Our suit argues that the Department of Education has flagrantly violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirements by crafting this massive and arbitrary debt jubilee behind closed doors without the traditional public comment period.
Courts have ruled the APA’s requirements are vital “to ensure that unelected administrators, who are not directly accountable to the populace, are forced to justify their quasi-legislative rulemaking before an informed and skeptical public.” The APA provides a critical check on “the dangers of arbitrariness and irrationality in the formulation of rules.”
Our lawsuit features two plaintiffs who are directly harmed by this APA violation and deprived of their right to participate in and influence the rulemaking. Because their perspectives were ignored, these two former students who have college debt aren’t eligible for complete or any relief due to their loan circumstances not meeting the Biden administration’s arbitrary criteria. Both plaintiffs are examples of how the program arbitrarily chooses who is in, who is out, and how much those in the program get. And neither plaintiff got to make their case for where the lines should be.
By striking down this debt forgiveness, JCN’s lawsuit can lay the groundwork to actually solve the student debt crisis and hold its college perpetrators accountable.
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