Vocaboly.com

[Ray Woodcock]

[From New York Times at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/education/13DRUG.html?th]

A Student Aid Ban for Past Drug Use Is Creating a Furor
By GREG WINTER

Published: March 13, 2004


Given that she had been thrown out of the house by 13 for declaring
herself a lesbian, spent her teenage years sleeping on subway trains
and rotting piers and yet still managed to get her G.E.D., Laura
Melendez figured she had kept her nose pretty clean.

Sure, there had been a few arrests for smoking marijuana, but after an
entire adolescence spent on the streets, with far more visits by the
police than by her parents, what did those offenses really amount to?

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

If Ms. 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.

"It is absurd on the face of it," said Representative Mark Souder,
Republican of Indiana.

Mr. 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 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 the hardest time assisting drug offenders whose crimes were
minor, certainly a lot less serious than his.

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