DeVos earns Education Dept. $100,000 fine after preliminary injunction violation

A federal judge issued a $100,000 fine on the Department of Education Thursday after finding Secretary Betsy DeVos violated a preliminary injunction when the department continued to collect loan payments from Corinthian Colleges students, The Washington Post reported. 

“There is no question that the defendants violated the preliminary injunction. There is also no question that [the] defendants’ violations harmed individual borrowers,” Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco wrote in her ruling Thursday, according to the Post. 

“Defendants have not provided evidence that they were unable to comply with the preliminary injunction, and the evidence shows only minimal efforts to comply.”{mosads}

The Education Department was not immediately available for comment when contacted by The Hill. The department also did not respond to the Post. 

The Education Department received a $100,000 fine based on Kim’s ruling, according to the newspaper. The money collected will reportedly be used to compensate the 16,000 people that were allegedly harmed from the Education Department’s actions.  

Earlier this month more than 16,000 students from the now-defunct Corinthian College asked the judge to hold DeVos in contempt for pursuing their debts despite a court order prohibiting their collection. 

Kim had ordered DeVos to stop collecting loans from the former students in May 2018.