Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education were held in civil contempt by a federal judge on Thursday and ordered to pay damages to student borrowers who took out loans to attend a now-defunct for-profit college. The Education Department was also given a $100,000 fine.
According to Politico, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim found that DeVos and others in her department only showed “minimal effort” to comply with a preliminary injunction that was issued in May of last year ordering the Education Department to stop collecting on the loans.
The Washington Post estimated that roughly 16,000 people were affected by the Education Department’s continued collections.
Judge Kim said in a hearing that she was “extremely disturbed” and “really astounded” that DeVos continued to collect on the student loans even though she was ordered to stop.
Money from the fine will go toward compensating those affected, some of whom had their tax refunds taken by the federal government, and others had their paychecks garnished.
“There is no question that the defendants violated the preliminary injunction. There is also no question that defendants’ violations harmed individual borrowers,” Judge Kim said in her ruling on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.
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