If you weren’t already super psyched for the Big Beautiful Bill borrowing caps making law school unaffordable for many, get ready to learn that most lawyerly public service is no longer getting loan forgiveness. Because public service itself is going to ā€œillegal.ā€

The Trump administration’s ongoing war on the legal profession continues with the Department of Education releasing its finalized Public Service Loan Forgiveness rule — a process kicked off in March when Trump issued his Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness Executive Order — and while its impact will be felt across education, the new rule is especially brutal for law school graduates, with the DOE cutting off forgiveness to those causes it deems to be supporting ā€œillegal activity.ā€ And, if you hadn’t already guessed what it means to support ā€œillegalā€ activity in this regime, they mean jobs like ā€œrepresenting immigrantsā€ and ā€œadvocating for transgender rights.ā€

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    17 hours ago

    Except this isn’t even a law.

    It wasn’t passed or voted on by Congress.

    It is a guideline, from the Dept. of Education.

    So… yeah that’s not a law, and thus… nothing can be said to be ā€˜illegal’ when not in compliance with it.

    Had we a functioning government and legal system, that was not headed by a Supreme court that lols at the idea that precedent matters… well you could probably argue that this rule is itself illegal, unconstitutional.

    But, alas, the law and order President actually just means that the law is whatever he says it is, so… moot point.