Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is spending an awful lot of time in court—or anyway, her policies are—and she keeps losing. DeVos’ efforts to roll back basically everything the Obama administration did for students have been blocked, one by one, by federal judges.
DeVos tried to block Obama-era policies protecting people defrauded by predatory online colleges, but was stymied by the courts. The Education Department has forgiven $150 million in student debt as a result, and told the colleges to stop using mandatory arbitration to deny students their day in court.
Most recently, Politico reports, “a federal judge ruled DeVos illegally postponed a regulation requiring states to identify school districts where there are significant racial disparities among the students placed in special education programs.”
The judge in another case being argued now, focused on consumer disclosures by online colleges, hasn’t decided the merits of the case yet but did swat the Education Department by noting that it “takes chutzpah” to simultaneously say it’s too burdensome for online colleges to have to disclose information but not too burdensome for students to have to search out undisclosed information.
One court victory DeVos did win was in her effort to protect campus rapists at the expense of survivors.