A Federal Judge Will Force Betsy DeVos to Explain Her Actions Towards Defrauded College Students

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:30 pm

Donald Trump placed a number of unqualified people in important positions. No appointment, though, may have been more destructive than making Betsy DeVos the education secretary.

Rather than helping people attain an education, DeVos worked on making it more difficult. The billionaire heiress also turned a blind eye to students who had been defrauded by for profit colleges. Donald Trump, not surprisingly, had started one of these sham colleges himself.

Under Trump Administration, tens of thousands of fraud claims against sham colleges were dismissed. The students who filed the claims were given little to no explanation for the denials.

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160,000 of these students joined a class action lawsuit against the Education Department. DeVos was attempting to avoid testifying in the case. A federal judge has now ordered her to sit for testimony.

The judge, William Alsup, “ruled that DeVos must sit for three-hour deposition in which attorneys for the student borrowers may question her under oath about the decisions she made regarding the loan forgiveness program.”

Interestingly, the Biden administration had agreed with DeVos’ lawyers that former cabinet members should be immune from having to answer questions under oath.

But Alsup disagreed with the arguments from both the Biden White House and the former education secretary. He wrote in his 12 page judgement, “If judicial process runs to presidents, it runs to Cabinet secretaries — especially former ones.”



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