit Court has said, ``the basic elements of 
Federal procedural fairness in Title IX, sexual assault 
misconduct proceedings, include a real and meaningful hearing, 
and when credibility determinations are at issue, the 
opportunity for cross-examination of witnesses.'' And there is 
no greater authority on legal protections for women than the 
late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she echoed 
a similar position telling The Atlantic in 2018, ``there has 
been criticism of some college codes of conduct for not giving 
the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard, and that is 
one of the basic tenets of our system. As you know, everyone 
deserves a fair hearing.'' But I have concerns Ms. Lhamon 
doesn't share these views. The last time she had this job, she 
issued guidance that allowed schools to forgo hearings and the 
due process rights of both parties to have cross-examination.
    Instead, the guidance allowed schools to use what is known 
as a single investigator model, which vested in one person the 
power to be judge, jury, and executioner. So it seems to me, 
instead of listening to Justice Ginsburg, our nominee is 
listening to Lewis Carroll and has a sentence first verdict--
verdict afterwards mentality. I don't think due process 
protections or even the concept of cross-examination warrants 
the level of vitriol aimed at the DeVos rule. And I think 
Secretary DeVos deserves an apology. And if Ms. Lhamon is 
confirmed, I think she will need to be careful about any 
changes to this rule.
    Federal courts will stand up for due process for the 
accused even if this Administration won't. My second concern is 
that Ms. Lhamon doesn't seem to appreciate the limits of the 
power of the executive branch. For example, she expressed a 
distorted view of the appropriate use of agency guidance, which 
is unlike regulations, they do not go through a formal notice 
or comment process. At a hearing before this Committee in 2014, 
Ms. Lhamon told the former Chairman, Lamar Alexander, that she 
believes the guidance is binding on the institutions of higher 
education. Yet here is what the experts say on that. The 
Administrative Conference of the United States says the 
guidance documents are nonbinding statements of interpretation, 
policy, and advice about the implementation of statutes or 
regulations.
    The Supreme Court has said that guidance is meant to advise 
the public and does not have the force and effect of law. 
However, Ms. Lhamon bullied schools into complying with 
guidance by telling them that they could lose Federal funding, 
the ultimate punishment that has rarely been used. If they did 
not abide by guidance documents saying, and this is a quote, 
``do not think it is an empty threat.'' While Ms. Lhamon told 
me that her enforcement practices were enforcing the law not 
guidance, her guidance laid out overly prescriptive 
requirements in institutions like a specific standard of 
evidence and specific investigative practices not found 
anywhere in civil rights law.
    Courts have also criticized its enforcement posture of OCR 
under Ms. Lhamon's leadership. The Seventh Circuit pointed out 
that multiple circuit courts have considered the guidance and 
accompanying pressure of the Department of Education's Title IX 
investigation, gives an accused student a story about why an 
institution, ``might have been motivated to discriminate 
against males accused of sexual assault.'' Even OCR employees 
during Ms. Lhamon's tenure recognized the pressure OCR put on 
universities.
    A lawyer who worked in OCR in both the Obama and the Trump 
administration said in an interview that, ``we did see some bad 
cases in the Obama era, cases where it basically didn't matter 
what the evidence there was, the college was going to find 
against the defendant, the male defendant, no matter what. I 
think the schools felt pressure under the Obama guidance.'' So 
colleges and universities are right to be confused if she is 
saying to them following her guidance is mandatory and then 
telling Congress that she means something different. That sort 
of pressure comes from the top and Ms. Lhamon's history is 
deeply troubling, if not outright disqualifying.
    Last, I would like to submit six letters into the record 
representing over 100 professors, attorneys, Title IX experts, 
and other professionals opposing Ms. Lhamon's return to the OCR 
at the Department of Education.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Burr. Oh, so ordered.

    [The following information can be found on page 98 in 
Additional Material]

    Senator Burr. Next, I want to touch briefly on the General 
Counsel position. The General Counsel probably has the most 
difficult job of making sure Department officials follow the 
law the way we here in Congress wrote it. So I hope that as a 
lawyer, Ms. Brown, you will see that happens. One of the big 
issues I am concerned about in this Administration is going to 
take the position that they have the authority to issue mass 
student loan forgiveness. The Department of Education is 
expected to issue a legal opinion on that issue.
    However, the Trump administration determined that the 
Department did not have such authority, and their legal 
argument, quite frankly, is very convincing. Ms. Brown, you 
will likely play a role in formulating and signing off on the 
legal opinion for this Administration, so I am interested in 
hearing your thoughts on that. In my view, nowhere in the law 
do I see the authority.
    To quote the Supreme Court, ``Congress does not, one might 
say, hide elephants in mouseholes.'' To find the Federal 
Government has had this authority and no one knew it until now 
would be a huge elephant. Last, before I close, I want to 
mention an issue I am having with this Administration when it 
comes to responses, Madam Chair, for nominees. As part of the 
vetting process, I have been asking all nominees about their 
social media accounts. One, tell me if they have them and what 
they have posted, and two, to tell me if they have ever deleted 
posts or accounts. For some reason, none of the nominees want 
to answer the second question.
    To me, this is unacceptable, and it makes it seem like 
these nominees have something to hide. I have written the White 
House about this, and I expect to get an answer soon. So to our 
witnesses, again, welcome. I look forward to hearing from all 
of you today in asking how you will do on these important 
issues that affect your job within the Department of Education. 
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator Burr. We will now introduce 
today's witnesses. And I will begin with Catherine Lhamon, 
President Obama's nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary for 
Civil Rights at the Department of Education. She has a proven 
record as a champion for students and civil rights. When she 
was previously nominated to serve in this role by President 
Obama and confirmed in the Senate by a voice vote, she worked 
to combat sexual assault on college campuses, protect 
transgender students, worked to reduce the use of seclusion and 
restraint, fought to eliminate racial disparities in school 
discipline, and enforced civil rights laws to protect students 
across our Country.
    Before joining the Administration, she worked on legal and 
civil rights issues as Director of Impact Litigation at Public 
Counsel, a California based pro bono law firm, as Assistant 
Legal Director at the ACLU of Southern California, where she 
practiced law for a decade, and as a teaching fellow and 
supervising attorney in the appellate litigation program at 
Georgetown University Law Center. And after her last stint as 
Assistant Secretary, she went on to continue the work of 
fighting for civil rights through her time as Chair on the U.S. 
Commission on Civil Rights, her work litigating civil rights 
cases with the National Center for Youth Law, and as Legal 
Affairs Secretary to the Governor of California.
    She currently serves as the Biden--in the Biden 
administration, as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy 
Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice and 
Equity. Mr. Lhamon is a graduate of Amherst College and 
received her J.D. at Yale Law School. Ms. Lhamon, I am so 
pleased to have you with us and I am absolutely thrilled the 
President chose to nominate you. And I look forward to your 
testimony. Next, we have Senator Van Hollen, who has joined us 
today, who will be introducing Lisa Brown.
    Senator Van Hollen, welcome.

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you. Thank you, Chair 
Murray, Ranking Member Burr, to all the Members of the 
Committee for the opportunity to introduce the President's 
nominee to serve as General Counsel for the Department of 
Education, Lisa Brown. Ms. Brown is an accomplished lawyer and 
a proud Marylander with an exemplary record of public service. 
And I know that if confirmed, her experience, her character, 
and her values will be a great benefit to the Department of 
Education and to our Country at this pivotal moment in our 
history. Lisa Brown has spent her career at the intersection of 
public service, education, justice, and the law.
    After receiving her B.A. magna cum laude from Princeton and 
her J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago, Ms. Brown 
served as a Staff Attorney at the Center for Law in the Public 
Interest in Los Angeles, where she fought against employment 
discrimination, stood up for the rights of the homeless, and 
protected our fellow citizens against consumer fraud. She later 
joined the firm of Shane Gardner and was made partner in 1994. 
While working there, she continued to pursue public interest 
law on a pro-bono basis.
    Her passion for public service eventually led her to the 
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, where she 
served as Executive Director and was responsible for 
strengthening an organization dedicated to equal justice under 
law, serving the public interest, and guarding against the 
concentration of power. For the last 8 years, she has been a 
Vice President and General Counsel for Georgetown University. 
In that capacity, she has been a key adviser to the 
University's President at top levels of decision-making and 
coordinates a vast team of lawyers and outside counsel. And as 
has been the case throughout her career, Lisa Brown has always 
made time to work hands on with those she served. She has been 
a mentor to countless first generation college students on 
campus and actively makes herself available and her wisdom 
available to all members of the Georgetown community.
    As you mentioned, Madam Chair, her experience includes deep 
knowledge of the Washington and Federal Government. She served 
in two White Houses. First in the Office of Al Gore as Counsel 
to the Vice President, and later as Assistant to the President 
and Staff Secretary under President Obama. She has also held 
positions as an Attorney Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel 
at the Department of Justice and as Acting Chief Performance 
Officer at OMB. Colleagues, we need Lisa Brown's experience and 
knowledge in this moment, one where we have a real opportunity 
to address the challenges facing all our students and educators 
head on from tackling the education rifts exasperated by COVID-
19, to expanding access to quality early education, to fully 
funding Title I and IDA to confronting a skyrocketing higher 
education affordability crisis and much more.
    Colleagues, on a personal note, the reason I can so 
confidently testify to Lisa Brown's unassailable character and 
her integrity is I have known Lisa for most of my life. We 
attended grade school together and we have kept in touch over 
the years. And I am really thrilled that Lisa has decided to 
rededicate herself, if the Committee votes and Congressional 
votes are willing, to public service. I do also want to 
acknowledge her wonderful family members who are here, Kevin 
Cullen, who is a nationally renowned Oncologist and Director of 
Oncology at University of Maryland Cancer Center, and their 
son, Philip.
    In closing, there is no doubt in my mind that, if 
confirmed, Lisa Brown will serve the country well as the next 
General Counsel in the Department of Education. I think she 
will make us all proud and I urge her confirmation.
    The Chair. Thank you so much, Senator Van Hollen. And Ms. 
Brown, thank you for joining us today as well. And now I am 
going to virtually welcome Congressman George Miller to 
introduce Roberto Rodriguez.

