Biden’s decision to cancel student loan debt contributes to ‘structural racism,’ educator argues

On Aug. 22, two days before President Biden announced his decision to cancel student loan debt, one educator took to Twitter to call him out for contributing to “structural racism.”

Nina Turner, a self-proclaimed activist and a Senior Fellow at The New School Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy in New York City, shared her thoughts about the recent developments revolving around student loan forgiveness. Turner is also a former Ohio State Senator. 

“Canceling $10,000 in student debt when the average white borrower is $12,000 in debt, while Black women hold on average over $52,000 isn’t just unacceptable, it’s structural racism,” Turner tweeted.

[RELATED: BREAKING: Biden cancels $10k of students’ debt, extends loan freeze again]

The White House, however, claims that the plan “helps narrow the racial wealth gap.” 

Even though Biden partially followed through with his campaign promise to cancel student loan debt, Turner still expressed concerns about how his decision may affect students of different races in different ways.  

“To Black people and other people of color, to women, to immigrants, to indigenous peoples, and to many others with social identities deemed different from socially defined dominant groups, society offers less wealth, more discrimination, more violence, worse healthcare, fewer protections, and less economic, cultural, and political power,” the Institute’s website reads. 

Turner is not the only voice coming from the left expressing anger towards Biden’s student loan cancellation. 

[RELATED: MORABITO: Leftists are using claims of racism and sexism to try to cancel loan repayment]

The President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Derrick Johnson, for example, took to Twitter on Aug. 23 to complain about Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 per borrower prior to the plan’s official release.

“This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020,” Johnson’s tweet reads in part. 

.@POTUS’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people, especially Black women, behind. This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020.

— Derrick Johnson (@DerrickNAACP) August 23, 2022

Johnson also published a critical op-ed for CNN the day the plan was officially announced.

“Canceling just $10,000 of debt is like pouring a bucket of ice water on a forest fire. It hardly achieves anything — only making a mere dent in the problem,” Johnson argued.

Campus Reform reached out to Nina Turner, the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, and Derrick Johnson for comment. This article will be updated accordingly. 

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