The chair of the House committee that oversees education policy told the Biden administration on Tuesday to block rioting college students from having their student loans forgiven by the government.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican, blasted Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for a weak approach to the campus chaos, saying he has been unwilling to use the federal government’s power to tamp down on protests that have disrupted school schedules and left Jewish students fearing for their safety.
“Will you commit to ensuring that no student who has harassed other students or prevented other students from going to class or broken laws receives any form of student loan forgiveness?” Ms. Foxx challenged Mr. Cardona.
He was noncommittal, instead focusing on his own words.
“We are committed to making sure campuses are safe,” he said. “I condemn any form of hate or any violence on campus.”
Ms. Foxx urged him to be more proactive in dealing with riotous protesters.
“We’d like you to follow through on those who do break the law and make sure they don’t receive student loan forgiveness,” she said.
The issue combines two major concerns for Republicans: President Biden’s expansive use of loan forgiveness to wipe tens of billions of dollars in debts, and the current chaos on campuses.
Appearing on Capitol Hill for the second time in two weeks, Mr. Cardona again irked lawmakers with dodgy answers.
He was asked if his department had proactively opened any investigations into colleges for failing to maintain a safe environment for Jewish students.
He responded by saying he’d “provided guidance.”
“It’s not working,” chided Rep. Tim Walberg, Michigan Republican.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, California Republican, made a half-dozen attempts before Mr. Cardona would agree that students asked by their schools to leave encampments should do so.
“If the university directs them to leave they should leave,” the secretary said.
He then struggled through several false starts before saying that college faculty should also leave encampments when asked to do so.
He said his focus was on the safety of students and he wanted to leave space for the schools to address their campus needs as they saw fit.
“I think it’s my responsibility to be very clear that we will not accept hate on campus and we stand against that,” Mr. Cardona said.
From the left, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, demanded the department also investigate Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discrimination.
Mr. Cardona said he would.
The secretary suggested some of his department’s struggles were due to funding. He said in 2009 they had roughly 60 more investigators working on college cases than they do now, despite a massive increase in the workload.
“We need additional investigators to close out these cases and make sure we’re providing support for our students,” he said.