                    STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN MILLER

    Mr. Miller. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Ranking 
Member Burr. It is interesting to hear your testimony, Senator 
Burr. You have delved into it deep. I loved working with you in 
the past. Roberto Rodriguez is President Biden's nominee to be 
Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy 
Development at the U.S. Department of Education. He is joined 
today in the hearing room, as you mentioned, Madam Chair, by 
his wife, Rosio and his children, Isabella and Andres.
    I have known Roberto for 20 years, for 20 years or more as 
a leader who listens and is laser focused on advancing equity 
and improving outcomes for students. This year, the pandemic 
caused unprecedented changes--challenges and changes. Students' 
in-person learning was curtailed, access to preschool and child 
care was limited. The pursuit of a college degree was 
interrupted for too many. Educators stretched to learn new ways 
to connect remotely with their students and families. The 
pandemic took its toll on the social, emotional, and mental 
health needs of our students.
    The lack of access to broadband and to technology necessary 
for learning widened the inequities in our system--in our 
systems, excuse me. It was a critical time to meet the 
President Biden's--the President's charge to build back better 
and to shape the future of our schools and colleges and 
universities. Roberto Rodriguez will take on the task of 
developing solutions for these and other problems in our 
education system, crafting policies to meet the challenges head 
on, and shaping change for the future of our Nation's 
educational system. He has expertise and proven leadership and 
the dedication needed to meet these challenges and make these 
changes. I believe Roberto Rodriguez is the perfect leader for 
this time and for this position.
    Roberto has spent his career working to tackle the 
challenges of education that impedes progress for our students, 
first as an advocate and later as an aide--a senior aide to 
Senator Ted Kennedy on this Committee, and then to the Obama 
White House. Most recently, he has been at the helm of a 
nonprofit organization called Teach Plus, working to bridge 
policy and practice to prepare teachers to craft and lead 
solutions beyond their classrooms for their colleagues, 
students, and schools. The results have been truly remarkable. 
Under his leadership, Teach Plus has been invited to work by 
Governors, state school superintendents, and state legislators 
to craft policies and policy solutions from Texas to 
Mississippi to Massachusetts and beyond.
    Cities across the country to district and system leaders 
have sought out Teach Plus to coach and support teachers in 
shaping and leading instructional change. Policy makers and 
educational leaders are recognizing the value of this 
productive partnership. It proves the importance of bottom-up 
change in education with the power of teachers working in 
partnership with policy makers, system leaders, and families to 
gain this impact. Roberto is known for his determination and 
for working with purpose to build common ground. His Democratic 
colleagues know him as someone who is committed and can unite 
diverse interests around a unified agenda. And his colleagues 
across the aisle respect him as a peer who listens and engages 
in fair and productive ways to work to build the agreement.
    As a member of the Senate staff, he brought together Ted 
Kennedy, Judd Gregg, John Boehner, and myself to reach 
agreement on the legislation, No Child Left Behind. No easy 
task with that room full of people. Fortunately, this Committee 
has worked to improve on our Act and worked on it. And I say 
you are doing the right thing. And it is very important that 
you have continued the oversight here, whether you agree with 
what we wrote originally or not, it is important that oversight 
continue. It required team legislative and political strategy, 
careful management of our caucus and staff, and clarity in 
policy objectives and mission lessons Roberto honed working 
under seven authorizations, even closely with me and my staff.
    Roberto brings deep knowledge and experience to make 
systems and policy changes in the Federal, state and local 
levels. In 2009, President Obama tapped him to work swiftly to 
implement the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He went 
on to frame the cradle to career education agenda for the 
President. He listened and accounted for the needs of students, 
parents, educators, and borrowers. He placed a high value on 
his evidence and was aimed at for new ideas and policy changes 
that would make public education more responsive to their 
needs. To work closely with this Committee in 2015 to forge the 
support of the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act, the bill 
President Obama called the Christmas miracle when he signed it 
in the White House.
    Most importantly, he brings a strong service of character 
and sincere commitment of his personal values and mission. He 
will ascribe to those values in his upbringing, and his 
examples are set by his parents. But they also will come from 
his time working for underserved families and change in 
Detroit, Michigan, and from his time helping high school 
students reach their dreams of attending college in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, and from his leadership in a broad coalition of 
civil rights organizations working to improve education in 
Washington, DC. I have seen these values applied to his work to 
build the movement of teacher leadership and to prepare a 
network of hundreds of educators across 12 states to become 
agents of change and to shape the future of education in their 
school districts and their states.
    To those of you who know Roberto well, and for those of you 
who are meeting him for the first time, I am confident that you 
will agree that President Biden has made an excellent choice 
for nominating him as Assistant Secretary for Planning, 
Evaluation and Policy Development. Thank you very much for this 
opportunity.
    The Chair. Thank you, Congressman Miller. And with that, we 
will--and Mr. Rodriguez, welcome to you. And with that, we will 
begin with our witness testimony.
    We will begin with Ms. Lhamon. You may start.

  STATEMENT OF CATHERINE LHAMON TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 
             CIVIL RIGHTS, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

    Ms. Lhamon. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, 
distinguished Members of this Committee, thank you for the 
honor of appearing before you today, and Chair Murray thank you 
for your gracious introduction. I am humbled by and grateful to 
the President for nominating me to this crucial position. And I 
was deeply honored that the Senate confirmed me for the same 
position by unanimous consent in 2013. And I am delighted that 
you now consider me for returning to the work I love at the 
Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.
    I know from my prior experience there that the work is hard 
and critically important. I also know that if I am privileged 
to be confirmed for this role, I will continue to work with you 
on ways to advance the civil rights guarantees Congress has 
enacted and protected for more than six decades. I have been 
privileged to work in Federal Government roles for 1 month shy 
of 8 years protecting civil rights, and I worked for 2 years 
advising California's Governor on legal affairs, including 
during this once in a century pandemic.
    I am familiar with the work necessary to honor the public's 
trust, and I love and respect it. I learned that reverence for 
public service from my mother. We had no lawyers in our family, 
but I chose to become one after hearing my mother's stories of 
growing up in racially segregated Virginia and the profound 
difference that public interest lawyering made in her life. 
National civil rights heroes, including Oliver Hill, who among 
others, litigated Brown v. Board of Education, were family 
friends and neighbors.
    My mother passed Mr. Hill's house every day on her way to 
school, and Mr. Hill often drove her to school along with his 
son. Oliver Hill's child's experience and my mother's in 
segregated schools informed his passion to help this country 
live up to our constitutional ideals. My mother attended 
racially segregated schools before and after Brown. She was not 
yet 10 years old when the case was decided. But the Supreme 
Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that the 
circumstances of my mother's schooling violate our Constitution 
shaped her understanding of justice and of the American 
promise. Her experiences ultimately informed my own 
expectations for what it means to serve and for why I wanted 
and still want to serve.
    I will bring those lessons with me back to OCR if I have 
the privilege to return. People across America come to OCR with 
their deepest hurts, asking the Office to evaluate whether 
their rights have been violated and if so, how to correct it. I 
love the challenge of applying law to specific facts, working 
with the expert staff in OCR's 12 regional offices to do as 
much justice as we can because those students and school 
communities who come to OCR need us to make real in their lives 
the laws of this body and enacts.
    OCR does its job best when it efficiently, fairly, and 
thoroughly resolves investigations to protect student rights, 
shares its expertise about how to apply the law to facts to 
prevent discrimination from occurring in the first instance, 
and works with school districts and colleges and universities 
around the country to satisfy the law before students are hurt. 
That work is and has been bipartisan. OCR in Republican as well 
as Democratic Presidential Administrations has achieved 
breathtaking results for students and schools serving as 
stewards against harms Congress promised the country no person 
should live.
    In Republican as well as Democratic Administrations, OCR 
has ended segregated schooling, protected students with 
disabilities from exclusion and from bullying, and stopped 
sexual harassment from recurring. Now, as this Nation recovers 
from the global pandemic and our students and educators return 
to schools together, the beautiful civil rights promises 
Congress has long made for us have particular importance.
    OCR's work now is as urgent as it ever has been. If 
confirmed, I would be so pleased to rejoin OCR staff as they 
bring their talent, their expertise, and their dedication to do 
right by people who turn to them. I look forward to today's 
hearing and I thank you for this opportunity.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lhamon follows:]
                 prepared statement of catherine lhamon
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and distinguished Members of 
this Committee:

    Thank you for the honor of appearing before you today. I am humbled 
by and grateful to the President for nominating me to this crucial 
position. I was deeply honored that the Senate confirmed me for this 
same position by unanimous consent in 2013 and am delighted that you 
are now considering me for returning to the work I love at the Office 
for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.

    I know from my prior experience there that the work is hard and 
critically important. I also know that if I am privileged to be 
confirmed for this role that I will work with you and continue the 
conversation. I would be so pleased to engage with you and your offices 
on ways to advance the civil rights guarantees Congress has enacted and 
protected for more than six decades.

    I have been privileged to work in Federal Government roles for 1 
month shy of 8 years protecting civil rights, and I worked for 2 years 
advising California's Governor on legal affairs, including during this 
once-in-a-century pandemic. I am familiar with the work necessary to 
honor the public's trust, and I love and respect it.

    I learned that reverence for public service from my mother. We had 
no lawyers in our family, but I chose to become one after hearing my 
mother's stories of growing up in racially segregated Virginia, and the 
profound difference effective public interest lawyering made in her 
life.

    National civil rights heroes, including Oliver Hill who, among 
others, litigated Brown v. Board of Education, were family friends and 
neighbors. My mother passed Mr. Hill's house every day on the way to 
school and Mr. Hill often drove her to school along with his son. 
Oliver Hill's child's experience, and my mother's, in segregated 
schools informed his passion to help this country live up to our 
constitutional ideals. My mother attended racially segregated schools 
before and after Brown--she was not yet 10 years old when the case was 
decided--but the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of 
Education--that the circumstances of my mother's schooling violated our 
constitution--shaped her understanding of justice and of the American 
promise. Her experiences ultimately informed my own expectations for 
what it means to serve and for why I wanted, and still want, to serve.

    I will bring those lessons with me back to OCR if I have the 
privilege to return. People across America come to OCR with their 
deepest hurts, asking the office to evaluate whether their rights have 
been violated and if so how to correct it. I love the challenge of 
applying law to specific facts, working with the expert staff in OCR's 
12 regional offices to do as much justice as we can, because those 
students and school communities who come to OCR need us to make real in 
their lives the laws this body enacts.

    OCR does its job best when it efficiently, fairly, and thoroughly 
resolves investigations to protect student rights; shares its expertise 
about how to apply the law to facts to prevent discrimination from 
occurring in the first instance; and works with school districts and 
colleges and universities around the country to satisfy the law before 
students are hurt.

    That work is and has been bipartisan. OCR in Republican as well as 
Democratic Presidential Administrations has achieved breathtaking 
results for students and schools, serving as stewards against harms 
Congress promised the country no person should live. In Republican as 
well as Democratic Administrations, OCR has ended segregated schooling, 
protected students with disabilities from exclusion and from bullying, 
and stopped sexual harassment from recurring.

