Group of taxpayers asks Supreme Court to halt student debt program
WASHINGTON — A taxpayer group asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to pause a Biden administration program to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for millions of borrowers, days after the launch of online applications.
The group of taxpayers from Brown County, Wisconsin, want the Supreme Court prevent any loans from being forgiven while their challenge to the program case plays out in lower courts.
The long-shot appeal is the first of what could be numerous Supreme Court bouts over the student loan forgiveness program, which could impact millions of federal borrowers. A central issue is whether the group has the legal right to file a legal challenge to the program.
The taxpayers argued the Biden administration’s program supplanted Congress’ authority to dictate spending, since it uses a law meant to help military personnel and first responders as “a warrant to transfer hundreds of billions, or perhaps over a trillion, dollars in debt onto taxpayers.”
—CQ-Roll Call
University of Minnesota Regents vice chairman apologizes for asking whether Morris campus is 'too diverse'
MINNEAPOLIS — The vice chairman of the board that oversees the University of Minnesota system apologized "unequivocally" for asking whether enrollment at the Morris campus was "too diverse."
In a five-paragraph statement issued through the public relations office on the Twin Cities campus late Tuesday, Steve Sviggum said he's willing to learn and must do better.
Sviggum wrote that his intent was to encourage discussion about the ongoing decline in enrollment at the Morris campus, which is down 50% from its peak. "The future of this great campus depends on finding solutions to reverse that trend," he wrote.
At a regents meeting last week, Sviggum asked acting Morris Chancellor Janet Schrunk Ericksen whether diversity was linked to declining enrollment. "I've received a couple letters, two actually, from friends whose children are not going to go to Morris because it is too diverse," Sviggum said at the meeting. "They just didn't feel comfortable there."
—Star Tribune
Philly schools will vote to spend $5 million to keep students’ cell phones locked up
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia School District wants to create “phone-free schools,” and officials will soon consider spending $5 million to do so.
On Thursday, the school board is scheduled to vote on a five-year contract with Yondr Inc. that would provide all district schools that want them with individual sealed magnetic pouches limiting students’ access to their phones during instructional time.
“With a cell phone-free environment, schools can increase engagement in the classroom so that there can be a substantial increase in student learning as evidenced by benchmarks, constructed responses, on-track percentages, and teacher assessments,” school board documents say.
“Furthermore, the absence of cell phones during the day can help lead to less incidents of cyber bullying, reducing the number of students leaving the building and returning illegally by texting their friends, and a reduction in class cuts.” District officials said the program would be open to all 216 district schools, but schools will still have latitude to decide whether they want to use the Yondr equipment.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Ukrainian blood bank leaders look to Chicago-area hospitals for help
The entourage walked slowly through Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s blood bank, winding past lab technicians, centrifuges and refrigerators holding blood samples. Every few steps, the three people at the heart of the visit — blood bank and blood system leaders from Ukraine — paused to ask questions through a translator.
They had traveled more than 5,000 miles, during a war, to see how Northwestern and other Illinois hospitals and blood centers operate, in hopes of improving blood services in Ukraine. The country had already begun work to reform its blood system before the start of the war, a crisis that made the job more important than ever.
It’s a blood system that serves civilians and military personnel. “The war began unexpectedly for everyone in Ukraine,” said Oleksandr Serhiienko, deputy director general for the Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center, through a translator. “We had to modernize all our efforts to ensure that the donor blood will be present in all the places where it’s needed.”
In Ukraine, the war with Russia has meant the closure of some blood centers and the destruction of others, he said.
—Chicago Tribune
