Pubdate: Sat, 13 Mar 2004
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2004 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Greg Winter /New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act)

PAST DRUG OFFENSES DENY MANY COLLEGE AID

Some Want to Rewrite Law That Hurts Students Rebuilding Their Lives

NEW YORK - She was thrown out of the house at 13 for declaring herself a 
lesbian and spent her teen years sleeping on subway trains, yet Laura 
Melendez still managed to get her GED.

Sure, there had been a few arrests for marijuana, but after an entire 
adolescence spent on the streets, what would those offenses really amount to?

"It means I'll be denied an education," said Melendez, who is from the 
Bronx, now 22 and applying to college.

If Melendez had been an armed robber, a rapist, even a murderer, she would 
not be in the same predicament. Once out of prison, she would have been 
entitled to government grants and loans, no questions asked.

But under a contentious provision of federal law, tens of thousands of 
would-be college students have been denied financial aid because of drug 
offenses, even though the crimes may have been committed long ago and the 
sentences already served out.

"It is absurd on the face of it," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind.

Souder, who wrote the law, says the Clinton and Bush administrations have 
both turned it on its head, taking a penalty meant to discourage current 
students from experimenting with drugs and using it to punish people trying 
to get their lives back on track.

"I am an evangelic Christian who believes in repentance, so why would I 
have supported that?" he said. "Why would any of us in Congress?"

The aid prohibition has been a sore point since its enactment in 1998. 
Members of Congress have accused the Clinton and Bush administrations of 
distorting the law's intent.

The Education Department has fired back, saying Congress handed it a vague 
and sloppy law -- one referring simply to "a student who has been 
convicted" of a drug offense -- that the department is faithfully enforcing.

Students are equally perplexed. After serving almost 10 years in prison for 
attempted murder, Jason Bell went straight to college on federal grants and 
loans. Now a senior at San Francisco State University, he helps other 
ex-convicts enroll in the university, but often has a hard time assisting 
drug offenders whose crimes were minor.

"It's a form of double jeopardy," said Bell, 32. "They do the time, but 
then there are still roadblocks when they finish. I don't believe people 
should be punished twice."

Some members of Congress say they are pushing to rewrite the law for 
precisely that reason. For the first time since the prohibition took 
effect, the president's budget includes a commitment to revise it -- not to 
throw it out, but to narrow its scope so that students like Melendez get a 
second chance.

"It would really take a lot off my mind," she said. "I need to go to 
school. I can't just leave it like this."

Yet the changes would perpetuate what some members of Congress see as the 
law's contradictions. Under President Bush's language, anyone who violated 
drug laws before going to college could get financial aid, regardless of 
the offense. That would be in keeping with Bush's philosophy, as laid out 
in his State of the Union address, that "when the gates of the prison open, 
the path ahead should lead to a better life."

But those already in college when they commit a drug offense, however 
small, would still be stripped of aid for at least a year. The idea, 
supporters say, is to continue trying to dissuade students from using 
drugs, especially since they are being educated with taxpayer money.

The problem, detractors say, is that the law would still impose stiffer 
penalties on drug use than on any other crime.

"We should abolish the whole rule," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. "Not 
that we should encourage drug use, but you shouldn't single that out as 
being worse than rape or arson or armed robbery."

Souder says the aid prohibition was never meant to punish people for bad 
choices they made long ago. Students who have been denied aid because of 
offenses committed before they were in college, he said, should consider 
their options.

"I know as a conservative I'm not supposed to say this," he said, "but 
there are lawsuits to be had here."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager