Democrats frustrated as Biden stays cautious on higher education

The enthusiasm in much of US higher education raised by Democrat control of the White House and Congress is softening under the reality of administrative caution on some key hot-button issues.

The heaviest attention of late has focused on Senator Elizabeth Warren and her imposition of a procedural block on a top Education Department nominee aimed at forcing Joe Biden to meet a campaign promise on student loan debt forgiveness.

The Biden administration has also agreed to defend the right of government-funded Christian colleges and universities to discriminate against LGBTQ people just as lawmakers voted in the opposite direction.

And several Democratic lawmakers are protesting the FBI’s treatment of a Chinese-born University of Tennessee lecturer.

Not even six months into the administration, such splits were reminding experts that Mr Biden has never been the political progressive that so many in academia may have wanted.

“He’s the Joe Biden shaped by decades in the US Senate, where he specialised in negotiation and compromise,” said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

Student loan forgiveness has been a focal point throughout the administration. Mr Biden promised as a presidential candidate that he would cancel $10,000 (£7,230) per borrower in student debt owed to the government, but has said since taking office that he is still reviewing the matter.

That fuelled protests and finally led Ms Warren – who wants $50,000 forgiven per borrower – to use her right as a senator to place a block on a vote on Mr Biden’s choice of James Kvaal to serve as undersecretary of education.

The showdown reflects a wider split among Democrats over the question of whether blanket loan forgiveness is the most effective tool for helping low-income former students.

The Tennessee case, meanwhile, was the first Trump-era prosecution of academic researchers with ties to China. The government failed to win a conviction after an FBI agent admitted during trial that the agency had tried to get the defendant, Anming Hu – an associate professor of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering before his dismissal by the university – to spy for the US.

Mr Biden has been critical of the previous administration’s antagonism of foreign academics, although he has not promised to stop a repeat prosecution of Dr Hu or the pursuit of other such cases. Three House Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding that the Justice Department explain the FBI’s apparent mistreatment of Dr Hu after his refusal to serve as a spy.

The matter of LGBTQ rights concerns a lawsuit by students from 25 religious colleges accusing their institutions of engaging in or allowing mistreatment based on sexual and gender identities.

The Biden administration has repeatedly condemned such bias, and backs a House-passed measure that would add gender identity and sexuality to the protections under the federal Civil Rights Act and greatly weaken religious-based exemptions to them.

Biden allies suggested that the Justice Department’s decision to defend existing religious exceptions in the lawsuit was strategic, allowing it to control the legal arguments and not give Christian institutions a venue to try expanding judicial interpretations of their right to discriminate.

But the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, which provides legal representation for LGBTQ college students, accused the Biden administration of “aligning itself with anti-LGBTQ hate”.

Mr Biden’s actions of late should remind the higher education community that he has never been a progressive, and that a deeply divided Congress will only reinforce that habit, Professor Sabato said.

“Biden has centrist tendencies,” he said, “and observers are going to start noticing this more and more as we move into his term.”

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com