SEEKING REDEMPTION FOR A DRUG LAW

With Thousands Of Students Losing Financial Aid Because Of Past
Convictions, Even The Policy's Author Wants To Change It

Richard Diaz has been in and out of jail for most of his adult life.

Now in his late 50s, the recovering drug addict is trying to turn
things around. For four years, he has been studying at Long Beach City
College, an experience he says is like having "the gates of heaven
open." He has finally learned to read and write, and is preparing to
become an alcohol and drug counselor.

So Mr. Diaz's heart gave a lurch last year when he saw a question on a
federal financial-aid application asking whether he had ever been
convicted of a drug offense. If the answer was yes, he discovered, he
could lose the federal grants he depends on to attend college.

"I wanted to tear it up," he says. "I've been a loser all my life, and
I didn't want to feel like a loser again."

Unbeknownst to him, Mr. Diaz was never in danger of losing his
financial aid. His last conviction occurred too long ago to count
against him. But not everybody has been so lucky.

More than 45,000 students have lost their federal financial aid this
year because of a law, passed by Congress in 1998, that strips
assistance from college students who have been convicted of possessing
or selling drugs. College aid administrators say the law is an unfair
roadblock to higher education for people, like Mr. Diaz, who broke
drug laws in the past but are trying to remake their lives. Not only
is the law denying aid to many students, college officials say, but it
is also discouraging many thousands of others from pursuing a higher
education because they think that their past misdeeds have made them
ineligible for financial support.

The plight of ex-offenders has been largely ignored by the news media
and the national higher-education associations, critics say, because
not many people like Mr. Diaz attend the country's elite private
colleges or flagship state universities. But if the experience of an
institution like Long Beach is any indication, the law is having a
major impact at community colleges, particularly those in large urban
areas, which draw many students who are seeking a fresh start.

"I thought our purpose here is to try and help pull people out of bad
situations and help them make changes in their lives and give them
better choices so that they won't end up back where they started,"
says Toni DuBois, financial-aid director at Long Beach City College.
"But this law is saying, You messed up, so we're not going to help
you."

Even the law's author, Rep. Mark E. Souder, an Indiana Republican, is
having second thoughts. He says he never intended his measure to deny
aid to those who are seeking to "redeem" themselves by going to
college. He has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that
would apply the financial-aid ban only to those who are convicted of
drug violations while they are in college, not to those convicted
before they enrolled.

So far, no groundswell of support has emerged for Mr. Souder's new
bill. College lobbyists and drug-reform activists question the
congressman's motives and continue to call for the law's repeal. But
since that seems highly unlikely anytime soon, some believe that Mr.
Souder's bill may be the best chance to help those who have suffered
the most because of the law. As Ms. DuBois puts it, "It seems like it
would go a long way toward solving the problems we've
experienced."

The 1998 law denies federal financial aid to students who have been
convicted in a federal or state court of possessing or selling illicit
drugs. Eligibility may be suspended for one year from the date of a
first conviction on a drug-possession charge, two years from the date
of a second conviction, and indefinitely for a third. Students caught
selling drugs lose eligibility for two years from the date of a first
conviction, and indefinitely for a second. A student's eligibility can
be restored if he or she satisfactorily completes a
drug-rehabilitation program, or if the conviction is reversed or set
aside.

A student can also lose eligibility for aid by not responding to the
question on the financial-aid application: "Have you ever been
convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs?" In the 2000-1
academic year, 279,000 students left the question blank and received
financial aid anyway. The Clinton administration allowed students who
did not answer the question to receive aid, because of confusion over
the question's wording. But in 2001, the Education Department revised
the question to make it clearer, and Bush-administration officials
decided that to carry out the law more effectively, they needed to
enforce it more rigorously. This year, according to department
statistics, more than 9,000 students lost their aid because they left
the question blank.

So far, the law isn't much of a factor at the country's elite
colleges. On the carefully manicured grounds of Stanford University,
for example, few students have even heard of it. "To get in here, you
have to be pretty high-achieving, and that means that you're probably
less likely to get involved with drugs in the first place," says Mark
Boucher, a junior and editor of The Stanford Daily. Stanford officials
agree. Cynthia A. Hartley, the financial-aid director, says the law
"has not had much of an impact here," but declines to provide specifics.

Ellen Frishberg, the financial-aid director at the Johns Hopkins
University, is more forthright: Not a single Hopkins student has lost
financial aid because of the law, she says, and most students who get
into the university have "stayed on the straight and narrow."

