In this post: Federal Courts review when federal agency action, findings and conclusions are "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."
United States District Courthouse (E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse) in Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons)
When a federal agency takes action, or makes findings and conclusions that are "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law," federal judges may act to make them invalid. What is arbitrary and capricious in particular fills books with federal decisions.
One of the actions, findings and conclusions at issue today is the access granted by various federal agencies to their computers by private individuals who have no apparent federal government role or any known federal office. This has happened, for example, at the Department of Education. A pending lawsuit filed on February 7, 2025 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleges that these computer systems include sensitive internal information related to federal student aid. The student aid has previously been given by the federal government, such that if stopping a small part of federal spending that is the student loan program, access to sensitive information stored on the Education Department's computers is not going to reach that goal, if that should be the intent.
I do not know what the intent is, actually. I have not seen any findings of fact or conclusions issued by the Department of Education about the access of private individuals to the sensitive information that is contained in the Department's computers about student loans. So I do not know the intent behind allowing the access.
I know only what I have read in the newspapers. I know only that the Department of Education has acted to allow the access.
The Department's action has been challenged in a lawsuit by, among others, students who received student loans and whose information is on file in the Department's computers. The students see this access as arbitrary and capricious.
They also allege that the Department's action in allowing access to sensitive information stored on the Department's computers about students who applied for and received student loans, is contrary to law, violates their privacy rights, and exceeds the Department of Education's statutory authority.
It will be worth following the development of this case as it chugs along, particularly but not alone about the "arbitrary" and "capricious" issues it raises.
Above all, it will be interesting to hear and read how the federal government lawyers can contend with a straight face that the Department's action is "reasonable" or the opposite of "arbitrary," or that the Department's action in this regard is "stable" or the opposite of "capricious," especially when this action has never been taken before now.
On to the next insallment of "A Review of Judicial Review."
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