Catherine Lhamon

Catherine Lhamon chairs the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to which President Obama appointed her in 2016. Until December 2020, Lhamon served as Legal Affairs Secretary to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Before then, Lhamon was Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, to which President Obama nominated her and the Senate confirmed her in 2013. Lhamon has also litigated civil rights cases at National Center for Youth Law, Public Counsel Law Center, and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. Lhamon taught federal civil rights appeals at Georgetown University Law Center in the Appellate Litigation Program and clerked for the Honorable William A. Norris on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Born in Virginia and raised in California, Lhamon graduated from Amherst College and Yale Law School. Lhamon lives in California with her husband and two daughters.