The court’s conservative majority struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan and in a far more egregious decision, sided with a graphic designer who wants to refuse service to the LGBTQ community.
Friday was a bad day at the U.S. Supreme Court for student loan borrowers and the LGBTQ community.
In its final decision of the current term, the court effectively told millions of young people “forget it” when it comes to a modest $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness.
By a 6-to-3 vote, the court’s conservative majority struck down President Joe Biden’s sweeping loan forgiveness plan, arguing that Biden overstepped his authority and that only Congress has the power to approve the plan’s estimated $400 billion price tag. Some 26 million people had applied for relief, but will now have to resume student loan repayments this October without it.
However unwelcome, Friday’s decision was expected. Even Democrats disagreed on whether Biden had the authority to enact large-scale loan forgiveness. As the majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. points out, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said as much in 2021: “People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.”
Biden’s plan was flawed, but we supported it as a way to begin to ease the weight of $1.6 trillion in student loan debt now owed by tens of millions of young people — especially young Black Americans, who tend to owe more — and in some cases, their parents. Polls show many Americans also support modest debt relief, though support declines as the amount of loan forgiveness increases.
