Tag Archives: Department of Education

New Tool Creates Personalized Legal Memo Asking Education Department to Cancel Student Debt

“President Biden says he is going to use every tool he can to cancel student debt, but there is still much more he can do,” said a co-founder of the Debt Collective. “With this new tool, we are calling his bluff.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 8-28-2023 by Common Dreams

Image: FreePix.uk/CC

“Filling out this form creates an individual demand letter, tailored to your own student debt story, calling on the Department of Education to use its powers to cancel not just your debt, but everyone’s.”

That’s how the Debt Collective describes a tool it launched Monday to increase pressure on the Biden administration to deliver on long-promised relief from federal student loan repayments.

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Biden Admin Still Pushing Trump-Era Legal Positions After Two Years in White House

“As the previous administration violated legal and ethical norms at every turn, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s choice of continuity with the Trump DOJ’s positions erodes the integrity of the very institution he is determined to protect,” said one researcher.

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 1-20-2023 by Common Dreams

Merrick Garland and Chuck Schumer in 2016 Photo: Senate Democrats/flickr/CC

Two years after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, his administration continues to advance Trump-era legal positions in dozens of court cases, a progressive watchdog group revealed Friday.

Former President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) “consistently made a mockery of the law throughout his four years in power,” the Revolving Door Project (RDP) noted in the latest release of its long-running litigation tracker. Continue reading

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Biden Education Dept. Reverses on Student Debt Case After Reporting Stirred Outrage

“This is why we have to support journalism,” one reporter said of The Daily Poster’s work exposing the administration’s attempt to “overturn a key legal victory for borrowers.”

By Jessica Corbett.  Published 2-4-2022 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: CNBC

In a boon for both student borrowers and investigative reporting, the U.S. Department of Education on Friday announced a reversal related to student loan court challenge just two days after The Daily Poster revealed the Biden administration was trying to “bolster a legal precedent against millions of debtors being crushed by bankruptcy laws.”

A Department of Education (DOE) spokesperson confirmed in a statement that the administration will now withdraw a notice of appeal filed last month after a federal judge in Delaware ruled in favor of providing 35-year-old Ryan Wolfson, an epileptic man who struggled to find full-time employment, with nearly $100,000 in student loan relief. Continue reading

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Biden Signs Two Executive Orders to Advance Gender Equality on International Women’s Day

“Let us recommit to the principle that our nation, and the world, is at its best when the possibilities for all of our women and girls are limitless.”

By Jenna McGuire, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-8-2021

Photo: Narih Lee/flickr/CC

On Monday—International Women’s Day—President Joe Biden signed an executive order to establish the White House Gender Policy Council to address gender equality and human rights of women and girls and “ensure that every domestic and foreign policy we pursue rests on a foundation of dignity and equity for women.”

“We know that governments, economies, and communities are stronger when they include the full participation of women—no country can recover from this pandemic if it leaves half of its population behind,” read a statement released by the White House on the new Gender Policy Council. Continue reading

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‘A New Low’: Betsy DeVos Sued for Garnishing Wages of Nearly 300,000 Student Loan Borrowers During Pandemic

“The Trump administration is taking money from borrowers who are living on the edge of poverty, in the middle of a pandemic, and in violation of the law.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-1-2020

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

A home health aide who earns just under $13 per hour is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose department has continued garnishing the wages of hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

The CARES Act, which was signed into law in late March, prohibits the Education Department from seizing the wages and tax refunds of student loan borrowers who have defaulted on their loans. Continue reading

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DeVos Threatens to Cut Funding for Middle Eastern Studies Programs for ‘Portraying Islam Too Positively’

“This is what a real threat to free speech on a college campus looks like.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-22-2019

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

Sunday marked a deadline for the University of North Carolina and Duke University to submit information to the Trump administration about the two schools’ Consortium for Middle East Studies, after the Department of Education accused the joint program of biases against Christianity and Judaism.

The DOE called on the schools to provide a list of events it is supporting in during the school year and a full list of courses it’s offering, claiming in a letter sent late last month that in the program, “there is a considerable emphasis placed on the understanding the positive aspects of Islam, while there is an absolute absence of any similar focus on the positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion or belief system in the Middle East.”
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As Trump Vows “A Lot of Cutting” After Midterms, Americans Urged to Protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid at the Voting Booth

With Trump’s support, the GOP “has spent the last two years doing everything they can to reach onto our pockets, steal our money, and give it to their pay masters on Wall Street.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-17-2018

Photo: Social Security Works/Facebook

Following the news this week that under President Donald Trump, the federal deficit exploded to $779 billion in the 2018 fiscal year, the president said Wednesday that he would demand a five percent budget cut from each of his cabinet secretaries.

Stressing that the administration would “continue with the tax cuts, because we have other tax cuts planned,” Trump suggested the deficit was the result of spending on various programs at the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and other government agencies. Continue reading

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‘Crushing Defeat’ for DeVos as Federal Judge Rules She Illegally Delayed Relief for Students Defrauded by For-Profit Colleges

“This is a major victory for student borrowers and for anyone who cares about having a government that operates under the rule of law, instead of as a pawn of the for-profit college industry.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-13-2018

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

A Washington, D.C. federal judge has delivered a “crushing defeat” of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, ruling that the Trump-appointee illegally delayed Obama-era regulations to provide loan relief to students defrauded by for-profit colleges.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss, in a 57-page ruling (pdf) issued Wednesday, sided with consumer advocates and a coalition of 19 Democratic states attorneys general, determining that DeVos’s actions to delay the borrower defense rule were “unlawful,” “procedurally invalid,” and “arbitrary and capricious.” Continue reading

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‘To Make It Easier to Screw the Poor,’ Trump Wants to Massively Reorganize Federal Government

Provisions of this “closely guarded” plan reportedly include merging the Education and Labor Departments, and creating a welfare “megadepartment”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-21-2018

Anti-Trump protesters march in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 29, 2017. (Photo: Susan Melkisethian/Flickr/cc)

Update:

The White House on Thursday released a 32-point plan (pdf) to reorganize several departments of the federal government. The proposal was developed in response to an executive order President Donald Trump issued early last year and cannot be implemented without congressional approval.

Earlier:

In what critics are calling an “insane” proposal by the Trump administration “to make it easier to screw the poor,” the White House is reportedly considering sweeping changes to the organization of the federal government, which could be announced as early as Thursday. Continue reading

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South Carolina’s New Hate Speech Law Outlaws Criticism of the Israeli Occupation

In bill author Clemmons’ view, discussing the military occupation of the West Bank, a reality recognized even by Israel’s Supreme Court, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new South Carolina law.

By Whitney Webb. Published 5-1-2018 by MintPress News

Rep. Alan Clemmons delivers an address from the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse in a speech given via satellite to the Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem in 2011.

The state of South Carolina will become the first state in the nation to legislate a definition of anti-Semitism that considers certain criticisms of the Israeli government to be hate speech. The language, which was inserted into the state’s recently passed $8 billion budget, offers a much more vague definition of anti-Semitism that some suggest specifically targets the presence of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement on state college campuses. The law requires that all state institutions, including state universities, apply the revised definition when deciding whether an act violates anti-discrimination policies.

Once it is reconciled with an appropriations bill previously passed by the state House, the measure will become law and take effect this July. However, the law will last only until the next budget is passed, meaning that the new legal definition of anti-Semitism must be renewed on a yearly basis unless new legislation making the language permanent is passed in the future. Continue reading

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