News & Commentary July 2, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/july-2-2023/

By Swap Agrawal

Swap Agrawal is a student at Harvard Law School.

IIn this weekend’s news and commentary, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s loan forgiveness program, the Court ruled that Colorado cannot enforce an anti-discrimination law against a website designer who claimed making a wedding website for same-sex couples would violate her First Amendment rights, and SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP agreed to extend negotiations to temporarily avert a strike.

On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in Biden v. Nebraska. Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the five other conservatives on the Court, held that the Biden administration overstepped its authority last year when it announced that it would cancel $400 billion in loans. Biden relied on the HEROES Act to permanently cancel up to $20,000 in loans for borrowers who qualify. 43 million Americans would have benefitted from the loan forgiveness program, and almost half of those borrowers would have had all of their student loans forgiven.

Six Republican attorneys general and two individuals with student loans challenged the administration’s actions. Although the Supreme Court held that individual borrowers lacked standing to challenge the debt-relief plan, the Court ruled that Missouri had a right to sue due to the financial impact of the plan on the state’s Higher Education Loan Authority. Proceeding to the merits, the majority held that the authority to “waive or modify” laws and regulations governing student-loan programs allowed the administration to make “modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions” but “not transform them.”

Unions were heavily involved in lobbying the Biden administration to expand its forgiveness program. President Biden responded to Friday’s ruling by announcing new measures to ease student debt burdens, but union leaders are again calling on him to do more. AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler stated: “This decision is unconscionable. … America’s unions urge the Biden administration to explore every possible pathway for student loan forgiveness so that we can secure our collective financial future.” SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry said: “On the heels of a disastrous decision on affirmative action, the Supreme Court showed once again that the rules of our economy are rigged against working people in striking down President Biden’s urgently needed student debt relief program.”

FULL story at link above.