It’s not every day that a prominent Cabinet official is held in contempt of court. However, that’s what happened on Friday, when federal judge Sallie Kim found Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in civil contempt of court, slapping her department with a $100,000 fine. Frankly, this decision is puzzling to the point of suggesting possible impropriety.
First, this same judge, Kim, callously and haphazardly touted the prospect of jailing Secretary DeVos at an earlier court date, despite the fact that it’s almost inconceivable that something like that would ever happen.
Here’s how USA Today summed up that case:
Here’s the bottom line: The Department of Education made a mistake and failed to comply with the judge’s order. However, by Oct. 21, at least 99% of affected borrowers who had overpaid had been compensated, and this week they’ve attempted to address every last situation. An Education Department official explained their efforts to remedy the problem in a video posted to Twitter.
We’re disappointed in the court’s ruling. We acknowledged that servicers made unacceptable mistakes. @BetsyDeVosED directed @FAFSA to take immediate action to help every impacted borrower. As of today, @FAFSA has taken the actions needed to make every impacted borrower whole. pic.twitter.com/10kgh63bhH
— U.S. Department of Education (@usedgov) October 25, 2019
Yet Judge Kim still chose to hold DeVos in contempt of court on Thursday, despite the department and secretary having already made clear, good-faith efforts to right the situation. This is baffling.
A cursory look at the judge’s past raises an eyebrow, for sure. Judge Kim was appointed by former President Barack Obama, and from 2013 to 2014, worked as a Title IX coordinator at Stanford University. Notably, Secretary DeVos has proposed numerous reforms to Title IX that run deeply against the grain of what most left-leaning university administrators support.
Let’s be clear: There’s no smoking gun indicating that the judge has it in for Betsy DeVos. But it’s hard to imagine any other reason she would take such a drastic step against a prominent Trump official.
