Student loans, transgender protections: Supreme Court set to take up major education cases

The Supreme Court is taking up some major education issues, from transgender protections to school choice, over its next term.

The conservative-leaning high court is set to consider another effort from President Biden regarding student loans, among other high-profile cases, and may yet add more to its docket as Republican states’ efforts to get more Christianity into classrooms face legal challenges.

Here are some of the issues before the bench that could have sweeping impacts on education in the United States:

Biden’s income driven repayment plan 

Biden’s new Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan for student debt relief is the subject of two cases right now led by different groups of Republican states who say it is illegal.  

The SAVE plan began last fall with the Biden administration raising the income protected from student loan payments from 150 percent above the federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent. The rest of the plan was set to start this month, which included undergraduate loans payments going from 10 percent discretionary income to 5 percent and new rules about how long a person needs to pay on loans before receiving forgiveness.

“Millions of borrowers are already benefitting from enrollment in the SAVE plan, and I’m thrilled to see so many Americans submitting applications every day so that they, too, can take advantage of the most affordable student loan repayment plan in history,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said of the plan.

Multiple GOP-led states fought to prevent those July changes.

“Yet again, the President is unilaterally trying to impose an extraordinarily expensive and controversial policy that he could not get through Congress,” a lawsuit led by Missouri said.   

The judges in both the legal cases ruled the Biden administration could go forward with lowering monthly payments. However, one judge said the president could not give out actually forgive any loans under the SAVE plan.

Despite that partial win for Republicans, South Carolina, Texas and Alaska made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to also reverse the lower payments.  

The request went to Justice Neil Gorsuch, and a decision on the matter or if the high court will take up the case could come at any time.

Transgender policies 

The Supreme Court will be examining at least two policies relating to transgender students: whether they should be on the sports team that matches their gender identity and whether parents should be informed if a student changes their name or pronouns at school.  

West Virginia is appealing to the Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled a transgender athlete in middle school could compete on the team that aligns with their gender identity.  

“We’re not going to allow the elites in the swamp to impose their values on West Virginia citizens,” said state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. 

Meanwhile, in Parents Protecting Our Children v. Eau Claire Area School District, a group of Wisconsin parents want the Supreme Court to overturn the decision of lower courts to dismiss their case, in which they argue that officials’ plan not to tell parents if their child has changed their name or pronouns is unconstitutional.

The issue has made national headlines recently, with California becoming the first state to put into law that parents do not need to be notified if their child changes their name or pronouns unless they try to do so in the official school record.  

The law in California is now facing its own lawsuit, with the challengers making the same arguments that are hitting the high court.

“This is a deeply unserious lawsuit, seemingly designed to stoke the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter rather than surface legitimate legal claims,” Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) previously told The Hill. “AB 1955 preserves the child-parent relationship, California law ensures minors can’t legally change their name or gender without parental consent, and parents continue to have guaranteed and full access to their student’s educational records consistent with federal law. We’re confident the state will swiftly prevail in this case.”

School choice 

A school choice measure that has become popular across the country is finding its way to the high court over a legal challenge in Michigan, where opponents say a constitutional amendment that bars direct or indirect public financial support for private schools violates the 14th Amendment.  

The measure blocks a push for education savings accounts, which allow parents who want to send their kids to private school or homeschool to receive a yearly stipend from the government

“When no-aid clauses target parents, the result is substantial harm to primary and secondary education. The Court should review whether such targeting is unlawful,” EdChoice and Defense of Freedom Institute said in an amicus brief to the court.

The school choice measure has been denounced by Democrats as sucking public funds away from schools in an attempt to undermine them.

“My primary issue being as a classroom teacher and a parent is that it does directly defund our local public schools,” Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools in Arizona, previously told The Hill.

“A second reason why the ESA voucher is a problem is that there’s no transparency or accountability, and that’s baked in by design. So we have no idea how taxpayer dollars are being used, what kind of curriculum is being taught, whether standards are being met, whether teachers have fingerprint, background checks, or credentials,” Lewis added.

Other cases — and potential new ones

A group of parents are suing Attorney General Merrick Garland over a memorandum on school board meetings that they argue unfairly targeted them. 

The memorandum focused on a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” during COVID-19 but Republicans have seized on it, saying it treats concerned parents like “domestic terrorists.” 

The case, titled Saline Parents v. Merrick B. Garland, was dismissed by the lower courts.  

“The alleged AG Policy is not regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature because it does not impose any regulations, requirements, or enforcement actions on individuals,” federal Judge Dabney Friedrich said. “None of the documents that the plaintiffs allege establish the policy create an imminent threat of future legal actions against anyone, much less the plaintiffs.” 

The court will also deal with another case regarding school admission, Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence Corp. v. the School Committee for the City of Boston.

The plaintiff in the situation is arguing the new admissions plan for Boston’s three highly selective Exam Schools during COVID-19 is unconstitutional.  

The plan took away the testing requirement to focus on socioeconomic inclusion and racial diversity, which the plaintiffs argue is a race-based quota program. 

The case comes after the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 higher education could no longer use affirmative action in the admissions process. 

While not at the court yet, it is probable a case about how much religion is allowed in public schools could be on the docket soon.

Louisiana has enacted a law requiring the Ten Commandments be hung up in classrooms, while Oklahoma is directing schools to use the Bible as a teaching tool in numerous classes.

“If we didn’t have this extreme shift to the right with the U.S. Supreme Court, that would be a very easy question. Yes, [the laws] would be struck down … but the current Supreme Court has not shown a lot of hesitancy in reversing earlier precedent, and so all bets are off,” Kevin Welner, professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the school of education, previously told The Hill.