Two Citizens and 19 Attorneys General Sue Betsy DeVos for Enabling For-Profit-College Freedom to Exploit
Arguably the most controversial US secretary of education in the history of the office is being sued by two citizens and 19 attorneys general.
On July 06, 2017, two lawsuits were filed against the US Department of Education (USDOE) and its secretary, Betsy DeVos, challenging DeVos’ rescission regarding the Borrower Defense Rule aimed at protecting postsecondary students from abuses of deceptive, predatory postsecondary institutions.
Both lawsuits were filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and both petition the Court for declaratory and injunctive relief.
One complaint is filed by two individuals, and the other, by attorneys general of 18 states (MA, CA, CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, MD, MN, NM, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, VT, VA, and WA) and the District of Columbia.
In this post, for the sake of space, I focus on the latter lawsuit, the one involving the numerous attorneys general (and which I will refer to as the “AG lawsuit”). However, both suits are available for any who wish to read them.
The following text is from the introduction of the AG lawsuit:
This lawsuit challenges the Department’s summary and unlawful rescission of a final agency regulation known as the “Borrower Defense Rule” (the “Rule”) that was designed to hold abusive postsecondary institutions accountable for their misconduct and to relieve their students from federal loan indebtedness incurred as a result of that misconduct.The Department duly promulgated the Rule on November 1, 2016, after an
extensive negotiated rulemaking process in which the Department reviewed over 10,000 comments, including those of students, postsecondary institutions, state government actors, and consumer advocates. The Department, moreover, allowed affected schools more than half a year to prepare for implementation of the Rule, making it effective on July 1, 2017.The Rule was designed to ensure “that students who are lied to and mistreated by their school get the relief they are owed, and that schools that harm students are held responsible for their behavior.” Press Release, Department of Education, U.S. Department of Education Announces Final Regulations to Protect Students and Taxpayers from Predatory Institutions (Oct. 28, 2016) (“October 2016 Press Release”) The Rule deters institutions from engaging in predatory behavior and restores the rights of students injured by a school’s misconduct to seek relief in court.Despite the pendency of the Rule for more than seven months, on June 14,Two Citizens and 19 Attorneys General Sue Betsy DeVos for Enabling For-Profit-College Freedom to Exploit | deutsch29:
