August 31, 2006

Published February 8, 2006

Higher Education
ACLU, students say financial aid shouldn’t end over drug convictions

By ROSETTE ROYALE
Staff Reporter

“Wanna smoke a bowl?”

It was an innocent proposition, one Jennifer Macone says she assumed would be appreciated by the “really nice” hotel manager in Limon, Colo.

After all, Macone, now 26, was strapped for cash that August evening in 2003, so when the manager offered her a room at a deep discount, she wanted to express her gratitude. The manager politely declined. So Macone turned out the light and, with her then-six-year old son by her side, went nighty-night.

Morning arrived. So, too, did Colorado’s Finest. A search of her room and car turned up marijuana — “It was a gram of pot, hardly anything,” claims Macone — and a pipe. Because her son was with her, the officer forwent arrest and issued a ticket: Macone was to report to a Colorado court for a hearing three weeks later. As she was living in Shoreline at the time, she couldn’t afford the return trip. Instead, she phoned the court to enter a plea. The judge, in response, gave her an ultimatum: either plead guilty for possession of a controlled substance or stand charges not only for possession and paraphernalia but also child abuse.

Macone was caught off guard: potentially lose custody of her son? She panicked. “So I pleaded guilty,” she says.

And while the plea meant she kept her son, it also meant she lost something else: namely, financial aid to help pay for tuition at Shoreline Community College. Without the $2,500, Macone had to drop out. “I just had a few more classes to take and then go to UW,” she recalls, to pursue a degree in mycology, the study of fungi, “which never happened.”

But what happened to Macone only fuels the fire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and their desire to challenge a federal law — one that causes students with drug convictions to lose financial aid.

“ For students in school, drug convictions are the only infraction for which they are denied aid,” says Dominic Holden, who served as steering committee chair for voter initiative I-75, which made marijuana possession the lowest police priority in Seattle in 2003. “Even violent offenders remain eligible for federal assistance.”

At issue is a drug provision that has now become part of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Signed into law in 1965, the HEA’s purpose was, in part, “to make grants under this title to strengthen community service programs of colleges and universities.” Using a potential student’s drug convictions against her was nowhere contained within the two-page document.

Then came “The War on Drugs.” As a result, in1998, Congress passed an amendment to the HEA barring those with federal or state drug convictions from receiving federal educational resources. Estimates obtained from the Government Accountability Office by the ACLU reveal that assistance has been denied to more than 175,000 applicants with past drug convictions.

“And this amendment is a reflection of the racial and class disparities inherent in the drug war,” notes Holden.

To combat these disparities, the local ACLU is planning to file a class-action suit and, with Holden’s assistance, has begun an active recruitment program to find affected students. The ACLU plans to file the federal case in Seattle, which sits in the Ninth District.

The amendment itself imposes strict guidelines. One offense for possession of a controlled substance makes a student ineligible for aid for one year; two possession convictions, two years; three convictions amount to indefinite ineligibility. For those caught selling, a first offense denies aid for two years; two selling convictions and pigs will fly before the feds drop educational assistance in a student’s hands. With some states’ eligibility linked to the federal, a federal denial can often equal a state denial.

But a provision nestled into a budget bill just passed by Congress in early February may have given the amendment a little more flexibility. Whereas in the past, current eligibility could be linked to a prior conviction, now, only those students who are presently aid recipients when convicted of a drug offense will suffer the loss of aid. Past convictions, in a sense, may become moot. The new provision, says Holden, does not change the ACLU’s belief that the amendment is unconstitutional.

“It’s a feel-good effort on behalf of Congress, to lead people to believe that the drug provision is not harming people,” asserts Holden.

Students who have been affected still need to stand up and be counted, he says. “One person coming forward could restore not only their education,” says Holden, “but education for millions of people across the country.”

Macone has decided to come forward. She says she’s aligning herself with the ACLU to overturn the law because a college education, for some, may be the start of a good future.

As for her future, she’s decided to forgo a degree in mycology, hoping instead to cultivate a mushroom-growing business in Oregon, where she now lives, and perhaps find ways to educate young people about the environment. But while her love of mushrooms motivates her, she is curious as to why Congress amended the HEA in the first place. Is the government, she wonders, purposely targeting low-income people who want to get an education?

“I don’t know if that’s their scheme or what,” muses Macone, “but I wonder what their motives are.”

[Class Action]
If you, or someone you know, has been denied financial assistance due to a drug conviction, the ACLU wants to hear from you. Contact them at (206) 624-2184, ext 251 or HEA@aclu-wa.org.