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Rep. Virginia Foxx said in a heated exchange with Acting Education Secretary John B. King Jr. this morning that she thinks the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is out of line.

Foxx, the leading candidate to become the next chair of the House education committee, said that “for too long, the OCR has gone around Congress,” and she isn’t sure about the “legitimacy and effectiveness” of the agency’s actions. And “the office has used the Dear Colleague process and implied threat of investigation” to spur action from colleges and universities, Foxx said.

King replied by saying the office’s mission is to ensure students’ rights are protected. Dear Colleague letters issued by OCR “do not have force of law” and “are an attempt to provide clarity for the field,” King said.

Foxx shot back that, to colleges, it can feel like Dear Colleague letters do have the force of law.

Rep. Todd Rokita said he thought Foxx’s questions were “straightforward and reasonable” and pressed King to commit to giving more extensive, written answers to her questions soon.