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The Supreme Court on Friday struck down the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan that would have canceled billions of dollars of debt for millions of Americans.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 6-3 decision, claiming the federal government lacked authority for the plan. But as Justice Elena Kagan pointed out in her dissent, it was the majority, not the government, that overreached here.
“In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper, limited role in our Nation’s governance," she wrote, joined by her fellow Democratic appointees, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Apparently anticipating this outcome, the White House on Friday signaled "new actions" coming to protect student loan borrowers.
In announcing the plan last August, the White House aimed to reduce "a significant burden on America’s middle class" by easing the "crushing" effects of student loans. The plan applied to people whose annual income was less than $125,000 ($250,000 for households) in either 2020 or 2021, providing up to $10,000 for most borrowers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients with greater financial need.
During oral arguments in February, the Republican appointees were skeptical of the government's power to forgive that much debt. The court’s Democratic appointees were skeptical that the challengers — Republican-led states and individual borrowers — even had legal standing to challenge debt relief in the first place. Jackson at the time noted that the court would break new ground by finding standing here.
(In a related case on Friday, Department of Education v. Brown, involving individual borrowers, the court unanimously agreed the challengers didn’t have legal standing to bring the claim. But the plan was struck down by the decision Roberts authored, involving the states' challenge, Biden v. Nebraska.)
The Court’s first overreach in this case is deciding it at all.
Justice Elena kagan
The law at issue is the 2003 HEROES Act. It lets the secretary of education “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” to protect borrowers affected by national emergencies, among other things. The Biden administration pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as the emergency allowing debt forgiveness.
The administration wrote to the justices ahead of the arguments that “the acute public-health emergency caused by COVID-19 is abating” but “the HEROES Act and the Secretary’s plan are not aimed at stopping the spread of disease; they are concerned with economic consequences.”
But the court majority's complaint, essentially, was that the government went too big.
"The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude under the HEROES Act," Roberts wrote, with seeming amazement at how different circumstances call for different responses, adding that "past waivers and modifications issued under the Act have been extremely modest and narrow in scope.”
Obviously, though, Covid-19 didn't happen before it happened. Pointing out this plain fact, Kagan observed, "Past actions were more modest because the precipitating emergencies were more modest." She faulted the majority for deciding “that some 40 million Americans will not receive the benefits the plan provides, because (so says the Court) that assistance is too ‘significan[t].’"
And the court shouldn't have found standing in this case either, Kagan argued. "The Court’s first overreach in this case is deciding it at all," she wrote. She called the states "classic ideological plaintiffs: They think the plan a very bad idea, but they are no worse off because the Secretary differs."
"A court acting like a court," Kagan wrote, would have tossed the case on standing grounds.
Her critique was apparently too much for the victors to handle, as Roberts felt the need to chastise it as he closed 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," the chief justice wrote, tone-policing the losing side of the dispute.
"We do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement," Roberts assured the nation, adding that it's "important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country."
But who cares if the justices are disparaging one another? The harm to the institution is coming from court actions like Friday's rulings, not by the justices using strong language in their opinions.
Thus, keeping in line with his ruling's reasoning, Roberts ended the opinion, and the term, by going beyond his proper role.
Read the full text of the opinion striking down Biden's student loan forgiveness plan below.
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