FEDERAL AID IS FOCUS OF A LAWSUIT BY STUDENTS

WASHINGTON -- A student organization is suing the United States
Education Department over a law that denies federal financial aid to
35,000 students a year because they were convicted of drug offenses
while receiving the aid.

The class-action suit, which the American Civil Liberties Union is to
file on Wednesday in federal court in South Dakota on behalf of an
organization called Students for Sensible Drug Policy, names the
secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, as a defendant.

The named plaintiffs are three students who lost financial aid after
misdemeanor drug convictions. They represent 200,000 students with
drug records who also lost financial help since the first version of
the law was passed in 1998.

Valerie Smith, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said
she could not comment on pending litigation.

The suit contends that the law is unconstitutional because it amounts
to double jeopardy, further penalizing students who were already
punished by the courts. The suit also argues that the law violates
the students' right to due process, and disproportionately hurts
African-Americans, who are more frequently convicted of drug offenses
than whites.

Congress has eased the law since 1998, so that it now applies only to
students who were convicted when they were already receiving aid.

Kraig Selken, a plaintiff and a senior at Northern State University
in Aberdeen, S.D., was convicted of misdemeanor drug possession last
year, and has lost state aid as a consequence of losing federal aid.
The assistance covered nearly his entire tuition bill of $3,000 a year.

"If I had richer parents or better economic status, I wouldn't even
have to worry about it, because I could simply pay my way to any
school I wanted," he said.