Painful setback for Joe Biden. The Democratic president, who is banking on the support of the working classes to win a new mandate in 2024, saw his ambitious plan to restructure student debt challenged by the Supreme Court, an institution dominated by conservatives. “There are millions of Americans who feel disappointed, discouraged and even a little angry because of the shutdown, and I must admit that I do too”, he reacted during a televised address.
Higher education costs a fortune in the United States and nearly 43 million people have federal student loans to repay, for a total amount of 1.630 billion dollars. At the start of the pandemic, the government of Donald Trump had frozen the repayment of these loans under a 2003 law allowing “relief” for holders of student debt in the event of a “national emergency”. Joe Biden had extended this moratorium as much as possible, but this measure will end on August 31.
“A New Plan”
Anticipating this deadline, President Biden announced in August that he wanted to erase up to $20,000 from the slate of middle-income borrowers. The candidates had rushed and 26 million applications had been filed, at an estimated cost of more than 400 billion dollars, according to the White House. But conservative states had seized the Supreme Court, saying that the 2003 law only covered the freezing of reimbursements.
Joe Biden immediately announced “a new plan” to alleviate student debt “as quickly as possible”. “We are going to base our new approach on a different law from my original plan,” he said in a televised address. This new text should be based on the law on higher education of 1965.
Legalization of certain forms of discrimination
The Supreme Court of the United States also authorized Friday, for the first time, certain businesses to exclude LGBT + customers. The day before, the high court, deeply overhauled by Donald Trump, had already abolished affirmative action policies at the university, one of the achievements of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s intended to increase diversity on campuses.
As a year ago, during its historic volte-face on abortion, these three judgments were delivered with the support of the six conservative magistrates against the opinion of the three progressive judges.
Republicans warmly applauded each of his decisions, while Democrats – led by Joe Biden – expressed strong disagreement. The president said he was “very worried” about the increased risk of discrimination against sexual minorities.
Cake
The conservative judges of the Supreme Court also ruled in favor of a creator of websites who refuses, in the name of her Christian faith, to design sites for gay marriages. Businesses whose services have creative value can invoke their freedom of expression not to provide a service that runs counter to their values, the high court majority ruled.
This judgment is the culmination of a legal campaign initiated by the religious right after the historic decision of the Supreme Court, in 2015, to legalize same-sex marriage. A first file had been brought by a Christian pastry chef who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. In 2018, the Court agreed with him on additional grounds, without enacting major principles.
The question was not long in coming back to court, this time posed by the website designer: Lorie Smith was challenging a Colorado law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation under penalty of a fine of up to 500 dollars. In a video, she rejoiced in her “victory”. “The government should never force anyone to say things they don’t mean,” she commented.
The decision “will hurt and stigmatize LGBT + families”, regretted Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the GLAAD association which defends this community. “This is yet another example of a court that is out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. »