    Now, as this Nation recovers from the global pandemic, and our 
students and educators return to schools together, the beautiful civil 
rights promises Congress has long made for us have particular 
importance. OCR's work now is as urgent as it ever has been. If 
confirmed, I would be so pleased to rejoin OCR's staff as they bring 
their talent, expertise, and dedication to do right by people who turn 
to them.

    I look forward to today's hearing and I thank you for this 
opportunity.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Brown.

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH BROWN TO BE GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT 
                          OF EDUCATION

    Ms. Brown. Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members 
of the Committee, it is my honor to appear before you today as 
President Biden's nominee to serve as General Counsel of the 
Department of Education. I want to thank Senator Van Hollen for 
that wonderful introduction. I am deeply appreciative of and 
humbled by President Biden and Secretary Cardona's trust in me. 
And if confirmed, I will do my absolute best to justify that 
trust. I would like to thank the Committee for considering my 
nomination today and for the opportunity to meet with members 
of your staff before this hearing.
    I also want to thank my family and especially my husband, 
Kevin Cullen, and my son Philip Cohen for their constant love 
and support and for their shared dedication to educational 
opportunities for all. My parents believed that the most 
important thing they could give us was a good education. My 
father frequently told us that with quality education and hard 
work, you can do or be anything you want. My parents instilled 
in me not just a personal love of education, but also a 
dedication to providing educational opportunities to others as 
a teacher, a board member, and a lawyer. The American dream, 
the promise of opportunity for those who work hard depends upon 
a quality education.
    The ability to achieve that dream should not be limited to 
those with resources or living in certain zip codes. An 
excellent education should be available to everyone. This is 
only more urgent today as we emerge from the COVID pandemic. 
The Department's role in supporting students whose academic 
progress and mental health have been deeply impacted, and in 
closing the widening achievement gap, and in providing 
opportunity to adults reentering the workforce are of critical 
importance to the recovery of our Nation. I believe that the 
work of the Department's General Counsel is vital to that 
effort. Together with the over 100 career lawyers and other 
professionals in the Office of General Counsel, the General 
Counsel plays a critical role in advancing the Department's 
mission by providing sound legal advice and counsel to the 
Secretary and officials across the Department.
    The General Counsel's responsibilities include advising 
colleagues on faithful implementation and enforcement of the 
laws that Congress has enacted and working with colleagues 
across the Department to further the Department's mission. It 
is a position I have come to admire and respect over the course 
of my career. After serving in a number of different legal 
positions, I found my calling in the role of in-house Counsel. 
I was first introduced to the job when I served as counsel to 
Vice President Gore and have spent the past eight and a half 
years as Vice President and General Counsel of Georgetown 
University. There is nothing better than helping a mission 
driven organization achieve its goals while avoiding legal 
shoals.
    The opportunity to combine my two passions, public service 
and education, with my favorite job by serving as General 
Counsel of the Department of Education is compelling to me. I 
believe that my more than 30 years of experience working for 
the Government, a Presidential transition team, a major 
university and a law firm has prepared me for this role. It has 
given me a broad and deep understanding of both how Government 
works and the role of a General Counsel. I understand the roles 
of each branch of Government and the distinction between 
policymaking and legal analysis. I have had the opportunity to 
work and advise on a wide range of legal matters, including 
litigation, financial transactions, ethics investigations, 
regulatory matters and compliance, and I am familiar with many 
of the legal issues that are within the Department's purview.
    I enjoy leading a team of expert lawyers and would relish 
the opportunity to work with the excellent lawyers in the 
Department of Education's Office of General Counsel and across 
the Government to give American people the best representation 
possible, guided by what the law and constitution require. If 
confirmed, I promise to do my best to provide sage advice and 
counsel to help the Department achieve its mission so that 
every parent can tell their children, as my father told his 
three daughters, that if you work hard and earn a quality 
education, you can do anything you want.
    It would be an honor to serve as General Counsel of the 
Department of Education and to partner with you to provide 
students across the country with the best possible education. 
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you and I 
look forward to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
                    prepared statement of lisa brown
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee, it 
is my honor to appear before you today as President Biden's nominee to 
serve as General Counsel of the Department of Education. I am deeply 
appreciative of and humbled by President Biden and Secretary Cardona's 
trust in me. If confirmed, I will do my best to justify that trust.

    I would like to thank the Committee for considering my nomination 
and for the opportunity to meet with members of your staff before this 
hearing.

    I also want to thank my family, and especially my husband Kevin 
Cullen and our son Philip, for their love and support and their shared 
commitment to educational opportunities for all.

    My parents believed that the most important thing they could give 
their three daughters was a good education. My father frequently told 
us that, with a quality education and hard work, we could do or be 
anything we wanted. My parents instilled in me not only a personal love 
of learning, but also a dedication to providing educational 
opportunities for others, as a teacher, board member and lawyer.

    The American Dream--the promise of opportunity for those who work 
hard--depends upon a quality education. The ability to achieve that 
dream should not be limited to those with financial resources or living 
in certain zip codes. An excellent education should be available to 
everyone. This is only more urgent today, as we emerge from the COVID 
pandemic. The Department's role in supporting students whose academic 
progress and mental health have been deeply impacted, closing the 
widening achievement gap, and providing opportunity to adults 
reentering the workforce are of critical importance to the recovery of 
our Nation.

    I believe the work of the Department's General Counsel is vital to 
that effort. Together with the over 100 career lawyers and other 
professionals in the Office of General Counsel, the General Counsel 
plays a critical role in advancing the Department's mission by 
providing sound legal advice and counsel to the Secretary and officials 
across the Department. The General Counsel's responsibilities include 
advising colleagues on faithful implementation and enforcement of the 
laws that Congress has enacted, and working with colleagues across the 
government to further the Department's mission. It is a position I have 
come to admire and respect over the course of my career.

    After serving in a number of different legal positions, I found my 
calling in the role of in-house counsel. I was first introduced to the 
job when I served as Counsel to Vice President Gore and have spent the 
past eight and a half years as Vice President and General Counsel of 
Georgetown University. There is nothing better than helping a mission-
driven organization to achieve its goals while avoiding legal shoals. 
The opportunity to combine my two passions--public service and 
education--with my favorite job--by serving as General Counsel of the 
Department of Education is compelling to me.

    I believe that my more than thirty years of experience working for 
the government, a Presidential transition team, a major university and 
a law firm has prepared me for this role. It has given me a broad and 
deep understanding of both how government works and the role of a 
general counsel. I understand the roles of each branch of government, 
and the distinction between policymaking and legal analysis. I have had 
the opportunity to work and advise on a wide range of legal matters, 
including litigation, financial transactions, ethics, investigations, 
regulatory matters and compliance, and am familiar with many of the 
legal issues that are within the Department's purview. I enjoy leading 
a team of expert lawyers, and would relish the opportunity to work with 
the excellent lawyers in the Department of Education's Office of 
General Counsel and across the government to give the American people 
the best representation possible guided by what the law and 
Constitution require.

    If confirmed, I promise to do my best to provide sage advice and 
counsel to help the Department achieve its mission, so that every 
parent can tell their children, as my father told his three daughters, 
that if you work hard and earn a quality education, you can do anything 
you want. It would be an honor to serve as General Counsel of the 
Department of Education and to partner with you to provide students 
across the country with the best possible education.

    Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you. I look 
forward to your questions.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you, Ms. Brown.
    Mr. Rodriguez.

 STATEMENT OF ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ TO BE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR 
  PLANNING, EVALUATION AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT, DEPARTMENT OF 
                           EDUCATION

    Mr. Rodriguez. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Burr, Members of 
the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before 
you today. I am proud to share this dais as well with Ms. Brown 
and Ms. Lhamon. And thank you for the opportunity to introduce 
my wife, Rosio, my two children, Isabella and Roberto Andres, 
before this Committee. They are my pride and joy and I am so 
pleased they are here with me.
    I am honored by the trust that President Biden and Vice 
President Harris have placed in me with this nomination to 
serve as Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and 
Policy Development at the Department of Education. And if 
confirmed, I will bring steadfast commitment and a sense of 
duty to the Department that have been the hallmark of my public 
service. Educational equity and opportunity stand as guiding 
principles in my own career.
    I learned from a young age the value of education from my 
parents and from my grandparents who came to our Country with a 
strong belief that education and hard work are pathways to a 
better life. As the son of educators growing up in public 
education, I learned the importance of service, community, and 
opening doors for those whose voices are seldom heard.
    As migrant and labor leader Cesar Chavez said, once of 
education, ``our ambitions must be broad enough to include the 
aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our 
own.'' Our collective charge of providing all children an 
excellent education from the earliest years through workforce 
readiness and college success is one that involves us all. It 
calls us to listen to one another and to build common ground as 
policymakers, educators, community members, and parents working 
together to get things done for students. It requires us to 
remove barriers to opportunity and to address inequities in our 
system. If I am fortunate to be confirmed, I look forward to 
working closely with Secretary Cardona, with President Biden 
and his staff, and with each of you to meet that charge.
    Equal access and educational excellence are at the heart of 
the Department's mission, and there has never been a more 
important time to fulfill that mission as we recover from this 
pandemic and look to a brighter future. The pandemic has posed 
great hardships. It has tested our resolve. But it has also 
revealed resilience and ingenuity among teachers, parents, and 
students. The Department plays an important role in harnessing 
innovations, ideas, and best practices that have emerged in 
this challenging year.
    If confirmed, I commit to promoting communication and 
awareness to foster shared learning of those lessons, as well 
as accountability for meeting the requirements set forth by 
Congress under the American Rescue Plan. I will also fulfill 
the other duties of this position, including developing and 
reviewing the Department's budget and utilizing data to inform 
the Department's programs. I bring commitment, experience, and 
an affinity for public policy to these responsibilities. I 
bring those from early in my career leading a diverse civil 
rights coalition to advance policy and advocacy and better meet 
the needs of Latino and bilingual students. I bring these from 
my time working on this esteemed Committee under one of my 
great mentors, Senator Kennedy, building common ground and 
shared purpose to forge bipartisan agreements on Federal 
policy.
    I bring these from my time on the White House Domestic 
Policy Council working to build and advance President Obama's 
education agenda and to craft interagency efforts to improve 
outcomes for youth and adults. More recently, I have had the 
privilege of working with hundreds of exceptional educators 
across the country, bringing their voices and vision to systems 
change. Leading that teacher leadership movement has inspired 
me to connect the expertise of educators to policymaking.
    Working across diverse states and communities 
geographically and politically also taught me about the 
importance of shaping policy in a manner responsive to local 
needs. I worked hard to bring teachers' voices into that policy 
conversation because I know effective policy is a tool that can 
respond to urgent challenges, and a tool to inspire us to 
envision something better. Effective policy is solutions 
oriented. It focuses on the assets and aspirations of our 
students and families. Effective policy should emerge from 
robust evidence and from knowledge about what we know works to 
support teaching and learning.
    If confirmed, you have my commitment to bring a holistic, 
bottom up, and inclusive approach to policymaking, to promote 
innovation and a learning culture that will complement and 
inform policy and programs at the Department, and to pursue the 
strategic use of data in ways that are open and transparent, 
but also actionable to benefit students and borrowers, 
educators and families. Thank you for the opportunity to share 
my background and priorities.
    I am eager to get to work, and I look forward to learning 
about your interests and answering your questions. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rodriguez follows:]
                prepared statement of roberto rodriguez
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, Members of the Committee, thank 
you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

    Before I begin, it's a pleasure to introduce my wife, Rocio, and my 
children, Isabela and Roberto Andres to the Committee. They are my 
pride, joy, and constant source of support.

