WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on Friday dashed President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe out student loan debt for 26 million Americans, ending a program that was intended to ease the financial burden on families in the latest significant ruling from the high court that curbs a president’s power to act alone.
In one of the most closely followed cases before the court, with sweeping implications for the balance of power in Washington and the household finances of millions of families, a majority ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its power by attempting to forgive $400 billion in student loans lingering during the pandemic.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision for a 6-3 court.
People of color will feel impact of Supreme Court’s decisions
Friday’s opinion gutting mass student loan debt forgiveness is the second in as many days that hits people of color especially hard. On Thursday, the court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
Black and brown students are more likely to borrow and hold a disproportionate amount of student loan debt.
Advocates were quick to call on the Biden administration to act.
“Our communities often face intersecting forms of discrimination and systemic disadvantages, restricting access to higher education and economic opportunities,” said David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a Black LGBTQ+ civil rights group. “Our democracy will be weakened as a result of this ruling.”
Biden to announce new actions for student loan borrowers after SCOTUS defeat
President Joe Biden will announce new actions to protect student loan borrowers, the White House said Friday after the Supreme Court killed the president’s debt forgiveness plan in a 6-3 opinion.
“While we strongly disagree with the court, we prepared for this scenario. The president will have more to say today,” said a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said Biden will make clear in his remarks that “he’s not done fighting yet.” He will also make it “crystal clear to borrowers and their families that Republicans are responsible for denying them the relief that President Biden has been fighting to get to them.”
Supreme Court decision major loss for Biden, families with debt
Biden’s attorneys walked into court as underdogs, up against a years-long project by the court’s conservative majority to limit the power of federal agencies. The administration has lost similar legal fights over efforts to extend an eviction moratorium, impose vaccine-or-testing requirements on large employers and curb power plant emissions.
The decision represents a significant loss for students and families who were counting on the relief. Biden’s proposal would have forgiven up to $20,000 for some borrowers. The White House seems to have few options for a Plan B and administration aides repeatedly declined to answer questions about next steps while the case was pending.
It’s also a major political defeat for Biden, depriving him of the ability to claim he fulfilled a campaign promise aimed at his political base. Student debt relief emerged as a central issue in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and progressive groups were leaning on Biden even before the Supreme Court handed down its decision.
Roberts, Kagan engage in unusual exchange over court’s role
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan claimed that the majority “blows through a constitutional guardrail intended to keep courts acting like courts,” a reference to the Supreme Court’s decision that Missouri had standing to sue in the first place. Kagan’s words, appeared to harken back to a speech she gave last year arguing that the best way to ensure the court’s trust with the public was for courts to “act like a court.”
The point drew an unusual response from Chief Justice John Roberts at the end of his opinion.
“It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” Roberts wrote. “We do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement. It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.”
What the Supreme Court said in its student loan decision
Roberts wrote that the secretary of education had argued that the HEROES Act “grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not.” The act, Roberts said, “allows the Secretary to ‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up.”
Justice Elena Kagan, who read her dissent from the bench, said that “in every respect, the court today exceeds its proper, limited role in our nation’s governance.”
Outside the court: ‘My whole future is in front of them.’
The scene outside the Supreme Court was subdued in the hour before the first opinion came down, with hardly any protesters gathered in the haze and humidity of the morning.
One person showed up mostly covered in a cardboard box painted black to represent the Bible.
Melissa Byrne, the founder of a group called We the 45 Million was taping a sign to a lectern encouraging the court to allow Biden’s relief effort to stand. Byrne, who is still carrying student loan debt herself, said she was somewhat hopeful for a positive ruling based on how the justices have tossed out other recent lawsuits on standing.
“My whole future is in front of them,” she said. “They have a lot of power.”
Supreme Court’s two Black justices debate affirmative action
The frequency of unanimous opinions doesn’t mean the term has been free from tension. There have been notable instances of the justices sniping at each other’s arguments, including in the major affirmative action case this week.
Justices Clarence Thomas, a conservative who is the court’s second Black justice, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal and the court’s first Black woman, put their disagreement over race-based policies on display in opinions in the affirmative action cases Thursday.
“Rather than focusing on individuals as individuals, her dissent focuses on the historical subjugation of black Americans,” Thomas wrote of Jackson in concurrence. “As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of Black Americans still determining our lives today.”
In a footnote, Jackson described Thomas’ writing as a “prolonged attack.” His opinion, she wrote, “demonstrates an obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or UNC’s holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants’ unique life experiences.”
Student loans, LGBTQ cases round out significant term
The final two cases expected Monday will bring to close a significant term in which the justices agreed far more often than they split along ideological lines.
Some of the most surprising outcomes came in voting rights cases, where the lineups were unusual. Last week, the court shot down a conservative theory that could have given state lawmakers extraordinary power to set election rules in their states with little oversight from courts. That was a 6-3 vote, with Roberts writing for a majority that included two more conservatives and the three liberals.
