In this week’s mini-episode, returning guest Umme Hoque, Organizing Director of The Debt Collective, talks about the recent student debt cancellation week of action. Umme discusses how the movement to cancel student debt is building pressure on President Biden to take action, and it’s working. She also gives us an update on the memo Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona is writing to President Biden about student loan cancellation.

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Transcript –

Nikki Nolan: Hey, Matter of Life & Debt-ers, it’s me, Nikki Nolan, here. I am bringing you another mini-episode with returning guests Umme Hoque, the Organizing Director of The Debt Collective.

We are talking about what happened with last week’s week of actions, as well as news about the secretary of education Cardona’s memo, that he is currently writing to Biden around student loan cancellation.

There’s also information on how we can keep putting pressure on elected officials to help us win the fight for student loan cancellation.

Enjoy.

Welcome back to the podcast. I brought you here for a short mini-episode because you just came off of a week of actions, for the debt collective, tell me about the week of actions.

Umme Hoque: Thank you so much for having me back. I am still super energized from last week. We did have a huge week of action, where people all over the country were calling for full student, debt cancellation. And so that was members of the Debt Collective and our allies at the Poor People’s Campaign, also just activists around the country who want to see something change in this space.

So we had rallies and events all over the place, including, and I’m just going to name a bunch of cities because I’m still so excited about it. We saw people who were taking action together in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego, even in the middle of the country, like I’m an Albuquerque. We saw some folks in Knoxville and Nashville. So both places in Tennessee, Denver, Vermont, San Francisco. And then we even had some places like some of the smaller cities that I, myself can’t even pronounce in New York and Illinois. All over the place where people were either having rallies or taking photos with their phone friends. They were at their senator’s offices or the department of education. And they were calling for full student debt cancellation and a pathway to tuition-free college.

Then we had our virtual rally as well with our friends at the Poor People’s Campaign on Wednesday evening. Thousands of people tuned in to watch us on Facebook. And we also all took digital action together as well, because not everyone feels safe in COVID times being out in the streets. That makes a lot of sense. And we’re all in front of the computer most of the time. So people were tweeting at their senators and their representatives and at Joe Biden as well.

We saw a lot of different outcomes last week, which was really exciting on a local level. And we saw some more local resolutions that were introduced or passed.

So For instance, in the city of Philadelphia, where we passed those a couple of weeks ago, last week on Friday, we saw the city of Washington DC introduced a local resolution and where the local council is actually calling on Joe Biden to cancel student loan debt. And we know that there’s more in the works around the country.

We also saw last week that, around 23 attorney generals wrote to the secretary of education and called on him to cancel student loan debt. And to also look at all of the other transformations that need to happen around student loans, within this country because people are struggling so hard.

On a federal level, we saw Senator Warren, standing with the Massachusetts attorney general and Ayanna Pressley calling on cancellation, and then Senator Schumer and Warren, and a handful of others released a video, telling people that they should be contacting the president, that this is our time.

And I think the culmination of all of that is that we heard. That Joe Biden has asked the secretary of education, to actually take a look at whether or not he has the authority to cancel student debt. So he is working on a memo. And the timeline of that memo that we saw is it’s going to be a couple of weeks before it’s produced.

But we also know the answer to that memo because the other thing that happened last week, Is that the secretary of education actually extended protections for people who have FFEL loans who have been excluded from any sort of pauses right now, people who have defaulted on those loans are now going to be in the pauses as well, which is actually the same authority that the president has to cancel student loan debt. So they’re already showing that they know the legislation exists and that they’re using it.

It’s a great sign that Biden has asked, the secretary of education to look into it more. I would be really shocked if it says anything other than the president has this authority because we’ve seen him use it literally last week. We saw him use it before, when we were talking earlier about those 72,000 students who had been defrauded by their universities, that cancellation was also using the same authority.

So actually seeing that, not only are they using this authority, but they’re looking into it more to look at more full-scale debt cancellation, which in my mind means we’re having an impact.

Our actions are working. Our calls are working, everyone, doing all of the things that we did last week. Not only was it amazing and inspiring to see, but we are actually having an impact on federal politics.

We’re still calling at the Debt Collective for people to continue to take action, even though it’s no longer the week of action, we can still write our representatives, call our senators. Tweet at the president, tweet at the secretary of education now because he’s working on this memo and he needs to hear from us too. There’s so much opportunity right now, especially because they’ve said it’ll take a couple of weeks for that memo to get written for us to continue to build up the pressure because we know that the more that these folks hear from us, the more that they’ll know how important this issue is to all of us.

I’m still riding so high that I just rambled at you about all of those amazing things that happened last week, but can you believe that all that happens in a week?

Nikki Nolan: I’m so excited. All the stuff that you all have been doing, has been so amazing. So inspiring. You’ve already talked about ways that people can get involved. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?

Umme Hoque: There’s a lot of opportunities for all of us to take action together to really move the president, in many different ways. So that’s also why I talked about how we’re working on local resolutions on a local level. Where council members and your local politicians could support by putting pressure on Biden, attorney generals, hearing from their constituents as well. The ones who are supportive or the ones who aren’t supportive and being able to raise those issues to the president folks are writing to their senators and their, Congressional representatives because those people are directly elected by us as, as the president, but all of the various different ways that people have to interact with politicians, the people who actually represent you in your local community should be hearing from you, not just the president, not just the Senator, but literally everyone that you can think of now is our time to really amplify how important this issue is because it’s not just us a federal thing. It’s not just Joe Biden, who needs to hear from us. Joe Biden is the one who will make this decision and he will make this decision because he will hear from enough people that this is important.

We know that part of the reason that local council people are so interested is because their constituents are hurting and that money could go back into our local communities as opposed to going to banks and all that sort of stuff.
We just need to be able to, Raise how important this issue is to every single elected person who can hear from us. And so for folks who are willing to take action, and who want to see this come to fruition now is truly our time.

These next couple of weeks are so important for us to be able to reach out to these people and to make sure that this issue is being heard. On many different levels for many bits of different people in our government, because if we continue to amplify each other, if we continue to speak louder, I really think we’re gonna win.

We’re on that road. We just need to keep speaking louder and keep taking action together. Keep building our power together, keeping a community together, keep sharing our stories. Canceling it will mean so much to so many of us and now is really that chance for all of us to collectivize, to build our power, and, to win.

Nikki Nolan: Let’s go win. Let’s go win.

Thank you so much for that really quick update.

Umme Hoque: Thank you so much.

Nikki Nolan: Matter of Life and Debt is produced by me Nikki Nolan.

Special thanks to Efe Akmen for creating the music and mastering the audio.

Additional support and thanks to Sarah Thibault  who writes the information and transcripts about each episode.

This podcast would not have been possible without them.

Visit our website for more information matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen, read transcripts, get additional context of the subjects you just heard about, and subscribe- absolutely for free. That website again, matteroflifeanddebt.com. Thanks again for listening.

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