'Danger to a democratic order': Elena Kagan authors searing dissent in SCOTUS student loan ruling

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan on Friday penned a searing seventy-seven-page dissent after the Court's 6-3 right-wing supermajority declared that President Joe Biden's executive order forgiving federal student loan debt under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 was unconstitutional.

Kagan, who was appointed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, asserted that "the Court's first overreach in this case is deciding it at all" because "under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff must have standing to challenge a government action. And that requires a personal stake—an injury in fact. We do not allow plaintiffs to bring suit just because they oppose a policy. Neither do we allow plaintiffs to rely on injuries suffered by others."

Kagan explained that "the plaintiffs in this case are six States that have no personal stake in the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan. They are classic ideological plaintiffs: They think the plan a very bad idea, but they are no worse off because the Secretary differs. In giving those States a forum — in adjudicating their complaint — the Court forgets its proper role. The Court acts as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and controversies."

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Kagan stated that "the policy judgments, under our separation of powers, are supposed to come from Congress and the President. But they don't when the Court refuses to respect the full scope of the delegations that Congress makes to the Executive Branch. When that happens, the Court becomes the arbiter — indeed, the maker — of national policy."

Kagan also noted that in "wielding its judicially manufactured heightened-specificity requirement, the Court refuses to acknowledge the plain words of the HEROES Act. It declines to respect Congress's decision to give broad emergency powers to the Secretary. It strikes down his lawful use of that authority to provide student-loan assistance."

Kagan added that "from the first page to the last, today's opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint. At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent."

Kagan thusly concluded that "the majority overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans. I respectfully dissent from that decision."

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Kagan's full dissent is available at this link.