Debt relief case could hurt Biden’s push toward racial equity

WASHINGTON — Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar did not mention race in Tuesday’s appearance at the Supreme Court, but her impassioned defense of President Joe Biden’s student loan relief program had a second, unmistakable purpose: It marked a last-ditch bid to protect one of the last remaining pillars of Biden’s effort to shrink the racial wealth gap.

The $400 billion program, which was consciously tailored to address the reality that Black Americans shoulder a disproportionate share of the nation’s student debt, faced a frosty reception from several justices, who questioned whether Biden has the authority to enact such sweeping changes without Congress.

While the outcome will affect millions of Americans, it will be especially central to the fate of Biden’s racial equity push, an effort marked so far by modest successes and major setbacks. From free community college to universal prekindergarten to a child tax credit to aid for students at historically Black colleges and universities, key building blocks of Biden’s broad effort to shrink the age-old financial gap between Black and white Americans have fallen by the wayside.

If the justices’ skeptical questioning is reflected in their final decision, student loan forgiveness could be next.

Black students take out loans more often, borrow more money and are more likely to fall behind on payments, research shows. Judith Scott-Clayton, a professor at Columbia University, found that before the pandemic, nearly half of Black borrowers experienced defaults within 12 years of starting college.

Biden promised Black voters he would be a different kind of president, one who did not just pay rhetorical tribute to equality but one who took concrete action to improve African Americans’ position in society. And as he prepares a reelection campaign focused largely on rebuilding the economy, many of those voters, while blaming Republicans for blocking equity initiatives, also ask if Biden could have done more.

“Right now, I would give him a B for effort and a C for execution,” said Rodney Brooks, author of Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap. “And the execution part is that he’s not able to get it done because there is so much opposition to any of these programs that would lessen or improve the racial wealth gap.”

Biden’s supporters say he has in fact offered an impressive array of proposals for closing the wealth gap but that they had difficulty surviving GOP opposition in a narrowly divided Congress.

Congress did pass an expanded child tax credit of up to $3,600, which helped lower child poverty and reduce racial gaps among young families, but lawmakers allowed it to expire in December 2021. Other major bills Biden has signed into law, such as his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and a measure to reduce drug costs and protect the environment, include provisions aimed at addressing racial inequity, though they are less ambitious than the proposals that have collapsed.

With Republicans now in control of the House, Democrats and civil rights activists have little hope that the remaining pieces of Biden’s racial justice program will be politically feasible for the rest of his term. That would force the president to ask voters to give him another four years to deliver on those priorities.