In interviews on the campus one recent afternoon, a half-dozen Hopkins
students say that there is plenty of drug use there and that, as at
similar institutions, it is generally tolerated if it is done behind
closed doors and in moderation. (Hopkins officials say they do not
tolerate drug use on the campus, and do not hesitate to call in the
Baltimore police if they suspect that students are breaking the law.)

But those students are ambivalent about the 1998 law. For example,
Brendan McQuillen, a junior, is troubled by it because he believes
that students should be judged by their academic performance, not by
what they do in private. "If you look around at colleges around the
country, or even just at top colleges, you'll find a lot of very
capable students who have experimented with drugs," he says. Still,
Mr. McQuillen says the law is justified in some cases: "If someone on
campus is selling $10,000 worth of cocaine a week, I might appreciate
someone who says we shouldn't be giving this person money."

A Devastating Blow

The law's effects play out very differently at a place like Long Beach
City College, a two-year institution 20 minutes outside of Los Angeles.

At its Pacific Coast campus, the main administration building, which
contains the financial-aid office, was converted from a junior-high
school in 1949, and lockers still line the first-floor hallways. But
the college's 28,000 students couldn't fit in less with their
surroundings. Their average age is 30, and many of them are
first-generation, low-income students who work full time and are
raising families.

It is not unusual to find students here who have spent time in prison,
and are on parole, or just getting off. "It's kind of a natural flow
for them to come here," says Ms. DuBois, the financial-aid director.
"They can graduate in two years from here with vocational certificates
or degrees that will help them get jobs that pay good money."

Ex-offenders also find the California community colleges an attractive
option because state residents who receive public assistance, as most
of them do, can enroll in those institutions free. Still, the students
rely heavily on federal financial aid to help them pay for basic
expenses such as food, clothing, transportation, rent, and books for
classes.

So losing aid can deal a devastating blow. "If you can't eat, you
can't study," Ms. DuBois says. "If you are worrying about where you're
going to sleep tonight, I don't think you are going to be too
successful in school."

John, for instance, is studying refrigeration mechanics at Long Beach
so he can become a longshoreman. He spent most of his 20s and early
30s as a fledgling musician, and he now tries to support himself by
working odd jobs in construction. At 38, John, who asks that his full
name not be printed, says he is more than ready to start earning a
steady salary. "I'm not a kid anymore."

He had taken a few night classes at Long Beach, but this year he
decided to stop working and take a full course load. To support
himself, he applied, for the first time, for financial aid.

But in January, John received a rude awakening -- a letter from the
Education Department saying that he would not be eligible for student
aid this year because of a previous drug conviction. Last year, John
was convicted of a misdemeanor for possessing marijuana. He spent one
night in jail and was fined $100.

John had not been worried when he saw the question on the student-aid
application. "I've never been a felon," he says. "I just assumed it
would be OK."

John says he no longer drinks or does drugs, and just wants to
concentrate on his studies. But without financial aid, he says, he
will probably drop out and continue going from job to job.

"I'm teetering right now, teeter-tottering," he says. "I love my
classes, but my bills are piling up."

John is one of only about a half-dozen students at Long Beach City
College who have lost their eligibility for student aid this year
because of prior drug convictions.

But Ms. DuBois says she believes hundreds of others who wanted to
enroll at Long Beach this year did not because they thought they would
be denied financial aid.

About 475 of the 15,000 students who applied for federal aid this year
to attend Long Beach left the question blank on their original
applications. Ms. DuBois and her staff located slightly more than half
of those applicants, helped them fill out a follow-up form, and found
that in all but a few cases the students had not been in danger of
losing their aid, because their convictions had occurred long enough
ago not to be counted against them.

Ms. DuBois has not tracked down 225 other applicants. Some may be
attending Long Beach without financial aid, and others may have gone
elsewhere. But Ms. DuBois believes that many were scared off by the
question.

"What concerns me," she says, "is how many people have we frightened
away who would have received aid had they followed through?"

Mr. Diaz, the Long Beach student who wants to be a counselor, says the
question on the application is especially harmful because it suggests
that any prior drug conviction can doom one's chances of getting aid.
An applicant can learn more-specific information only by filling out a
follow-up form, which the Education Department sends to students who
have left the question blank or acknowledged a past conviction.

Mr. Diaz says he knows many former prison inmates who have taken one
look at the application and given up on college because they don't
think they will get student aid. "There's a whole bunch of people I
know who want to go to college, who want to change," says Mr. Diaz.
"But they're too scared because of that one question."

