The suit is being brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on behalf of the Brown County Taxpayers Association and argues that the Biden administration has an “improper racial motive” for the policy.

They cite the fact that the White House has said the policy could narrow the racial wealth gap and advance racial equality, arguing that the statements constitute a violation of the constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The Claim

Actor Billy Baldwin highlighted the lawsuit on Twitter and was highly critical of it.

“A conservative group in Wisconsin is SUING President Biden because they’re afraid his student loan debt cancelation will ’narrow the racial wealth gap and help Black borrowers,’” he wrote.

“Tell me you’re a racist without telling me you’re a racist,” Baldwin said, adding in a subsequent tweet: “We should call out the ‘Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty’ for what they really are” and sharing a story about the lawsuit from The Washington Post.

The Facts

The lawsuit centers on whether the Biden administration has an “improper racial motive” for the student debt cancellation policy and whether that improper motive is a violation of equal protection guarantees in the U.S. Constitution.

Rick Esenberg, WILL president and general counsel, categorically denied that the lawsuit had a racial motivation. Esenberg told Newsweek in a statement that Baldwin’s claim is “false.”

He said Baldwin was wrong to say the suit was motivated by the effect the policy may have on Black borrowers.

“He said that we objected to the program ‘because’ it closes the racial gap,” Esenberg said. “There is nothing in the complaint that says that this effect—if, in fact, it is the effect—is the legal problem with the program. It is the racial motivation—not the racial impact – that government must avoid.”

“Part of our lawsuit objects to the government’s self-confessed racial motivation in adopting the program; not its racial impact,” Esenberg said. “In other words, the problem is not that the program might benefit Blacks disproportionately. It’s the administration says it enacted the program because it would benefit one race more than another.”

Esenberg went on: “We have also pointed out that the administration explicitly announced that it was motivated by the program’s racially disparate impact, i.e., it adopted the program to help one racial group more than others. A program is not objectionable just because it happens to do that. A program that was limited to low income persons might have that impact and we wouldn’t object.”

He said they would also object to a government enacting a tax cut for the wealthy if the government “say it did so because a disproportionate number of white people would be helped. It is our belief that government decision-making must be race-neutral.”

Abby Shafroth, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, was critical of the lawsuit and defended the administration’s policy.

“This lawsuit claims that student debt cancellation violates the Equal Protection Clause because President Biden celebrated that, among its other benefits, it would advance racial equity,” Shafroth told Newsweek in a statement.

“To be clear, the cancellation policy itself is ‘race neutral,’ meaning that race is not taken into account when deciding who is eligible for student debt cancellation or how much cancellation they will receive, and working and middle class people of every race and ethnicity will benefit from cancellation,” she said.

“But cancellation advances racial equity because Black students have to take on the most debt to access college as a result of historical discriminatory practices that prevented Black families from accumulating assets and savings to pay for college,” Shafroth said.

“The legal theory behind this challenge seems to be that the Equal Protection Clause forbids any consideration of how a policy will impact racial inequities,” Shafroth went on. “That is an extreme and unfounded position that would transform the Equal Protection Clause from its purpose of fighting discrimination into a requirement to preserve discrimination.”

The Ruling

Needs Context.

Both sides in this case have a point, but are also to an extent misrepresenting what the other claims.

The lawsuit against the Biden administration focuses on the motivation for the student debt cancellation policy and whether the policy is race neutral.

It does not argue that the effect on Black borrowers and the racial wealth gap are harms or legal problems with the policy (and doesn’t have this phrasing in the text, as the tweet misleadingly implies).

But the underlying premise contained in the lawsuit is also arguably mischaracterizing the purpose of Biden’s debt cancelation initiative, which may affect different races disproportionately—but only because they are disproportionately disadvantaged.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK