Drug Conviction? That’s OK at Berkeley
Sacramento Union 4/12/07
The grants approved by Cal’s student government earlier this year won a 2007 ‘’Campus Outrage Award,’’ from the Delaware-based Collegiate Network.
‘’You would think student government at Berkeley might want to reward students with good grades, not those who have violated school policy, federal law, state law,’’ said Stephen Klugewicz, executive director of the network.
Cal student senator David Israel Wasserman helped create the grants _ Removing Impediments to Students’ Education, or RISE _ because he said it’s unfair for federal financial aid officials to just say no to certain students.
‘’I don’t like the fact that the government singles out and basically creates a caste of students that are not deserving of financial aid and not deserving of the means to go to college,’’ he said.
While a handful of schools have extended help to students caught by the penalty, Berkeley is unusual in having a program run by students, said Tom Angell, spokesman for the Students For Sensible Drug Policy.
The Washington-based student group joined the ACLU last year to sue over the restriction, but the suit was dismissed. An appeal is pending.
‘’It does not make sense to pull students out of school for minor drug offenses,’’ said Angell. ‘’That only increases the chances that they’ll go on to develop serious drug problems or commit more serious crimes and makes it less likely that they’ll become productive taxpaying citizens.’’
The drug conviction penalty was added to the Higher Education Act in 1998. Penalties range from a one-year suspension to permanent ineligibility, depending on the type and number of convictions. The ban, which does not include alcohol-related offenses, can be lifted if students complete approved rehabilitation programs.
According to Education Department figures, nearly 33,000 students who applied for financial aid for the 2006-07 school year were ineligible because of self-reported drug convictions (although it’s also possible other factors could have disqualified those students.) Another 1,800 were eligible for aid for only part of the school year due to the date of their drug offenses.
More than 10,000 students left the question blank, which means their applications weren’t processed. All told, the number of students denied aid amounted to less than 1 percent of the overall 13.7 million applicants.
For the upcoming school year, the law was changed so students only have to report drug offenses that occurred while they were in college and getting financial aid. Data so far indicate that out of 5.5 million applicants about 2,000 are in the ineligible category, about 100 face suspended aid and about 2,600 left the question blank.
At Berkeley, Wasserman sees the law as too broad, because it covers major and minor drug offenses, and unfair, because students aren’t asked about non-drug related convictions.
He noted that the scholarship program, as approved by Berkeley’s Associated Students of the University of California, comes with requirements, including 20 hours of community service, so ‘’it’s not like we’re just handing out money to people.’’
So far, there haven’t been any applicants for the grants, which would be funded by money generated from student fees as well as business operations run by ASUC.
But that’s OK by Wasserman, who hopes just having the awards in place will boost lobbying efforts to repeal the drug penalty as the education act comes up for review this year.
RISE rose to No. 2 on the Collegiate Network’s list of five campus outrages. No. 1 was a decision at the College of William and Mary to remove a cross from the altar of the campus’ historic Wren Chapel.
‘’Tough call,’’ said Klugewicz.