Confrontations Ahead

The controversy over the drug law has been dogging its author,
Representative Souder. On an afternoon in February, he is attending a
forum on student aid at the University of Saint Francis, in his home
district in Fort Wayne, Ind. Learning that about a dozen activists
from the group Students for Sensible Drug Policy have arrived at the
event to confront him, he cuts short a speech and departs quickly. But
outside, he is forced to square off with the activists in front of a
group of reporters and television cameramen. He barely keeps his composure.

"This group has hounded me around the country with their mistruths and
lies," Mr. Souder tells reporters as he heads for his car. "I'm not
going to talk with people who advocate drug use."

Shawn Heller, the group's national director, yells back, "You blame
everybody but yourself for this law. The Clinton administration, the
Bush administration, the Education Department. You should be blaming
yourself for this bad law."

The drug law is expected to cause problems for Mr. Souder as he
campaigns for re-election. He is facing a strong Republican challenger
in the primary this spring -- Paul Helmke, a former mayor of Fort
Wayne, who is much more moderate than Mr. Souder on social issues.

The leaders of Students for Sensible Drug Policy vow to help defeat
him. "We're hoping to have students go into the district, and we're
hoping to get students in the district out to vote," says Adam
Eidinger, a spokesman for the group. "This is an open primary, anyone
who is registered can vote, and a few hundred votes could decide it."

On the campaign trail, Mr. Souder remains unapologetic about the law
he wrote. He says that students who receive federal assistance to
attend college should not be using it to purchase drugs. He is
unhappy, though, with how the Education Department has enforced the
law. Mr. Souder says he never intended to make it harder for people to
overcome their pasts. "It would be unbelievable for me, as an
evangelical Christian, to believe that people can't repent and change
their lives," he says.

He has tried unsuccessfully to get officials in both the Clinton and
Bush administrations to change how they enforce the law. In February,
he introduced a bill that would allow the Education Department to cut
off aid only for those drug penalties that occur "during a period of
enrollment for which a student [is] receiving grant, loan, or work
assistance."

Mr. Souder attached a similar provision to a larger bill two years
ago, but the measure did not make it through the Senate. The
congressman is more hopeful this year, as he has picked up a
Democratic cosponsor, Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York.

But the measure has not won support from college groups or student
activists, who believe Mr. Souder is simply trying to insulate himself
from further criticism of the law. They are pushing for a full repeal.
"This is a terribly minor compromise, and it really will not address
the big problem of students with drug convictions losing their
financial aid," says Mr. Eidinger of Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Meeks says she thinks the students are being
shortsighted. While Mr. Meeks favors overturning the law, says
Melvenia Jefferson Gueye, the congressman's legislative director, he
does not believe "a repeal of the statute is possible in the current
political environment."

Mr. Souder's bill, by contrast, has a good chance of passage, and it
would deal with the most disturbing aspect of the law, Ms. Gueye says.

"The inappropriate application of the statute has to be stopped
because it is having a devastating impact on people who are trying to
turn their lives around," she says. "Congress did not intend to create
a barrier to education for the least fortunate, but to ensure that
federal taxpayer dollars are being spent appropriately."

For Mr. Diaz, the dream of becoming an alcohol and drug counselor lies
right around the corner. "With my skills, my background, and my
education, I'll have all the tools I need to be the best counselor I
can be," he says. "I'll be able to reach out, and maybe save someone's
life."

Mr. Diaz is proud that he will be able to make "a positive
contribution." But he says he would not have been able to get where he
is now without the government's help, and Long Beach City College's.

He shudders when he thinks what would have become of him had his past
offenses ruined his chance to start his life anew.

"I'd probably still be drinking and using drugs," he says. "And when
you're in that scene, it's only a matter of time before you end up
back in jail."

[sidebar]

ANOTHER LOOK AT A DRUG LAW

Following is the law that bars the awarding of federal financial aid
to students with drug convictions, and a proposed change favored by
some financial-aid experts. Both were written by Rep. Mark E. Souder
of Indiana, who says the Education Department has interpreted the
original law more broadly than he intended.

The Current Law:

"A student who has been convicted of any offense under any federal or
state law involving the possession or sale of a controlled substance
shall not be eligible to receive any grant, loan, or work assistance
under this title during a period beginning on the date of such
conviction."

The Change Proposed In HR 3777:

"A student who is convicted of any offense under any federal or state
law involving the possession or sale or a controlled substance for
conduct that occurred during a period of enrollment for which the
student was receiving any grant, loan, or work assistance under this
title shall not be eligible to receive such grant, loan, or work
assistance from the date of that conviction."