Texas lawsuit targets Biden’s student debt-forgiveness program

The number of legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel millions of dollars of student debt continues to mount. The latest, a lawsuit by the Job Creators Network Foundation, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth. Elaine Parker, the president of the foundation, called the president’s plan, which was announced in August, an “unprecedented executive power grab.” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who notably ruled that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional in 2018, will hear the case. The application to apply for student loan relief is set to be available sometime in early October, potentially assisting over 3 million Texans. The student loan relief plan was announced by Biden on Aug. 24 and will cancel up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for non-Pell Grant recipients.

Two Texas-area graduates named in the suit argue they should be receiving forgiveness, or more forgiveness than currently allowed under the debt-relief program, and that they were deprived of the ability to share these concerns since no comments were gathered before the program was announced. Lawsuits have been filed by other conservative groups as well as a coalition of six Republican-led states arguing that the program will hurt state tax revenues, according to Business Insider. Two have been dismissed by judges. Two graduates of Texas colleges are named in the lawsuit, both arguing that they should receive forgiveness, or more forgiveness than under the current rule. Myra Brown, a 1993 graduate of UT El Paso who also attended SMU, currently has more than $17,000 in private loan debt — ineligible for forgiveness under the Biden program. “If the Department is going to provide debt forgiveness, Ms. Brown believes that her student loan debt should be forgiven too,” the initial complaint said. “She believes it is irrational, arbitrary, and unfair to exclude her from the Program because her student loan debt is commercially held and not in default.” Alexander Taylor, the other plaintiff in the suit, attended the University of Dallas and has debt totaling more than $35,000.