    I am honored by the trust that President Biden and Vice President 
Harris have placed in me with this nomination to serve as Assistant 
Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the 
Department of Education.

    If confirmed, I will bring steadfast commitment and a sense of duty 
to the Department that have been the hallmark of my public service.

    Educational equity and opportunity stand as guiding principles in 
my own career. I learned from an early age of the value of education 
from my parents, and from my grandparents who came to our Country with 
the strong belief that education and hard work are pathways to a better 
life. As the son of educators growing up in public education, I learned 
the importance of service, community, and opening doors for those whose 
voices are seldom heard. As Cesar Chavez said of education, `` . . . 
our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs 
of others, for their sake and for our own.''

    Our collective charge of providing all children an excellent 
education--from the earliest years through workforce readiness and 
college success--is one that involves us all. It calls us to listen to 
one another and build common ground as policymakers, educators, 
community members, and parents, working together to get things done for 
students. It requires us to remove barriers to opportunity and address 
inequities in our system. Education policy is an important tool to 
advance these principles. If confirmed, I look forward to working 
closely with Secretary Cardona, with President Biden and his staff, and 
with each of you to meet this charge.

    Equal access and educational excellence are at the heart of the 
Department's mission. There has never been a more important time to 
fulfill that mission as we recover from this pandemic and look forward 
to a better future.

    This pandemic has posed great hardships and tested our resolve. It 
has also revealed resilience and ingenuity among teachers, parents and 
students. The Department plays an important role in harnessing the 
innovations, ideas and best practices that emerged during this 
challenging year. If confirmed, I will commit to promoting 
communication and awareness to foster shared learning of those lessons 
as well as accountability for meeting the requirements set forth by 
Congress under the American Rescue Plan. I will also fulfill the other 
duties of this position, including developing and reviewing the 
Department's budget and utilizing data to inform the Department's 
programs.

    I bring commitment, experience, and an affinity for public policy 
to these responsibilities.

          Early in my career working at a national civil rights 
        organization, I led a coalition of over 20 organizations to 
        author policy recommendations and advocate at the Federal level 
        to address the needs of Latino and emergent bilingual learners;

          As Senator Kennedy's education counsel on this 
        esteemed Committee, I worked to build common ground and shared 
        purpose to forge bipartisan agreement on Federal policy, from 
        No Child Left Behind to the Higher Education Opportunity Act;

          On the White House Domestic Policy Council, I worked 
        to build, promote and advance President Obama's cradle-through-
        career education agenda, crafting interagency efforts to 
        improve outcomes for youth and adults.

    More recently, I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of 
exceptional educators across the country, helping to bring their voices 
and vision to systems change. Leading this teacher leadership movement 
inspired me to connect the expertise and experience of educators to 
policymaking. Working across diverse states and communities--
geographically and politically--also taught me about the importance of 
shaping policy in a manner responsive to local needs. Those diverse 
perspectives can yield stronger solutions across rural, urban, and 
tribal communities--in red states and in blue states.

    I worked to bring teachers into the policy conversation because I 
know effective policy is a tool that can help us respond to challenges 
while also inspiring us to envision something better. Effective policy 
is solutions-oriented--it focuses on the assets and aspirations of our 
students and families. Effective policy should emerge from robust 
evidence and knowledge about what works best to support teaching and 
learning.

    If confirmed, you have my commitment to bring a holistic, bottom-up 
and inclusive approach to education policymaking; to promote innovation 
and a learning culture that will complement, inform and guide policy 
and program implementation; and to pursue the strategic use of data in 
ways that are open, transparent and actionable for the benefit of 
educators, families, students and borrowers.

