U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ move to delay Obama-era protections for students defrauded by for-profit colleges has been dealt a setback by a federal judge who called her actions “arbitrary and capricious,” according to a CBS News report.
In a lawsuit filed by Democratic attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia and former students who challenged the delay, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that DeVos’ actions were unlawful.
The case centered on the borrower defense rule, which allowed defrauded students to have their student loans forgiven. The rule was to have taken effect on July 1, 2017. DeVos had argued those rules created “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools.”
But Moss, an Obama appointee, cited inconsistencies in DeVos’ rationale for freezing the rule. He said DeVos acted without conducting a rule-making process on whether to postpone the rules, and he scheduled a hearing Friday to consider next steps.
Department of Education spokeswoman Liz Hill said the agency was reviewing the ruling.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who led the lawsuit, said the ruling was “a victory for every family defrauded by a predatory for-profit school.”
Toby Merrill, a litigator at Harvard University’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents defrauded students, hailed the decision.
