This report was originally published on The Hill.
The Biden administration attempted to prevent former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from testifying in a class action lawsuit that alleges the Department of Education (DOE) ineffectively managed thousands of student loans.
Oral arguments seeking to block DeVos’s testimony were presented on Wednesday before a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after U.S. District Judge William Alsup decided in May that DeVos would be required to testify for the case.
At the request of the class action lawsuit’s accusers, Alsup found that “extraordinary circumstances” justified the rare deposition of a former secretary.
The Biden Administration appealed Alsup’s decision arguing that the “firmly established” policy that says “[h]eads of government agencies are not normally subject to deposition” should be applied in this case.
The original class action case claims the DOE refused to process borrower defense claims, which permit loan forgiveness from the federal government if a school misleads students or violates state law.
DeVos has long had controversy arise around her policies about borrowing and student loan forgiveness.
“The Department’s abdication of its responsibility is not a neutral choice,” the lawsuit said. “Its decision to keep over 160,000 students in limbo—some for over four years—has damaged students’ credit and limited their access to federal student aid.”
