Barrett Rejects A Supreme Court Challenge To Biden's Student Loan Program

Amy Coney Barrett, associate justice On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a second challenge to President Joe Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Program.

Earlier this week, a conservative legal group filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court, asking the justices to prevent the Biden administration from implementing its $400 billion effort. Barrett turned down the request without referring it to the court.

The St. Louis-based United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has already put Biden’s plan, which would cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients earning up to $125,000 per year, on hold while it considers a separate appeal.

Barrett denied the application without explanation, as is frequently the case on the emergency docket. Barrett has done this twice in the last few months. On October 20, she turned down a similar request from a group of Wisconsin taxpayers to stop the programme for a while.

Barrett takes care of emergency appeals from the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, where she used to work.

The reason there are so many different lawsuits is that opponents of the programme are looking for a plaintiff with standing—that is, someone who can demonstrate they have been harmed by the effort in a way that allows them to challenge it in federal court. Pacific Leal’s most recent filing came on behalf of two people who are entitled to “automatic” debt cancellation. The people suing say that if their debts are automatically canceled, they will have to pay “excess taxes under state law.”

In a statement, Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, argued that the programme was illegal “from stem to stern.”

“We’re disappointed by today’s denial, but we’ll keep fighting this programme in court,” Kruckenberg said.

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