Donald Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, just lost a major court battle over consumer protections for Americans who take out student loans.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss decided against the request from a group representing for-profit colleges to end regulations that help defrauded students receive federal loan forgiveness and forbid colleges from requiring students to go to arbitration to resolve complaints instead of taking matters to court, according to Politico. As a result of Moss' decision, the consumer protections passed under President Barack Obama will now go into effect, especially because Moss has previously struck down attempts by DeVos to delay the regulations from being implemented.

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Moss' ruling is "an important step for borrowers and should be a signal for the department that its deregulatory agenda is both hurting borrowers and is not going to tolerated by the courts," Julie Murray, a staff attorney at Public Citizen, which challenged DeVos' delays in implementing the Obama consumer protections, told Politico. She later added, "The department as of noon today has a legal obligation to implement this rule and, to the extent they don’t abide by that legal obligation, that is something that we and other consumer advocates will be watching closely."

By contrast, Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, said that he hopes the Trump administration will try to obstruct the implementation of the rules regardless of the court's decision.

"There are many examples of both the Obama administration, and the Bush administration before that, choosing not to implement or enforce rules of the previous administration because they do not agree with such rules. The Trump administration should have the same authority to do so," Gunderson said.

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DeVos has been a highly controversial figure since taking office in the Trump administration, for reasons ranging from her support for school vouchers to her uninformed answers during her Senate confirmation hearing. Back in May, she incurred the ire of teachers' unions by giving responses to questions that seemed to blame them for seeking a better standard of living. As Salon wrote at the time: