Pubdate: Tue, 08 Apr 2003
Source: Diamondback, The (MD Edu)
Copyright: 2003 Maryland Media, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.diamondbackonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/758
Note:  is also listed as email contact
Author: Martin Baer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act)

DRUG WAR SEEPS INTO UNIVERSITIES

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act into 
law. By establishing federal financial aid programs, this act was an 
attempt to open the doors to a college education to students who might not 
otherwise have been able to attend.

However, in 1998, during the law's congressional reauthorization, Rep. Mark 
Souder (R-Ind.) authored a provision that disqualifies applicants based on 
any prior drug conviction, even non-violent misdemeanors. According to the 
Department of Education, over 91,000 students to date have had their 
financial aid fully or partially denied because of the new provision. This 
makes the HEA Drug Provision the No. 1 legal obstacle to low and 
middle-income families trying to send their children to college. The law 
applies a second level of punishment to the students who need extra help to 
pay for their college education: those from poor and middle-class families.

Over 40 groups have argued that by denying access to education, the HEA 
Drug Provision closes the door to the best opportunities of society, 
thereby fulfilling the prophecy that drug use ruins the future of young people.

Worse yet, the Drug Provision brings the inequities of the drug war into 
the realm of college enrollment. According to the Department of Justice and 
Department of Health and Human Services, people of color commit drug 
offenses at a rate proportional to their percentage of the United States 
population (Hispanics 12.5 percent and black non-Hispanics 12.6 percent), 
but 46 percent of those charged with drug offenses are Hispanic and 28 
percent are black.

At a time when American colleges and universities are struggling to make 
gains in minority academic achievement, they cannot afford to have 
enrollment dictated by the injustices that infest the war on drugs.

Substance abuse among our young people is a serious national problem, but 
blocking the path to an education is an inappropriate response. Closing the 
doors of our colleges and universities, making it more difficult for 
at-risk young people to finish college and succeed in their goals, is not a 
policy fit for an advanced society such as ours. There is a bill in the 
House of Representatives that would repeal the drug provision: H.R. 685, 
introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). In support of H.R. 685, today is 
a national day of action with coordinated events all around the country.

Concerned citizens will be calling their representatives and voicing their 
opposition to the HEA Drug Provision. On the way to your next class, use 
those precious minutes on your cell phone to call your representatives to 
let them know that you support H.R. 685, the legislation to repeal the HEA 
Drug Provision. Do not forget to also call the representative from your 
hometown (you can find them at www.house.gov).

These would-be students have already paid whatever price the criminal 
justice system demanded.

Judges handling drug cases already have the option of denying drug 
offenders federal benefits, and school administrators have the power to 
expel problem students.

When we deny students the opportunity for a college education, it brings us 
no closer to solving the nation's drug problem; instead, it only increases 
the already destructive impact of the horribly misguided war on drugs. Our 
university's administration has the responsibility to do what it can to 
protect against assaults on higher-education funding, which they have been 
doing admirably thus far with the budget cuts. University President Dan 
Mote's colleagues Gregory Prince and Richard C. Levin, the presidents of 
Hampshire College and Yale University, respectively, have been very 
aggressive in voicing opposition to the HEA Drug Provision and have pledged 
that students attending their schools will not be denied financial aid for 
a drug conviction. The following university groups hope very much that 
President Mote and his administration will have the courage to voice their 
opposition to this misguided policy: American Civil Liberties Union, 
College Park Libertarians, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Electronic 
Dance and Music Club and the International Socialist Organization.

For more information, visit www.RaiseYourVoice.com, and come to Jimenez 
0220 on Thursday, April 10 at 7 p.m. to hear a panel discussion titled "The 
Drug War and its Effects on Higher Education."

Martin Baer is co-president of the university's Students for Sensible Drug 
Policy. He can be reached at  ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom