| | | | |  | | By Bianca Quilantan | With help from Mackenzie Wilkes COLLEGES SHOULD BE ‘ON WATCH’ — A tug of war over the Supreme Court’s decision last year striking down race-conscious college admissions continues. — Civil rights groups have spent the past year trying to fend off wider interpretations of the ruling and are seeking to challenge other barriers for underrepresented students in higher education. Meanwhile, Edward Blum, SFFA president and the legal architect of the affirmative action cases, is still “closely monitoring” new admissions policies for undergraduate, law and medical colleges. — “This organization is prepared to challenge any school that illegally uses applicant essays or racial proxies as a substitute for racial classifications and preferences,” Blum said in a statement in response to the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision. “As a legal and ethical principle, if race as a factor in college admissions is unconstitutional and unfair,” he said, “then it must follow that race as a factor in internships, fellowships, scholarships, hiring and promotion, and contracting is unconstitutional and unfair as well.” — Blum still has lawsuits ongoing that challenge the consideration of race in the United States Military and Naval academies. He is also challenging the University of Texas in Austin over whether admissions offices should have access to racial data. Beyond Blum’s moves, there has been a wave of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in red states, cases seeking to challenge race in K-12 specialty school admissions and highly-selective colleges bringing back standardized testing requirements.
|  Edward Blum, SFFA president and the legal architect of the affirmative action cases, is still “closely monitoring” new admissions policies for undergraduate, law and medical colleges. | Bianca Quilantan/POLITICO | — Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the House education panel, called last year’s ruling a “significant setback” to efforts to eliminate disparities in access to higher education. But he also expressed concern over efforts to expand the ruling to areas including DEI programs, employment, outreach, recruiting and others. He was also critical of other barriers to college, including “racially biased admissions tests and developmental and legacy admissions.” — Several colleges in the past year have stepped up to end their legacy preferences, including Wesleyan University and Virginia Tech. Some states, including Maryland and Virginia, have also made it illegal to give advantages to applicants with connections to alumni and donors. Those laws are slated to take effect today. But highly selective colleges like Harvard University and other Ivy League schools have not put a pause to their legacy preferences and have even reinstated their SAT and ACT requirements, which have long been seen by civil rights advocates as an exclusionary tool for underrepresented students. — “We're absolutely concerned with the retrenchment of many universities, especially Ivy League universities but also some public universities like the University of Texas in Austin, that are aimed at excluding students of color,” said David Hinojosa, director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit that has defended race-conscious education policies. “The civil rights community is looking at legacy programs very closely as part of an offensive strategy to break down these systemic barriers to admissions for historically marginalized students,” he added. “For those that have not yet dropped those very unfair legacy programs, they need to be on watch.” — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona also weighed in on the conversation over the anniversary of the ruling with a lengthy statement lauding some schools’ efforts to “preserve educational diversity and equity.” But even he recognizes battles remain. “The fight for a more inclusive system goes on,” Cardona said. IT’S MONDAY, JULY 1. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. WHAT SHOULD WE BE LOOKING OUT FOR THIS WEEK? Drop me a line at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Becca Carballo at rcarballo@politico.com, Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com and Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com. And follow us: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.
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| | ADVOCATES DEMAND HARDSHIP RULE — More than 220 groups representing millions of borrowers are calling on the Education Department to immediately unveil its proposed rule on student loan debt relief for borrowers experiencing hardship. — The regulation could include proposals to grant automatic forgiveness of loans for borrowers at a high risk of default and others who “show hardship due to other indicators” like high medical and caregiving expenses. The Education Department in April had said the proposal would be released “in the coming months.” — “The Biden Administration’s proposed NPRM to support borrowers experiencing hardship represents a glimmer of hope for the millions of borrowers and their families who have been forced to wait for nearly two years for much-needed relief,”the groups wrote, adding that the rule will help “millions of Americans whose economic mobility and financial stability are hindered by the student debt crisis.”
|  President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. | Evan Vucci/AP | ICYMI: A SAVE UPDATE — The Education Department announced on Friday that it will suspend monthly student loan payments and interest for about 3 million borrowers in response to court rulings blocking parts of President Joe Biden’s new loan-repayment program known as SAVE. — The announcement drew praise from groups like the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers unions, and the Student Borrower Protection Center that have been urging the Biden administration to “suspend all monthly payments, interest charges, and debt collection for all student loan borrowers across the student loan system.” — But it also drew swift rebukes from the top Republicans leading Congress's education committees. House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) slammed the move as Biden “saving face after his disastrous performance” on the presidential debate stage last week. Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate education panel, said the president “is down in the polls, so now he is attempting to use tax dollars to buy votes.”
| | | | REGS TO WATCH POST CHEVRON — The Supreme Court on Friday rolled back a legal precedent that granted federal agencies significant leeway to interpret ambiguous laws. Many education policy advocates expressed concern over what the ruling could mean for the Education Department’s regulatory agenda. Some of the key policies that could unravel without Chevron include the Biden administration's rulemaking on student debt relief and discrimination protections. Here’s a list from POLITICO’s policy teams. WHAT’S NEXT? — Cassidy on Sunday sent a letter to Cardona requesting information on how his agency will comply with the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Chevron. The top Republican on Senate HELP, however, is skeptical the department will follow the ruling. — “Despite the Court’s decision, given your agency’s track record, I am concerned about whether and how the Department will adapt to and faithfully implement both the letter and spirit of this decision,” Cassidy wrote, adding that “the Department has flagrantly and repeatedly violated the law” with its efforts on student debt relief and its new Title IX rule that codifies protections for gender identity and sexual orientation. — Cassidy slammed the president’s efforts on student debt relief, including the creation of the SAVE plan, and also criticized the Education Department for not providing “timely or satisfactory responses to oversight requests.” The Louisiana Republican wants answers to his questions by July 19.
| | BLOCKING FOR-PROFIT ENTITIES: Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) introduced legislation to block charter schools that enter contracts with for-profit entities from receiving federal funds. — Charter schools and charter management organizations would be prohibited from entering contracts with for-profit entities that would operate, oversee or manage the school under the legislation. The bill does include provisions to protect contracts with certain for-profit entities like food services and facilities maintenance and a grandfather clause that wouldn’t affect existing contracts. — The bill, known as the Championing Honest and Responsible Transparency in Education Reform (CHARTER) Act, would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. — “For-profit companies are disguising themselves as schools, trading in taxpayer funds for boosted profits at the expense of our children’s learning,” DeLauro said in a statement, noting that the bill would “ensure that for-profit education management organizations can no longer jump through loopholes that have given them access to funding that has always been intended for nonprofit entities.”
| | — The Vera Institute of Justice released a report on the first year of Pell Grant restoration for prison education programs. Vera found that all states, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Puerto Rico now have a process in place for assessing prison education program proposals from colleges. More than 50 new programs have been approved by corrections agencies in the last year and are awaiting review from the Education Department. — An Urban Institute report examines how Foxx’s College Cost Reduction Act would change how much students can borrow in federal loans. — Progressive Policy Institute released a framework that outlines nine strategies at the K-12 and college levels to teach students a common American identity. — Generation Hope released a report about student fathers pursuing higher education. About 1 in 5 college students are attending college part- or full-time while raising children and 30 percent of those students are fathers. There are nearly 1.1 million student fathers who are currently parenting while in schools.
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