The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Joe Biden administration’s plan to cancel the student debt of millions of college students.
In a decision by the court’s conservative majority, and challenged by the three progressive justices, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration had no legal basis to authorize such measures.
The plan had been proposed by the Democratic head of state to ease the economic hardship of college students caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but was contested by attorneys general of several Republican-controlled states.
In a decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority of the justices sided with the state of Missouri, which argued that the debt forgiveness measure would hurt the revenues of a government agency that administers student loans.
In this sense, Roberts explains, U.S. law allows the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, “to make modest adjustments and additions to existing regulations (…), not to transform them.”
These adjustments, according to Roberts, created “a fundamentally different new blueprint for debt relief”.
In a dissenting opinion, written by Judge Elena Kagan and supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, these progressive justices argue that “the court today is in every respect beyond its proper and limited role in the governance of the nation.”
In late August last year, Biden announced that he would forgive some of the debt millions of college students took on with the federal government to pay for their college tuition.
The opposition argued that the plan would cost the state coffers $400 billion over the next 30 years.
Also this Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that a Christian graphic artist who wants to create marriage websites can refuse to serve same-sex couples.
The conservative majority court ruled — by a vote of six to three — in favor of “designer” Lorie Smith, outside of a Colorado state law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender and other characteristics. Smith argued that the law violates his right to free speech.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ended affirmative action programs at universities and rejected the possibility of compensation quotas for some minorities.
The majority of six conservative justices (some appointed by former President Donald Trump), contrary to the opinion of the three progressive justices, considered university admissions procedures based on candidates’ skin color or ethnicity to be unconstitutional.
Several US Republican leaders and conservative organizations, led by Trump, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to shut down affirmative action programs in colleges.
Source: DN