    Thank you for the opportunity to share my background and 
priorities. I am eager to get to work and look forward to learning 
about your interests and answering your questions.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much. We will now begin a round 
of 5 minute questions. I ask my colleagues again to keep close 
track of your clock, stay within the 5-minutes. We do have two 
votes beginning at 11:30 a.m. Ms. Lhamon, not only do you have 
extensive experience advancing civil rights at both the state 
and the Federal level, but you have previously served as the 
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, giving you particular 
insight into the role's responsibilities and requirements. 
Unfortunately, since you led the Office for Civil Rights, there 
were efforts to roll back the enforcement of civil rights 
protections for students.
    Over the last 4 years, the Office backed away from progress 
made to protect the rights and safety of women and transgender 
students and rolled back the use of systemic investigations and 
lost staff. I am relieved to see the Biden administration and 
Secretary Cardona have already taken critical steps to return 
the office to its core mission.
    I want to hear about your vision for OCR moving forward. So 
I wanted to ask you, if confirmed, how will your prior 
experience inform your approach to ensuring that all students 
have equal opportunities to obtain a high quality education?
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you so much for the question, Senator 
Murray, and also for the recognition that experience in 
Government informs the way that the work can and should be 
done. And I am very grateful to be on the cusp of, if 
confirmed, being able to return with that experience. And 
having known that career staff who are so dedicated in the 12 
offices around the country and the staff who are dedicated in 
the Office itself, it is a pleasure to consider the nomination 
together with my colleagues here on the dais, and I have an 
expectation that I would be able to work with them and with 
others in the front office, also at the office at the 
Department of Education.
    Specifically for the Office for Civil Rights, it is 
crucially important to make sure that the Office returns to 
evenhanded enforcement that is fully consistent with the law, 
that the Office prioritizes all of its jurisdictional areas and 
so is advancing race discrimination, disability discrimination, 
and sex discrimination enforcement in an even handed manner. 
That the Office returns to civil rights data collection, which 
is statutorily mandated in a way that is comprehensive and 
gives the Office sufficient information to be able to evaluate 
civil rights concerns that exist in schools around the country, 
and also makes that information transparent and useful for 
families and educators around the country, not only for the 
experts at the Office for Civil Rights.
    I am devastated about the loss of staff that I have 
witnessed in the four and a half years since I last was at the 
Department. And it is very important to me to be able to 
rebuild the offices and make sure that staff are able to carry 
a workload that is reasonable and that they can bring their 
expertise to civil rights in a way that we can expect civil 
rights enforcement to be real and lived for students in 
schools.
    It is crucially important that the civil rights enforcement 
actually adhere to the statutes that Congress has written and 
give meaning to those promises that Congress has shared with 
all of us. And those are my priorities if I am able to be 
returned to the Office.
    The Chair. Thank you very much for that. Mr. Rodriguez, the 
COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the last two school years for our 
Nation's students and upended school improvement efforts that 
were previously underway around the country. We also know the 
pandemic has in many ways worsened persistent achievement gaps. 
In recognition of the enormous undertaking facing the education 
system, Congress has provided, as you know, an unprecedented 
amount of funding to school districts to support students and 
educators and schools.
    If confirmed, how will you help states, school districts, 
and educators use that funding effectively to help students 
recover from the pandemic and also get back to the important 
school improvement work that was required under the Elementary 
and Secondary Education Act?
    Mr. Rodriguez. Well, thank you, Senator, for the question. 
And undoubtedly we have faced an unprecedented set of 
challenges in this year. If confirmed, I would look forward to 
working closely with my colleagues at the Department and with 
the secretary to reinvigorate and further reinforce the strong 
partnership between the Federal Government and state and local 
leaders to reopen our schools safely and make sure that we are 
supporting all of our students in getting back to full time in-
person learning, mitigating some of the challenges that we have 
seen around the social, emotional, academic, and well-being of 
our students, and doing more to support their success and to 
support the strong partnership with families and parents in 
that process.
    Implementing--sound implementation of the American Rescue 
Plan is a top priority, and the communities across the country 
have really relied on the strong partnership with the 
Department of Education and on the needed resources that 
Congress has provided to be able to reopen effectively, as well 
as to take on some of the challenges around bridging the 
digital divide, around doing more to make sure that we support 
the mental health infrastructure and support for our students 
who have experienced tremendous trauma during this time. So 
that would be a top priority for me if confirmed at the 
Department.
    I also would look forward to continuing to implement with 
fidelity the, Every Student Succeeds Act that this Committee so 
carefully considered and helped enact years ago and has been a 
really important roadmap for state and local leaders to be able 
to close the achievement gap, hold our schools accountable.
    Certainly, it has been an unprecedented year with respect 
to accountability and assessment, but I would look forward to 
making sure that states and districts have the guidance that 
they need to implement the, Every Student Succeeds Act with 
fidelity moving forward.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Brown, welcome. 
Even before you have had a hearing, the Office of the 
Department of General Counsel has been stacked with appointees 
who believe that student loans can just be canceled out of thin 
air. Here is my question. If confirmed, how would you manage 
conflicting legal opinions among you and your staff and who has 
the final determination of the legal opinion?
    Ms. Brown. Senator, thank you very much for that question. 
This is a very important issue. I understand that the White 
House has asked the Department of Education to work with the 
Justice Department in crafting a legal opinion on the ability 
to cancel student debt. If I am confirmed as General Counsel, I 
will dig into this issue. I will learn, read everything I can 
and analyze it to the very best of my ability.
    My style, when deciding any issue actually is very much to 
bring different people around a table and to--so that I can 
thoroughly understand an issue and make sure that I am hearing 
different perspectives on it as I am making a decision. And 
then as General Counsel, I will make the best decision that I 
can and make the best recommendation to the Secretary.
    Senator Burr. But can I interpret the buck stops with you? 
You ----
    Ms. Brown. In my office, absolutely.
    Senator Burr. Correct. Right. Ms. Lhamon, I have got a 
series of questions and they really require a yes or no answer. 
Do you believe in the concept of innocent until proven guilty?
    Ms. Lhamon. I do.
    Senator Burr. Do you believe an accused student is entitled 
to due process in a school disciplinary proceeding?
    Ms. Lhamon. I don't want to over-lawyer my answer. Due 
process applies in public institutions and fair process applies 
in private, and I believe that students should have a fair 
process in administrative proceedings in schools.
    Senator Burr. How about in public schools? You gave a 
different----
    Ms. Lhamon. Yes, I think the umbrella applies in both 
places and I wanted to be precise about the term.
    Senator Burr. You think an accused student should have the 
right to see all the evidence against them before they are 
asked to defend themselves against an allegation?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, you asked about it right. And I expect 
that means a legal right. And in the current context, the 
timeline regulation that is operational now and that I would 
enforce if returned to the Office for Civil Rights does afford 
that right to students.
    Senator Burr. Should an accused student be allowed to see 
evidence against them that could clear them of charges?
    Ms. Lhamon. Likewise, Senator, the current timeline 
regulation, which is operational now, gives students that 
right.
    Senator Burr. Do you think a complainant and an accused 
student should be entitled to a hearing?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, the current regulation entitles, in a 
higher education institutions, students to a hearing. There is 
a different rule applicable for K-12.
    Senator Burr. Do you believe a complainant and an accused 
student should have a right to cross-examine--cross-
examination?
    Ms. Lhamon. The current regulation affords, in the hearing 
process, a right of cross-examination, not student to student, 
but through a representative.
    Senator Burr. Of the questions that I asked relative to 
current Title IX guidelines--of those, how many do you plan to 
change?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, I won't be in control of what change 
does or does not happen with respect to the Title IX 
regulation. There is a process that has begun at the Department 
of Education and that process will involve the Department. And 
I, if I am privileged to return, evaluating public comments and 
listening to the expertise of staff who are at the Office for 
Civil Rights now, who have in the four and a half years since I 
left, been honing that expertise and applying it to enforcement 
experience that I don't have because I have not been there.
    Senator Burr. When you and I met, you told me that you have 
been painted as someone who only believes victims, but that you 
didn't agree with that. Would you support keeping a presumption 
of innocence requirement in the current Title IX rule, if the 
Title IX rule was changed?
    Ms. Lhamon. Again with the--I am trying not to over-lawyer, 
but there isn't a presumption of innocence in the existing 
Title IX regulation. And in fact, the Title IX regulation in 
that the Trump administration issued took pains to note that 
criminal procedure does not apply in schools.
    Senator Burr. Correct. My question was, would you support 
keeping a presumption of innocence?
    Ms. Lhamon. Yes, Senator, I understand that, but that--I 
couldn't keep something that is not there. It is not there now.
    Senator Burr. Last question. My understanding is that 
during your time at OCR, you did not conduct any notice and 
comment rulemaking, is that right?
    Ms. Lhamon. That is correct, Senator.
    Senator Burr. Yet during your time, you issued more than 20 
guidance documents. These documents include the expanded 
definition of sexual harassment, discrimination based on sex, 
prescriptive grievance procedure, scrutiny over how school 
discipline students. None of these documents went through any 
notice or comment process, meaning people had the opportunity 
to comment and you could digest that in your final decision. Am 
I right?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, we did not use the notice and comment 
process. We did take in quite a bit of information from people 
with all kinds of views on the various topics, including, for 
example, on the sexual harassment guidelines. There were more 
than 35 listening sessions at the White House, and there were 3 
years of meetings with people of a whole variety of interests 
on the topic before the Department issued that guidance.
    Senator Burr. Thank you, Chair.
    The Chair. Senator Casey.
    Senator Casey. Thank you, Chair Murray. I wanted to start, 
I have some questions for Ms. Lhamon and Mr. Rodriguez, but I 
wanted to start where Senator Burr left off on some of the--
under broad heading of campus sexual assault issues. I worked 
on this for a lot of years and got passed my bill, passed back 
in 2014 as part of the reauthorization of the Violence Against 
Women Act. It was called the Campus Save Act. It imposed on 
colleges and universities a lot more reporting and a lot more 
by way of practices they had to put in place than they had 
been--than had previously governed this set of issues. And I 
have to say, and I know I will offend lots of people in 
multiple Congresses, multiple administrations, Democrat or 
Republican, and I will even offend colleges and universities.
    But prior to 2014, or I should say, prior to the work the 
Obama administration did, I guess, starting back in 2010, 2011, 
and then ultimately we put into effect the changes that Campus 
Save brought and then ultimately changes with the guidance by 
the Department. Prior to that, I think when it came to sexual 
assault on college campuses, I think our Federal policy was an 
insult to women. We went generation after generation of young 
men on college campuses engaged in acts of sexual assault with 
virtually no repercussions at all. Generation after generation.
    If colleges and universities are offended by my 
characterization or members of different administrations, 
Democrat and Republican or Congress, I don't really care if I 
have offended them. It was an insult where instance after 
instance--one Justice Department study in 2016, which was 
challenged over and over again and then was confirmed, 1 in 5 
women as of 2016, 1 in 5 women experiencing sexual assault on 
college campuses, and very few people in either party were 
doing enough about it until President Obama, Vice President 
Biden, the Department of Education, the Administration overall 
and some Members of Congress were working on it.
    There are still debates about how to implement these 
changes. But the idea that everything was Okay until the 2011 
guidance and the 2014 legislation that I led, the idea that 
everything was Okay is really insulting to women who are preyed 
upon by young men for generations. So should every student be 
treated fairly? Absolutely. And colleges must ensure they have 
unbiased, transparent, and consistent processes for dispensing 
justice. Colleges must also have a process in place that 
focuses on sexual assault with the seriousness that it merits.
    I would argue that prior to the last Administration, the 
Obama administration, I should say, that was not the case. Ms. 
Lhamon has, in her work previously, committed to protecting 
students and ensuring a fair process. I have no doubt that upon 
confirmation she will continue to act in accordance with those 
beliefs and those practices. So let me move on. Ms. Lhamon, I 
want to ask you about civil rights data collection. You spent 
some time in your previous work strengthening the survey.
    One of the benefits of this civil rights data collection 
survey was the ability to identify when districts and even 
states were disproportionately using discipline measures, 
discipline procedures with groups of students such as expelling 
