Trump DOJ investigating ‘racist’ RI loan forgiveness program

The Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, has announced an investigation into a student loan forgiveness program in Rhode Island.

According to initial reports, the program was only available for “educators of color.”

Supreme Court Ruling

Biden ran on offering student loan forgiveness for existing student loan holders, but his original plan was challenged and eventually wound up before the Supreme Court

As we expected, the funding involved was far out of reach of any executive order powers, and the Supreme Court ruled that the program was unconstitutional.

The SCOTUS Blog reported, “By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority last year when it announced that it would cancel up to $400 billion in student loans.

“The Biden administration had said that as many as 43 million Americans would have benefitted from the loan forgiveness program; almost half of those borrowers would have had all of their student loans forgiven.”

Biden Finds a Way

After the Supreme Court ruling, Joe Biden circumvented the order by using little loopholes in the laws to allow him to provide millions of people with student loan forgiveness, essentially piecemealing his plan, which Biden continued to do right through the end of his administration.

In December 2024, Biden announced loan relief for 55,000 borrowers that cost taxpayers $4.28 billion in forgiven student loans.

Just a week before leaving office, Biden announced forgiveness for an additional 150,000 borrowers, bringing his total to approximately five million borrowers who had received loan forgiveness. That brought Biden’s total to more than $186 billion in forgiven loans.

At the time, Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal stated, “Identifying 5 million people for student loan forgiveness means the federal government is finally keeping its promise. People who cannot afford their student loans because they are in public service, have disabilities, were cheated by their college, or who have completed decades of payments are now getting the relief they were promised. These permanent reforms will continue to more and more borrowers every year.”

Program Under Investigation

Biden was able to pick certain groups in many of his schemes to expose loopholes in legislation that gave him this power, or at least that is what the administration claimed. Republicans being the gutless wonders of the world, few challenges were issued to block these the way Dems are blocking Trump’s orders.

With Pam Bondi now the Attorney General, however, these programs are getting scrutinized, and at least one of them is coming under fire for only offering loan forgiveness to people of color. The program was initiated in Rhode Island, where only educators of color could receive the benefit.

The challenge against the program was issued by the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF), whose president, William A. Jacobsen, stated, "We followed up. It got transferred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We followed up with them repeatedly. We couldn't get the Biden administration to do anything to stop this. And finally, the new Trump administration under the Department of Justice Civil Rights Office has brought an action. So we're very pleased with that.”

Jacobsen later added, "Can you imagine if a school district had a program only open to White teachers? It would be a national uproar. But there seems to be an attitude that as long as the discrimination is against Whites, it's lawful. But it's not. The civil rights laws protect everybody equally. And that's what we're seeking here.” He hit the nail on the head, so I am very curious to see how this one plays out.