Earlier this month, the court unexpectedly ruled against Alabama in a challenge to its recently redrawn congressional districts, smacking down an argument for “color-blind” redistricting. The 5-4 decision from Roberts brought together one additional conservative and three liberals.
Who’s writing the student debt, LGBTQ opinions?
Nobody knows for certain who is writing what but as the term draws to its close there are some clues. That’s partly because each justice generally writes one decision from each sitting – a period of several weeks in which cases are argued.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the LGBTQ case on Dec. 5, which was the Nov. 28 sitting. The only justice who has yet to write from that sitting is Justice Neil Gorsuch. So there’s a good chance that Gorsuch, who is one of the court’s most ardent supporters of religious rights, will write the majority in opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis.
The assignment of the student loan cases, which were argued in late February, are harder to predict because only three justices have written in that sitting. Assuming the case goes to a senior conservative, there’s a good chance it will land with Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Samuel Alito.
Where to find the Supreme Court’s student loan decision
The Supreme Court justices will enter the ornate chamber and take their seats at 10 a.m. EDT and the marshal will kick off the proceedings with the traditional cry of “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” Chief Justice John Roberts will then announce which of his colleagues has written the court’s opinion in the first case.
The justice who authored the opinion – and sometimes the justices writing dissents and concurrences – then read summaries of their positions. These readings can help make sense of the outcome, but they are not streamed. When one case is done, Roberts will announce who has the next opinion.
Opinions become public at the same time they are announced from the bench. So the easiest way to follow along is to head to the opinions section of the Supreme Court’s website.
Biden student loan relief plan in jeopardy
At issue in the student loan case is Biden’s plan to wipe out student loan debt for 26 million Americans, an idea that would cost an estimated $400 billion and that has been on the ropes in federal courts almost from the get-go.
Biden’s attorneys walked into court as underdogs in the case, up against a years-long project by the court’s conservative majority to limit the power of federal agencies. The administration has lost similar legal fights over efforts to extend an eviction moratorium, impose vaccine-or-testing requirements on large employers and curb power plant emissions.
Race:Supreme Court blocks use of affirmative action at Harvard, UNC in blow to diversity efforts
Biden announced the student loan program in August, honoring a campaign pledge he made before the 2020 election. About 26 million borrowers applied in the few weeks applications were open, and more than 16 million were approved before a pair of court decisions put the loan forgiveness effort on hold. The administration had estimated that as many as 40 million people would be eligible for relief under the program.
But the effort drew immediate pushback from conservatives, who noted Congress failed to pass legislation that explicitly authorized the forgiveness. Instead, Biden relied on a law passed in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks that gave the Education Department power to “waive or modify” loan rules for Americans suffering from an emergency.
Six conservative states and two individual borrowers filed lawsuits over the plan. The states, including Missouri and Nebraska, argued a state-created entity known as MOHELA that services student loans would lose money if the debt was forgiven. The borrowers said they weren’t given an opportunity to argue for more relief.
Wedding websites: Sweeping implications for LGBTQ rights
The Supreme Court also decided a second case involving LGBTQ rights and freedom of speech.
In a decision that could have profound implications for when businesses may turn away customers, a Colorado website designer has argued that a state anti-discrimination law can’t be used to compel her to develop same-sex wedding sites. It is the latest in a series of cases to reach the court pitting business owners against LGBTQ customers, although this one focused on free speech rights more than religion.
Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 Creative, a Denver-based website design firm, said she didn’t object to serving LGBTQ customers – only same-sex weddings. Because Smith’s websites are custom creations they represent her speech as well as that of her customers, her lawyers argued. Smith was never approached by an LGBTQ couple seeking a matrimonial website site. Rather, she wanted the high court to invalidate the Colorado law before that could happen.
In a 6-3 opinion, the court sided with Smith.
303 Creative:Supreme Court backs web developer who didn’t want to create same-sex wedding sites
Critics said Smith’s argument would allow businesses to skirt anti-discrimination laws.
After a landmark victory in 2015 legalizing same-sex marriage and another win in 2020 that banned workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the outlook for LGBTQ rights at the Supreme Court has dimmed in recent years – especially when those rights are in tension with the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom.
Affirmative action: High court hands down major ruling on race
Higher education experts were still parsing the implications of a ruling Thursday that struck down affirmative action admissions policies used by Harvard College and the University of North Carolina to diversify their campuses.
In one of the year’s most closely watched cases, the court ruled along ideological lines that the way the colleges approached race violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The decision drew a sharp rebuke from the court’s liberal wing, who said it rolled “decades of precedent and momentous progress.”
Case tracker:Race, religion and debt. Here are the biggest cases pending at the Supreme Court
Chief Justice John Roberts, long a skeptic of race-based policies, wrote that too many universities “have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.” The nation’s constitutional history, he wrote, “does not tolerate that choice.”