students of color at a greater rate than white students. The 
data also made it possible to examine referrals and eligibility 
for special education services and if students of color were 
being over identified or under identified for services.
    I just wanted to ask you, in terms of the work you hope to 
be doing, what are your plans for the civil rights data 
collection work that you will be doing and if you think 
additional data should be collected?
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you, Senator, for your passion on Title 
IX and also for your passion about civil rights across the 
board. And the tool that Congress gave the Office for Civil 
Rights when Congress established it to collect the civil rights 
data collection is such an important tool for having eyes on 
what students experiences are. One of the things that is so 
important to me is to make sure that the civil rights data 
collection is universal so that we actually know that each data 
point represents a person, that we are not making assumptions 
from some data about what other students experiences may be.
    I also think it is really crucial, in particular following 
the pandemic, to be able to understand what kinds of 
opportunities are available to students in schools and to whom 
so we continue to disaggregate that data, to make sure that we 
can know how students with disabilities, how English language 
learners are doing, how students of color are doing, how the 
full range of experiences take place in schools across the 
country is really crucial.
    I would want to be able to hear from the staff about what 
worked in the most recent data collections, as well as where we 
saw gaps or where there were states and school districts having 
difficulty meeting the expectations for the Department about 
what the data would look like. And so I want to be able to have 
those conversations to figure out exactly what should be 
amplified. But priorities for me are to know what kinds of 
opportunities are available to whom.
    Senator Casey. Thanks very much. Sorry to go over, Chair 
Murray.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Tuberville. Thank you very much. Thank you for your 
service. Thanks for being here today. This is pretty 
interesting. I would like to agree with Senator Casey and 
Senator Burr. I was in coaching and teaching for 40 years, and 
I have seen it all. And when we come to--when we get to the 
point about sexual harassment, if we don't start holding the 
universities accountable through funding, that is the only 
thing that they recognize is money, they will straighten up.
    Until we do that, we can keep politics out of it because we 
are now going to straighten it out. It is not going to happen. 
I have been involved in many of them. Look a lot of cases, but 
we have got to get the politics out of it. We have to start 
holding these universities accountable because they are nothing 
but businesses. That is all they are. And again, I made money 
with these businesses as coach. So they are great 
organizations.
    Let me tell you, education is a key to our Country. And we 
have got politics so deep in education, I don't know whether we 
are going to be able to get ourselves out, but this is not a 
Republican or a Democratic problem, this is an American problem 
that we have got in our education system. And I hope you all 
would--hope you understand that and kind of understand that 
with us, because we are all Americans. And if we don't educate 
our kids, we are not going to have a chance in the future. We 
are not going to have a chance. And one reason I ran for this 
position was because of education. Because I have seen the last 
15, 20 years how bad it has gotten. 37th in the world in 
education, in the world. We ought to be embarrassed.
    But that being said, I have got a couple of things I am 
going to ask Ms. Lhamon. In 2016, when you first held this 
position, you changed a couple of processes and we forced 
100,000 K through 12 schools to permit transgender students to 
join sex segregated athletic teams consistent with their gender 
identity. Now, I felt like--for years for young girls, Title 
IX, and I hate to see us ruin that. There has to be an answer 
because we get more letters on Title IX and this transgender 
problem than anything. And I am on a lot of committees. We have 
got to find an answer. We have got to keep young girls 
interested in sports. That is why we started Title IX.
    Now we are letting transgender athletes involve, dressing 
in the same dressing rooms, using the same restrooms. There has 
got to be an answer to this. I don't know what it is, but you 
all get paid the big bucks. We have got to find that answer. We 
have got to find that answer. So given your record, do you 
believe, Ms. Lhamon, that allowing transgender women to compete 
in women's sport should come at the cost of discriminating 
against biological women? Your thoughts.
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, first I want to thank you for your 
passion about Title IX, which I share, and for your leadership 
and for what you stand for, for sports and schools. On the 
question about Title IX, the promise of Title IX is that no 
person shall be subject to discrimination on the basis of sex. 
So I could not countenance discriminating against any student 
in the context of Title IX if I were the CR enforcing Title IX.
    Senator Tuberville. But do you not think that putting 
biological men in women's sports is not discriminating? Can we 
not have a biological transgender team of their own? We have 
got to find something, or we are going to lose thousands and 
thousands of young women that say, I am not getting involved in 
this or their parents are not going to let them get involved in 
this. We have got to look at the repercussions of this.
    I am all for everybody. I have coached 80 percent of the 
kids. I coached for minorities for 40 years. But we have got to 
come to a conclusion here and help the women that we helped so 
much in Title IX. We did so much for women's sports and now we 
are bringing it to its knees because of common sense. I am for 
kids, transgender kids, but we have got to find another way 
where they can compete. Do you agree or not?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, if I may, could I share with you the 
lens that I bring to this--that when I led the Office for Civil 
Rights in the Obama administration, we had a complaint that 
came into the Ohio office for a student who uses a wheelchair, 
who wanted to be able to compete with his team using the 
wheelchair on the track team and to have his times count. And 
first, the school told him no. Then they told him he could 
compete, but his times wouldn't count. He would be on the 
special track. And then the State Athletic Association raised a 
set of concerns.
    The resolution in that agreement found a way for that 
student to compete safely, fully as a member of the team, to 
have his time to come, and to do it in a way that was safe and 
work for all of the students. I would want to bring that lens 
to the work in any athletics context so that we are finding a 
way not to discriminate against a student who is unusual, not 
to discriminate against a student who wants to be on the team, 
who wants to get the benefits of athletics, and to be able to 
make sure that the Title IX protection, that instance of Title 
IV protection applies to every single student on the team. That 
is the lens I would want to bring.
    Senator Tuberville. Well, thank you and thanks for your 
passion. And you believe in it.
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you. I do.
    Senator Tuberville. Again, education is the whole key to 
what we are doing in this country. That is the reason we are 
the best country on the face of the earth and a lot of it 
starts in athletics. Gets people involved working together. I 
have got a couple more questions. I will just submit them, 
Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Thank you.
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Smith.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member 
Burr. And welcome Ms. Brown and Ms. Lhamon, Mr. Rodriguez. And 
thank you to you and your families for your willingness to 
serve our Country and for your commitment to public service. 
You all bring such rich life experiences to these roles. And, 
it is my hope that as America emerges, recovers from the 
tragedy of the COVID pandemic and as our Country wrestles with 
systemic racism and the injustice of that, that you will hold 
fast to your commitment to the value that every student in this 
country should have the opportunity to learn in an enriching, 
safe, and supportive environment, no matter who you are, no 
matter where you live, or no matter how much money your family 
has. I truly believe that access to an excellent public 
education is the foundation of our democracy.
    I believe that is what Senator Tuberville is also saying. 
And it is up to all of us to make that promise a reality for 
every student. So Ms. Lhamon, I would like to turn to the 
question of school discipline and disparities in school 
discipline. Here is some data from Minnesota. Students of color 
make up about 31 percent of Minnesota students but receive two-
thirds of all suspensions and expulsions.
    Native American students are ten times more likely to be 
suspended or expelled than white students. Black students were 
eight times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white 
students. So not only is this traumatizing, but it leads 
students of color to enter this prison, this school to prison 
pipeline where the punishment that they receive 
disproportionately in school affects them for the rest of their 
lives.
    Now in Minnesota, the Department of Human Rights is working 
with 41 districts and charter schools to address this 
significant disparity. But all students deserve to have their 
civil rights protected in schools. So could you please talk 
about this, address this, tell us how you would lead the 
Department of the Office of Civil Rights in working with states 
and school districts to address this disparity, and what you 
have seen around best practices here.
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you so much for the question. As it 
happens, I have worked with Minnesota educators who are trying 
to address this specific issue, and I am so impressed with the 
leadership and the thoughtfulness in the state specifically 
about the crisis that you are talking about that and the harm 
to students. And in addition to this school to prison pipeline, 
which in itself is obviously very distressing, we are pushing 
children out of school where they are losing educational time 
and we are not holding our whole communities so that our 
students can get the education that is their right.
    I am passionate about it. It is--this topic was among the 
very first issues that the Office for Civil Rights addressed 
when it first started, when we only had--the Office only had 
jurisdiction over Title VI and was addressing school 
desegregation. But this issue of disparities in discrimination 
and discipline was part of those original desegregation 
agreements.
    That it has persisted to this day means that we have not 
gotten our arms around it as a country, and we are not doing 
enough right by our kids. But we do have so many educators like 
those you describe in Minnesota who are working specifically on 
it. It would be important to me to be able to work with school 
communities to identify practices that are going well and to 
hold hands to figure out how to make sure that we don't see 
those kinds of disparities persist and that we don't see 
discrimination.
    Those are different things, but that we don't see 
discrimination take place in schools. And I think it is crucial 
to reinstate guidance on the topic. And I think it is crucial 
to be clear with school communities about what the civil rights 
obligations are and how best to do the work in their 
classrooms.
    Senator Smith. Thank you so much. You said in your 
testimony that our job is to make real in the lives of students 
the laws that Congress has enacted, and that the Constitution 
guarantees. So I hear that in your answer. And I really 
appreciate that. Mr. Rodriguez, I just have a little bit of 
time left, but I wanted to talk with you a little bit about 
the, Every Student Succeeds Act and how it supports 
opportunities for students to receive high quality STEM 
education and also pursue advanced coursework while they are in 
high school, as well as, getting advanced coursework done.
    We have a great program in Minnesota, the post-secondary 
enrollment option, which is a huge benefit to students as 
they--it helps them get the coursework that they want. It also 
helps them to save money once they are entering higher 
education. So in just a few seconds I have left, could you just 
talk a little bit about how you see these kinds of options, how 
important they are for students and our Country, and what we 
should do to support them as well?
    Mr. Rodriguez. Yes, well thank you, Senator, for the 
question. And it is such an important issue. We have to do 
better to provide our young people the opportunity to prepare 
fully and to engage more fully and earlier in their career, 
even in middle and high school, in terms of what comes next, 
whether that is post-secondary education, career training, 
workforce readiness. And we know there is so much promise in 
some of these dual enrollment and early college high school 
programs.
    We also know that the data tells us that our students of 
color and our students that are concentrated in high poverty 
schools are much less likely to have access to those programs. 
So, if confirmed, I would be looking forward to looking more at 
that data and determining what we can do to really help partner 
and provide more guidance to our districts and more support to 
expand those opportunities to earn early college credit, to 
gain the workforce readiness skills and the post-secondary 
readiness orientation that they need to be able to transition 
into higher education and complete their degree, and there is 
just so many countless examples of where communities have done 
that well.
    Our young people are looking forward to their future. They 
want to engage in that opportunity to prepare for college and 
for their future earlier. And so, much of that is about our 
catching up as a system to be able to support them and to meet 
them where they are.
    Senator Smith. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Collins.
    Senator Collins. Thank you. First, let me welcome all three 
of our nominees today. Ms. Lhamon, let me start with you. I 
want to follow-up on Senator Smith's question to you about 
school discipline. Do you believe that school discipline should 
primarily be a state and local matter, or should it be dictated 
by the Federal Government?
    Ms. Lhamon. Oh, I hope very much that school discipline 
would be a local matter in the main--in the first instance.
    Senator Collins. Thank you. I would hope that it would go 
without saying, but I am going to say it nevertheless, that 
each and every Member of this Committee is very concerned about 
sexual assault on campus. We should have a no tolerance policy. 
The Sixth Circuit, along with other courts, has ruled, however, 
that in conducting Title IX investigations of sexual assaults, 
that public institutions of higher education must provide 
parties with an opportunity to see the evidence, to cross 
examine before a neutral fact finder.
    At your interview with the HELP Committee staff, you stated 
that you do not believe that accused people should necessarily 
