VIEWPOINT / THE LEARNED SCHOLARS ON THE SUPREME COURT
By Timothy Weaver
John Roberts asked a question that seemed to stump even his colleagues and defense counsel: Why isn’t the person who borrows money to start a lawn care business entitled to loan forgiveness? OMG. The brilliance of the Chief Justice! As no one offered a rebuttal or even a challenge, I have to assume this was a deal breaker—student loan forgiveness fails the fairness doctrine, or does it?
Let’s examine this learned argument of the Chief Justice. Was it fair that I and others I know qualified for PPP loan forgiveness, but other businesses and professionals chose to borrow from banks, savings, or friends? Shouldn’t their loans be forgiven as well? When I was in college, the National Defense Education Act made student loans available for the first time. Those who took jobs in education had their student loans forgiven up to 50%. I was one of them.
Why weren’t the loans my non-college friend took from a bank to start a construction business also forgiven? Why weren’t student loans for English, political science, or economics majors forgiven? Was that unfair? Why is it fair that homeowners can take deductions for mortgage interest and taxes while renters cannot? They both pay, the one directly and the other indirectly.
In short, when two groups are treated unequally, is that inherently unfair? The answer is no, and the Chief Justice should know better.
Roberts seems to have slept through philosophy 101 when the lecture dealt with the differences between equity and equality. Separate but equal treatment under the law was ruled inherently unfair, and the Court struck down segregated schools. Fairness for this Court has become a doctrine only in use only when called upon by partisan judges to stop something they politically dislike—in this case, forgiving student loans.
Is it fair, for example, that farmers are paid not to grow crops, but Ford is not paid to stop building cars? No one sued over that. Why not? It is taken as a given that this example of unequal treatment is fair. Keeping farmers in business with price supports is in society’s best interest. Keeping Ford in business is not. How do I know that? Republicans like Senator Romney argued insidiously that keeping car companies in business during the Great Recession was a waste of money, but keeping farmers whole was an excellent use of taxpayer money.
In all of these cases, society, and therefore the government, has a vested interest in encouraging certain kinds of conduct but not others. In the case of education, society has an interest in placing the brightest and best educated in critical positions and leadership roles. Imagine if we selected from the bottom IQ quartile all of our doctors, judges, lawyers (well, maybe that would be ok), engineers, computer analysts, bio-medical researchers, physicists, pilots, etc.? If that were to happen, we would cease to function as a society.
Choosing to extend one’s education is not the same as choosing to make money in lawn care. First, education requires delaying income and other forms of gratification, such as forming a family, owning a home, saving, and investing. Second, the intellectual capacity required for advanced education is not something equally distributed. Therefore, it would not be expected to have equal participation. As noted above, we need the brightest and best in leadership roles. In addition, the student loan forgiveness program is designed to help offset the excessive interest rates charged in student loan programs, and other corrupt activities entrapping young people into borrowing money they can never pay back. The purpose of the student loan forgiveness program is, in part, to right obvious wrongs.
For these reasons, it is not unfair to encourage educational participation through government incentives while not rewarding other endeavors. So, Mr. Chief Justice, is it fair to encourage advanced education while not doing so for lawn care? Yes, it is fair, and every freshman in philosophy would tell you so—maybe even first-year law students.
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