Campaign Action
Fresh off of being held in contempt of court, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is being called to testify to the House Education and Labor Committee about why, exactly, the Education Department continued collecting loan payments from students defrauded by a for-profit college despite a court order to provide debt relief.
Committee chair Bobby Scott seems to be done playing around on this—in his letter calling on DeVos to testify on November 19, he notes that committee staff have been trying to schedule a date with DeVos since October 15, but “the Department has yet to respond to my request affirmatively or negatively.” So here’s a public letter laying out just why DeVos needs to come explain herself.
“The Committee expects answers from you regarding the Department’s inaction on pending claims, despite a court order requiring it to implement the borrower defense rule,” Scott writes. And yes, he says, it has to be DeVos herself, not a lower-level official. “The Secretary is the only appropriate Department official for the Committee’s hearing on the Department’s treatment of defrauded Corinthian students. You personally review and sign borrower defense decision memos. You have spoken publicly on your contempt for the Obama-era rule that your Department continues to refuse to implement, despite a court order requiring it to do so. As noted above, you have personally and publicly defended your violation of a court order. And the Department recently indicated that you were personally overseeing the correction of errors committed by loan servicers. Finally, you are the only high-level Department official who has remained at the agency across the relevant time period.”
In translation: Time to face the music.