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The Department of Education is taking ‘actions to correct any abuses imposed on Department employees by prior Administration officials,’ spokesperson says
The U.S. Department of Education has promised to take action after a new investigation substantiated evidence that Biden administration officials pressured schools to comply with “radical gender identity” policies in alleged violation a court order.
Department spokesperson Amelia Joy told The College Fix the Biden administration showed a “complete disregard” for Title IX, and instead “continued to implement its radical gender identity agenda through what appears to be coercion and intimidation of Federal employees.”
The “clear statutory purpose of Title IX [is] to protect the rights of women and girls, and to prevent sex-based discrimination,” Joy said in a recent email.
She praised the whistleblower in the department’s Office for Civil Rights who came forward with the evidence. An Office of Special Counsel investigation substantiated the whistleblower’s allegations in a report published earlier this month.
“Based on the Department’s investigation and OSC’s substantiation, the Department is taking remedial actions to correct any abuses imposed on Department employees by prior Administration officials,” Joy told The Fix.
Those named in the investigation include Catherine Lhamon, former assistant secretary of civil rights under the Biden administration. Lhamon left the office in January 2025 and is currently the inaugural director of UC Berkeley Law’s Edley Center on Law and Democracy.
Under Lhamon’s leadership, the whistleblower alleges attorneys in the Education Department’s civil rights office were pressured to ignore a court order blocking the Biden administration’s “gender identity” policies.
However, Lhamon’s current employer expressed confidence in her integrity when contacted by The Fix.
UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chermerinksky said in an emailed statement June 18 that Lhamon was hired after a “thorough national search,” the allegations are “unsubstantiated,” and they “do not change [the law school’s] confidence in her.”
The Fix also contacted Lhamon for comment twice over the past week via email to ask about the allegations, but did not receive a response. There is no phone number listed for her or the Edley Center on the Berkeley website.
A June 9 letter from U.S. Office of Special Counsel Chief Counsel Charles Baldis to President Donald Trump states that the department “fully substantiated all of the whistleblower’s allegations.”
The investigation found that office leaders under President Joe Biden “actively engaged in efforts to thwart at least one OCR regional office, Region VII, from following the plain and unambiguous meaning of the court order, and may also have engaged in actions to conceal those efforts, including the use of coercion or intimidation.”
MORE: Department of Education botches Title IX obligations in response to Congress, ex-official says
Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a government watchdog organization that represents the whistleblower, believes the special counsel’s findings warrant action.
Leavitt told The Fix via email Monday that the investigation’s findings are “more than enough to warrant accountability.” He said he wants to see “meaningful change … to make sure this never happens again.”
The report was “a clear vindication” for whistleblower Timothy Mattson “and the rule of law,” Leavitt said in a news release.
Mattson now leads the regional Office of Civil Rights in Kansas City. He first filed the complaint in 2024, but it was not made public until October of last year.
The new Office of Special Counsel investigation substantiates Mattson’s allegations, a reversal of the findings in an initial investigation published under the Biden administration.
In his letter to Trump, Baldis said the initial investigation failed to “accurately assess readily available materials.”
The Office of Special Counsel’s full report, published June 10, cites evidence from the civil rights office’s Kansas City branch that Lhamon told attorneys “to continue opening and investigating Title IX … complaints including those covered by the preliminary injunction.”
Lhamon allegedly also told the office that “there is a chance we may be found in violation of the injunction if we continue to move forward on these cases,” but “this is a fight worth having,” according to the report.
During a July 26, 2022 virtual meeting, Lhamon allegedly said she “believes the Court overstepped its authority” and she “disagrees with the guidance from OGC and DOJ attorneys working on the federal litigation regarding the preliminary injunction,” according to one source in the investigation.
Allegedly, Lhamon addressed concerns from officials by offering to pay any fines and personal legal representation through the department if any of them were found in contempt for violating the court injunction, according to the investigation.
The whistleblower claimed Lhamon also was concerned about potential open records requests and dissenting staff records. Lhamon “stated she [did] not appreciate email traffic on [the] topic” and expected people to have conversations, the investigation alleges.
The Kansas City regional director at the time also recalled during a Feb. 29, 2024 virtual meeting, Lhamon allegedly threatened him and Mattson that they “would be choosing to lose [their] jobs if [they] didn’t act as [she] instructed,” according to the investigation.
When Mattson and other attorneys showed resistance, the investigation found, leaders assigned their cases to “more compliant” regional offices in Chicago and Seattle. Staff members at the department told investigators this was “extremely unusual.”
As The Fix previously reported:
The matter has to do with the Democrat administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX, which added “gender identity and sexual orientation” as protected categories in the anti-discrimination law.
In July 2022, after 20 states sued, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking the change.
However, Mattson’s complaint to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel alleges his department continued to open and investigate these cases. This put pressure on schools and colleges to comply with the Biden administration’s views on gender.
Cases included an Alaska school district that banned male athletes who claim to be female from girls’ sports, according to the complaint.
Since the report substantiating the whistleblower’s claims was released, at least one Republican lawmaker has called for the government to hold leaders accountable.
Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt commented on X that the Education Department should identify officials involved in this misconduct and “impose discipline where warranted.” He also wants to “audit every affected OCR case in the covered states.”
While he was Missouri’s attorney general, he was a part of the 20 states that sued the Biden administration over its gender identity policies.
Schmitt’s media relations team did not respond to The Fix’s emails June 17 and 21 asking what specific steps he would like the department to take next regarding the investigation’s findings.
MORE: Biden official kept enforcing ‘gender identity’ rule despite court order: whistleblower
