Spring Break
Unfair drug law
Scholarship policy punishes students for crimes already handled by the courts
By: Lindsay Orman
Issue date: 3/26/04 Section: Opinion
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Something is horribly amiss when the government will grant federal aid for education to violent offenders such as murderers, rapists, arsonists, armed robbers and child molesters, but not to a former drug offender trying to get his life back on track. Something is not right when such a law affects drug offenders from wealthy families very little while robbing those convicted of the same crime in poorer families of the opportunity for an education. Something is terribly wrong with a law when its author has encouraged those who have suffered because of it to sue the government.
A provision enacted in October 1998 under the Higher Education Act bans past drug offenders from receiving student financial aid but does more harm than good and fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was originally established.
According to the provision, aid in the form of federal grants and loans is suspended for one year following a first drug offense and two years following the second. For students, this means that as many as 26,000 applicants were refused assistance in 2003, not including those who never bothered to apply as a result of the rule, University Wire reported.
Many of the would-be students were denied aid on account of drug
possessions for which they had already been punished and sentenced years before. For them, the law did not deter drug use, as was its intent, but rather in ex post facto style "end(ed) up discouraging people from moving on with their lives," as Michael Dean, a Denver-based substance abuse counselor told The New York Times. "At what point in our society do we say that a person has paid their debt?"
His concern is echoed by Jason Bell, a senior at San Francisco State University who served almost 10 years in prison for attempted murder and now assists other ex-convicts in getting a higher education. Bell wonders how he managed to fund his education through federal loans and grants - without a problem - while so many convicted of much more minor crimes have such difficulty. "It's a form of double jeopardy," he told the Times. "They do the time, but then there are still roadblocks when they finish. I don't believe people should be punished twice."
The author of the law, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., agrees. "It's absurd on the face of it," he told the Times.
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