have that right in all instances to know the evidence being 
used against them. And in fact, your Title IX guidance that you 
issued in 2014 did not provide for the opportunity for cross 
examination. The Title IX rule issued by--that is in effect 
right now grants equal rights to both the accuser and the 
accused to access and inspect relevant evidence in sexual 
misconduct or assault cases in schools.
    Will you ensure, as you look at this issue, that there are 
due process protections for both the accuser and the accused in 
any Title IX reform that your office undertakes and that it is 
in accordance with decisions such as that issued by the Sixth 
Circuit?
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you so much for the question, Senator 
Collins. And this is an issue that I struggle with. I think is 
an issue I understand to be important to your constituents and 
around the country. I will say several things. One, I will 
absolutely follow the law. The Sixth Circuit is binding on the 
states that are within it and I would absolutely ensure that 
the enforcement practice of the Office for Civil Rights follows 
binding law. In addition, you asked what I would do with 
respect to changes in the regulation, and I don't control that 
on my own.
    The regulation that the Department is considering will go 
through a process that includes the Department of Education, 
all of the other Departments that have equities in Title IX, 
the Department of Justice, the White House, and there will be 
an ultimate decision. I am not there. I don't know what public 
comment has been. I don't know how that process is going. I 
would--it would be very important to me to ensure that there is 
absolute fealty to what the law is and that colleges and 
universities, school districts, students are not subject to 
competing authorities.
    I can promise you that. In in addition, I just want to 
clarify that the 2014 guidance that I signed, did not direct 
that cross examination could not happen. And it also did direct 
that if it happened, that there should be parity as between ACU 
students and complainants. And it strongly discouraged that the 
students themselves participate in the cross examination, which 
is consistent with the Title IX regulation that is current now.
    Senator Collins. When you were Assistant Secretary, as 
Senator Burr mentioned, you often relied on informal guidance 
to implement significant policy reforms. That concerns me 
because I think that the APA, the Administrative Procedure Act, 
is really important to get public input, and that when we get 
public input, we usually come out with better informed 
regulations. Do you still intend to, if you are confirmed, to 
rely on guidance or dear colleague letters rather than going 
through the formal process?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator, the Department has begun the formal 
process now with respect to Title IX. So----
    Senator Collins. I mean in general.
    Ms. Lhamon. I will say I am really excited about the 
opportunity to participate in the regulatory process. I didn't 
have that opportunity when I led the Office for Civil Rights in 
2013 through 2017. When I came that time, the regulatory agenda 
was largely set. I was there in the second term of the Obama 
administration. So it is really a thrill to me to contemplate 
being able to participate in that process. And I look very much 
forward to it. That would be very different for me.
    Senator Collins. Thank you.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Murphy.
    Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good to 
see all three of you. Simon, great to see you back reentering 
public service. I was grateful to work with you during your 
prior time at the Department. Two quick comments. I suspect 
that Senator Tuberville's line of questioning will be the last 
time that we hear in this Committee about the issue of 
transgender athletes. And I am not speaking to the intent of 
anybody on this Committee, but I do know that the intent of 
many others behind this public relations campaign isn't really 
to protect female athletes. The number of female athletes that 
are going to be impacted by high level transgender athletes is 
fairly, fairly infinitesimal.
    Much of this agenda really is, unfortunately, about trying 
to marginalize these kids and make people fear them, make 
people see them as a threat. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. These are kids who, just like all of our kids, want to 
participate in athletics, an experience that is central to 
coming of age for millions of kids all across this country. And 
the idea that we would deny that to anyone in this Nation 
simply because of their sexual orientation I think is deeply 
un-American. Second, I want to associate myself with the 
comments and the questions from Senator Smith.
    I won't spend time asking questions about school discipline 
here, but I want to thank Senator Murray for being such a great 
partner on a number of initiatives that I hope the Committee 
will be taking up, in particular initiatives around the way in 
which we restrain and seclude children when they are acting 
out. Far too many kids are effectively being physically hurt, 
often shuttered into what some schools call scream rooms when 
they are acting out and often as a manifestation of their 
disability. And I hope that we will pursue legislation that is 
going to try to make sure our schools are using best practices 
when it comes to restraining our kids, best practices writ 
large on matters of school discipline.
    I agree with Senator Collins. This is a local matter, but 
the Federal Government has helped school districts by providing 
some really solid guidance and enforcement when necessary, when 
school discipline is being meted out very differently to kids 
of color or kids with disabilities. But I want to ask you about 
another topic, and that is a really disturbing trend that has 
been playing out for a number of decades. I mean, it is 
essentially what we have seen across the country is in some 
ways a resegregation of American schools.
    I think we just took it for granted over a number of years 
that we had gotten beyond the days in which White kids and 
Black kids and Hispanic kids went to school differently, that 
we were on a path to be able to make sure that everybody had 
the opportunity to go to schools that were racially and 
economically diverse. But if you look at just the time since 
1988, the share of what we call intensely segregated nonwhite 
schools has more than tripled in this country today. More than 
one third of White students in this country go to racially 
isolated schools where their schools are 90 to 100 percent 
white.
    I think that robs kids--I don't think the Federal 
Government needs to play a heavy hand here, but I think that 
does rob kids of a really critical experience of going to 
school with kids that come from different backgrounds than you. 
I have introduced legislation that would simply provide some 
Federal funding to help voluntary efforts at the state and 
local level when states and local Governments want to try to 
offer opportunities for school districts to integrate both 
socially and economically.
    My question just to you is, how important do you think it 
is for students to attend racially and socially, economically 
diverse classrooms? And what role do you think the Federal 
Government can play in making sure that all our schools can be 
diverse and inclusive learning environments?
    Ms. Lhamon. Well, I think it is crucial, Senator. I think 
that giving our students an opportunity to learn in 
environments that reflect the world is really important and 
prepares them for their working lives and for democratic 
participation thereafter. So I think it is crucial and that one 
of the programs that I love that the Office for Civil Rights 
has an opportunity to manage is the Magnet Schools Assistance 
Program.
    Connecticut schools are huge beneficiaries actually in that 
program historically and have really led the Nation in terms of 
the kinds of integration and truly amazing kinds of experiences 
that schools can offer that I think many other states could 
benefit from watching and replicating that. But for me, that is 
a program I am eager to be able to return to and to be able to 
help facilitate that desegregated, integrationist efforts that 
follow from it.
    Senator Murphy. Well, this wasn't a set up, but I 
appreciate your--I appreciate your championing of the Magnet 
School program. We have a Federal grant fund that I lead a 
letter every year of Republicans and Democrats asking for 
increased funding for magnet schools because they are a 
wonderful way for school districts and states to be able to 
bring kids together from across a broad spectrum of 
backgrounds. So look forward to working with you on that. Thank 
you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy. Thank you all for offering to serve. 
Really appreciate it. Mr. Lhamon, you had mentioned in your 
response to Senator Burr about how you would enforce current 
law. But I have a tweet here from May 2020 in which you say, 
@betsydevosed presides over taking us back to the battle old 
days a pre-date my birth when it was permissible to rape and 
sexually aroused students with impunity. Students deserve 
better, including very protections consistent with the law. 
Now, that was your tweet about the law that you are currently 
saying that you will enforce.
    Do you want to square that circle? Do you see what I am 
saying? It seems as if you are saying to Senator Burr that you 
are going to defend something which you say gives permission to 
rape and sexually harass students with impunity. Would you 
really use those laws or do you have an issue with the laws or 
would--I don't--there seems to be a cognitive dissonance here.
    Ms. Lhamon. If I am privileged to be confirmed in this 
role, Senator, thank you for asking--if I am privileged to be 
confirmed in the role, my responsibility would be to enforce 
the law as it exists, and that is the law.
    Senator Cassidy. Even though the law says that it gives 
permission to rape and sexually harass with impunity, you would 
enforce that law?
    Ms. Lhamon. Yes.
    Senator Cassidy. Okay. I presume therefore you would--just 
begging the question that you would then advocate to change the 
law as it currently stands?
    Ms. Lhamon. Well Senator the Department has begun--I am not 
there, but the Department has begun a process to evaluate 
that--evaluate that regulation and to determine whether and how 
it should be changed.
    Senator Cassidy. Do you think as if the law has been 
implemented, that it is given the right to rape and sexually 
harass with impunity?
    Ms. Lhamon. I think the regulation--I think what I said in 
the tweet so that the regulation permits students to rape and 
sexually harass with impunity. I think that the law, that the 
regulation has weakened the intent of Title IX the Congress 
wrote.
    Senator Cassidy. If somebody rapes, they can do it with 
impunity? I mean, if a college kid goes out and rapes a woman, 
he has no penalty whatsoever under the current regulation?
    Ms. Lhamon. It allows a student to rape--maybe Senator I 
could give an example of what I had in mind that I was worried 
about when I wrote that tweet. Among the resolutions that I 
oversaw when I led the Office for Civil Rights included 
resolutions where, for example, at Michigan State a student 
reported that she had been sexually harassed by a counselor in 
the counseling office when she went to counseling about sexual 
harassment. She reported it to the counseling office. Under the 
current regulation, there would be no responsibility for the 
school to investigate.
    Senator Cassidy. If he raped her, would there be, or she 
raped her would there be a consequence under current rules? 
There certainly would be under criminal law, right?
    Ms. Lhamon. If someone chose to prosecute, the criminal 
process would apply. If a student had been raped and did not 
report to the Title IX coordinator or to someone else at the 
school designated as able to bind the school, the school would 
have no responsibility to take action under the current----
    Senator Cassidy. I assume the DA would.
    Ms. Lhamon. The DA would have an option to choose whether 
to prosecute.
    Senator Cassidy. Okay, let me ask you something else. I am 
going to bring up transgender, not because, as Senator Murphy 
suggested, want to discriminate against these kids. It is just 
I am a doctor. If you take a child who is post adolescent and 
who was born a male, he or she, if he is undergoing the 
transition, is going to be physiologically much stronger than 
the female. Period. End of story. That is objective truth.
    Now, that said, if he or she, she has made the transition, 
competes on a track event, she is going to win. If she is 
throwing the shot-put and she is built that way, she is going 
to win. It seems as if the discrimination cuts both ways. And I 
think that is what Senator Tuberville was saying that you don't 
want to discriminate against the young person who is undergoing 
transition, but it is effectively a discrimination against the 
young lady who was born a biologic female because she has no 
chance. It will be effectively an inability for her to win.
    I agree, it is infinitesimally small. On the other hand, 
isn't it something that we should consider? Now, do you feel as 
if the young lady is being discriminated against in those 
circumstances, the biologic female?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator I would need to know more facts to be 
able to answer that in the abstract. I think you are absolutely 
right to lift up the concern for every student and that 
nondiscrimination right to Title IX provides applies to every 
student. And that if I were at the Office for Civil Rights and 
we were investigating a complaint or a set of circumstances of 
the type that you are describing, we would be absolutely 
concerned to make sure that----
    Senator Cassidy. You are being a little lawyerly there. Ms. 
Brown, real quickly, my last, you will be tasked with looking 
at the legality of debt cancellation. And there is just an 
article in The Wall Street Journal out, Columbia University, 
the average person going to their master's in film ends up with 
debt of $181,000 and they get paid $30,000.
    That is because I am told that for graduate programs, the 
amount of debt that is allowed is uncapped. Aren't we creating 
a moral hazard for school like Columbia to charge even more for 
a program which really pays very little relative to the cost if 
we begin to do debt cancellation? I mean, do you have an 
opinion on that?
    Ms. Brown. Excuse me, Senator. If I am lucky enough to be 
confirmed, my job is to advise on the legal aspects and I am 
not the policymaker, so I have to defer to the policymakers on 
any policy questions.
    Senator Cassidy. Your opinion.
    Ms. Brown. This is--student debt is a very, as you know, 
very highly regulated area with a number of congressional 
authorities. And I will very much look forward to ensuring that 
the Department is enforcing those authorities----
    Senator Cassidy. Columbia may have a real payday in the 
future. Anyway, thank you very much. I yield back.
    The Chair. Senator Lujan.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you to Chair Murray and to Ranking 
Member Burr for holding this important hearing. And thank you 
to each of the witnesses and for all the families joining us 
today to effectively serve and educate all of their students. 
Hispanic serving institutions require up to date and smart 
infrastructure. Unfortunately, many HSI classrooms are out of 
date.
    Their libraries lack essential digital asset holdings, and 
their buildings are not equipped with the necessary broadband 
and technology that enhances the teaching and learning 
experiences for students. That is why I led a letter with 
Senators Maria Menendez and Cortez Masto to leadership 
advocating for additional infrastructure funding for each site.
    Mr. Rodriguez, how would you, as Assistant Secretary for 
Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, address the 
disparities we see in HSI infrastructure funding?
    Mr. Rodriguez. Well, thank you, Senator, for the question 
and thank you for your leadership in helping to further secure 
and strengthen our Hispanic serving institutions. They are 
critical sources of support and higher education for millions 
of our students. And if confirmed, I would look forward to 
working closely with our Office of Post-Secondary Education, 
with the Office of Undersecretary and with the Secretary to 
explore how we can further support and strengthen all of our 
minority serving institutions, but certainly our Hispanic 
serving institutions.
    I know that there is a need for more dedicated dollars, 
specifically for infrastructure, for broadband, but also for 
modernization of facilities across our HSIs. And they play an 
important role not just in supporting higher education 
attainment for our Latino community, but also for supporting a 
robust learning community in many of our Latino communities 
around the country. So I would look forward to working closely 
with you and with my colleagues and the Administration to that 
end.
    Senator Lujan. Well, and as a reminder, 66.8 percent of 
Hispanic students, 41.3 percent of Asian students, 35.6 percent 
of Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, 26.2 percent multiracial, 
24.2 percent of Black, 15 percent of White students attend 
HSIs. And so we are providing more of a reach when there is 
support here. Mr. Rodriguez, in your role as Chief Executive 
Officer of Teach Plus, you emphasize the importance of 
educators having a role in setting policy. As the Assistant 
Secretary for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy 
Development, how will you advise Secretary Cardona to support 
the recruitment and retention of diverse teachers?
    Mr. Rodriguez. Well, Senator, thank you for the question. 
This is a really important priority for me personally, and I 
have worked hard over my tenure at Teach Plus to raise the 
voices and the vision and the support of our teachers to 
diversify our teacher pipeline and to do better in terms of how 
we are preparing and supporting the success in the early years 
of our diverse educators across the country. We know that over 
half of our public school enrollment now are students of color, 
and yet fewer than 20 percent of our teachers are teachers of 
color. When we look at our Latino teachers, for instance, are 
Latino male teachers, we are looking at less than 5 percent of 
the teaching workforce.
    It is an important signal and opportunity for students to 
be able to have windows and mirrors, to be able to see 
themselves in their education and to be able to have that level 
of mentorship and support across their learning. The--as you 
know, Senator President Biden's budget places a high priority 
on improving the preparation and building the pipeline for our 
diverse educators. Beyond that, in addition to that pre-service 
experience, we know that we have much more work to do to build 
opportunities for leadership and advancement in the field so 
that we not only are recruiting but retaining our teachers of 
color in their buildings.
    That is about building a stronger school culture. That is 
about providing opportunities for our teachers of color to not 
have to pay an invisible tax alongside their nonminority peers 
in terms of their professional career, to be able to take on 
opportunities to shape instruction, shape culture, support 
learning, alongside their principles. And it is also about 
doing better in terms of training and orienting our principles 
in our other teachers.
    I would look forward, I am excited about that agenda and 
about the opportunity to contribute to that further. And we 
will look forward to working with you and others to that end.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you. And Chair, I do have another 
question, but I will submit it into the record for a response. 
Thank you again. And thank you to the witnesses and your 
families for being here.
    Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you.
    The Chair. Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member 
Burr, and congratulations to the nominees. Ms. Lhamon, I want 
to talk to you about a topic that I know is very important to 
you from your time working with the commission, the Civil 
Rights Commission, but it is also a huge part of the workload 
of the office to which you are nominated and to which I hope 
you will be confirmed, and that is students with disabilities. 
I was surprised to learn in my discussion with you that the 
biggest component of the workload of your office is issues 
dealing with students with disabilities. Maybe describe that, 
if you would.
    Ms. Lhamon. Sure. Thank you, Senator. Historically, at the 
Office for Civil Rights, roughly 60 percent of the complaints 
that come in are complaints that address issues related to 
students with disabilities, and that has held steady over time. 
So the vast majority of the work that the Office for Civil 
Rights does is to protect the civil rights of students with 
disabilities. And I am passionate about it.
    Senator Kaine. How--what are some areas of just sort of 
right out of the gate, should you be confirmed, that you would 
be focused on in trying to advance the educational success of 
students with disabilities?
    Ms. Lhamon. Well Senator, first, I strongly believe that so 
much of the work of the Office for Civil Rights is complaint 
driven. It tends to receive more than 10,000 complaints a year. 
And so some of that would be depending on what kinds of 
complaints are coming in and what are the range of issues that 
people are addressing. The kinds of issues that I have not lost 
sight of in the four and a half years since I left the 
Department include times when schools subjected students 
unlawfully to restraint and seclusion. And there was one case 
in particular, I remember the mom driving up to the school and 
hearing her 9 year old inside the school screaming because the 
child was subject to restraint.
    In that case, the child had been subject to prior restraint 
in the school year for more time than the child had not at 
school. And that is unconscionable. I mean, that child may 
never recover from the harm that the school visited on the 
child and the child could have died. So those kinds of 
circumstances are ones I hope never to see repeated. And I was 
so proud to be able to work with the Office to correct that for 
the family and also to ensure that no other child would be 
subjected to that harm. Another investigation I think of, and 
this one sounds small, but it was enormous for the family, it 
was a child who had been admitted to a charter school. And 
charter schools are public, as we know, and that once admitted 
the family had come to an admission and school leadership had 
seen that the child had difficulty walking down a short 
distance.
    The school communicated to the family that the child 
couldn't come. They disenrolled with the child and said we 
don't serve mental disabilities and we can't serve your child. 
It was a five inch drop to the playground for this kindergarten 
to be able to get down. And it would require a ramp to make 
sure that he could get there, and the school was going to 
exclude him because of his disability. And we stopped that from 
happening.
    You know that the inclusion, that the assurance that every 
child is valuable, that every child can be part of a school 
community is what I want to return to. And I will say, so, this 
is very personal for me. My brother has cerebral palsy, and I 
grew up watching educators ensure that my brother could be 
fully included in class and the difference that it made in his 
life and my family's life.
    He is a teacher now. So, it meant the world for him, and he 
is giving back. And I want to make sure that every other 
student, like my brother, has that kind of opportunity.
    Senator Kaine. This is extremely important to me 
personally. And I know many Members of the Committee feel the 
same way. And one of the things I have always noticed about 
education policy for students with disabilities is whatever 
Congress does in education, like No Child Left Behind, you will 
get Governors and folks in states and localities saying you 
shouldn't have done that, please repeal it.
    Nobody has ever said repeal IDEA, except we should fund it 
better or sometimes the paperwork is too intense. But it is 
probably like the only law that has ever been passed in an area 
where there is controversy about everything that no one has 
ever said repeal it because the delta between what students 
with disabilities were able to achieve pre-IDEA and what they 
have achieved because of the IDEA is so vast and there is still 
so much more that we can do. Let me ask you one other question 
on this topic, the pandemic has been horrible. However, we have 
learned some things during the pandemic that we shouldn't lose 
sight of the lessons we have learned.
    The ability of educators, both K-12 and higher level, to 
advance virtual online zoom learning does provide some 
opportunities for students, some students with disabilities and 
some families that we shouldn't let go of. We should continue 
to incorporate that if it is the right thing for the student. 
Would you agree with me on that?
    Ms. Lhamon. I absolutely agree that we should incorporate 
what is right for students and I would want to make sure that 
we have appropriate civil rights guardrails in place also. But 
I am very grateful that there are some silver linings that we 
can find from this pandemic, including ways to best serve 
students and schools.
    Senator Kaine. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair 
Murray.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. Madam Chair, just a couple of follow-up 
questions, if I can. Ms. Lhamon, the circuit court decisions 
that have been referenced to, Third and Sixth respectively, 
were determined in 2018 and 2020. Were those decisions in place 
when you were at OCR before, would that have limited what you 
would have been able to impose on Title IX in your estimation?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator had those decisions been in place, the 
Office for Civil Rights absolutely would have followed them in 
their jurisdictions where they are controlling.
    Senator Burr. Okay, thank you for that. Earlier, you said 
that the current Title IX regulation didn't include a 
presumption of innocence standard. And in fact, in sections 
106.45, the regulation says this, ``include a presumption that 
the respondent is not responsible for the alleged conduct until 
a determination regarding responsibility is made at the 
conclusion of the grievance process.'' So you gave me a crafty 
answer.
    Let me ask you again, the current regulation requires a 
presumption that the respondent is not responsible until proven 
otherwise, which we commonly call presumption of innocence. My 
question is not about the current regulation, but what you 
think should be the standard. Should the standard be 
presumption that the respondent is not responsible until proven 
otherwise?
    Ms. Lhamon. Senator if I may, I did not mean to over-lawyer 
you on that answer and I appreciate that chance to come back to 
it. I, maybe because I am a lawyer, I am so focused on a 
criminal process that is different from an administrative 
process in school. And I will enforce the standard that exists. 
And to your question about what should or shouldn't be there, I 
want to say that the views I hold sitting here are not the 
views that I would be able to impose or not impose.
    There is a regulatory process that involves lots of people, 
not only me, not me at all at the moment, that is underway at 
the Department of Education. But my view is that civil rights 
investigators, investigators at schools need to start from the 
presumption that the facts are what they are, and you need to 
find out what they are. So they shouldn't be assuming somebody 
is guilty because the person has been accused, shouldn't be 
guilty--guilty is not even the right word. So now I have walked 
into the criminal process.
    They shouldn't be assuming that someone is responsible 
because a person has been accused. They should be open to the 
possibility that the person is not. And I absolutely support 
that. I think that is important in an investigative process.
    Senator Burr. I am appreciative. That clears some things 
up. It doesn't go unnoticed that you have repeatedly answered 
on this side of the aisle that you really are not in control, 
that there is a process. But when you answered over there, your 
answer was, you accept that you will have authority and 
responsibility for policy and recommendations made by your 
office. Can't be both ways. And it is not a question, I just 
want to point it out because I think sometimes it is good to 
reflect on what you have said and to whom you have said it.
    I think that we have tried to emphasize the fact that 
public comment, transparency, input comments are an important 
part. And that was not necessarily the path that you chose last 
time you were in the Office. I hope this time we will choose a 
pathway that does include public comment, if that is what the 
officer is doing currently before you are confirmed. Great. I 
look forward to sharing those comments with us prior to any 
decision that you might make. I thank the Chair.
    The Chair. Ms. Lhamon, do you want to respond?
    Ms. Lhamon. Thank you. Senator Murray and Senator Burr. 
First, I appreciate your confidence I will be confirmed. So 
thank you for that. And I did not mean to communicate a 
different answer to one side of the aisle than to the other. I 
said in my opening that I believe civil rights are bipartisan. 
I believe that they are. And I would be evenhanded in the ways 
that I work with Members of Congress, and I would be evenhanded 
in the ways that I would be enforcing the law if I were 
confirmed to the Office.
    The Chair. Thank you. That will end our hearing for today. 
And I want to thank all of our colleagues for their 
participation. I really want to thank all of our witnesses, Ms. 
Lhamon, Ms. Brown, Mr. Rodriguez, for your time and for your 
very thoughtful answers to all of you. I look forward to 
working with each of you to tackle the challenges that students 
and educators and schools are facing.
    For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions, 
questions for the record will be due tomorrow at 5 p.m.. The 
hearing record will remain open for 10 business days for 
Members who wish to submit additional materials for the record.
    This Committee will meet next on Thursday, July 15th at 10 
a.m. at Dirksen 430 for a hearing on the nominations of David 
Weil to serve as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of 
the Department of Labor, and Gwynne Wilcox and David Prouty to 
serve as members of the National Labor Relations Board. And 
with that, the Committee stands adjourned. Thank you.

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    [Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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