YOU PROTEST, YOU PAY

It started with Congress, which in 1998 voted to deny federal
financial aid to students with minor drug convictions like marijuana
possession. Now the use of financial aid as an incentive to curb
"undesirable" student behavior has moved to the state level. But in
the latest legislative crackdowns, it's not pot-tokers but political
activists who could be punished.

The situation stems from campus riots, a problem state legislatures
have been under increasing pressure to address in recent years. Unlike
the 1960s anti-Vietnam War unrest at places like Berkeley and
Columbia, today's riots are more closely aligned with cheap beer and
well-heeled athletic programs.

In Ohio, where an Ohio State University football victory over Michigan
last year set off a celebratory riot resulting in nine torched cars
and $135,000 in police overtime costs, Governor Bob Taft OK'd a law in
June that takes away financial aid for up to two years from students
convicted of "rioting" or "failing to disperse."

Ohio activists say that at a time when tuition and fee increases are
soaring because of tighter state budgets--9 percent at Ohio State this
year--the new law could stifle student protests. The concern is
understandable; students at Ohio State marched with striking custodial
and food-service workers in spring 2000, while those from a number of
public and private universities joined antiglobalization protests in
the streets of Cincinnati that same winter. Democratic State Senator
Robert Hagan of Youngstown, one of the few dissenting voices in the
conservative Ohio Statehouse, says he knows union activists in his
industrial, blue-collar district whose rap sheets include little more
than "failing to disperse." "I'm not for allowing the use of this
clause to penalize people who may be peacefully protesting and may be
judged arbitrarily by a police officer," Hagan says.

Ohio Young Democrats president Jonathan Varner says legislators are
taking advantage of the political impotence of young people. "You
wouldn't see somebody saying they can't get a [National Fair Housing
Alliance] mortgage if they get busted for trespassing or something
like that," he says. The Young Democrats are planning an educational
campaign, hoping to incite liberals to vote in 2004 against incumbent
Republicans, who control both branches of the Statehouse and
consequently the budget proceedings that created the anti-rioting
bill. Ray Vasvari, legal director for the Ohio American Civil
Liberties Union, says his group hasn't taken any action on the law as
yet but is "looking at it carefully."

Ohio State spokeswoman Elizabeth Conlisk, who didn't return a
telephone call or e-mail, told The Lantern, the student newspaper,
"Attending Ohio State or any other state institution is a privilege,
and those who choose to engage in senseless destruction of property
ought to be punished. If this is what it takes to help prevent riots,
so be it."

The passage of the Ohio bill follows approval of a law last year in
Colorado that prevents those convicted of riot-related crimes from
attending a state school for a year. An earlier version that would
have disqualified students from receiving financial aid was scrapped
after representatives from Colorado State's student government and the
University of Colorado's student union argued that it discriminated
against low-income students. Colorado State Representative Don Lee,
who sponsored the bill, says it has been a success--nobody has rioted
and nobody has been suspended. He says jury trials and the due process
of the court system should be enough to prevent any arbitrary
enforcement.

The newest laws could be models for more to come. Minnesota this year
shot down an anti-rioting bill similar to Ohio's because of concerns
over who would be responsible for carrying out background checks. But
after a drunken riot near the Minnesota State campus resulted in
forty-five arrests, sixteen injuries and an estimated
$100,000-$200,000 in property damage, Republican Representative Carla
Nelson promised to reintroduce legislation next year that would
disqualify convicted students from receiving state financial aid and
require them to pay out-of-state tuition.

Lee, meanwhile, is considering bringing something else to the table
next year. Noting that the University of Colorado was ranked
number-one party school in the country this year by Princeton Review,
he says, "One of the things we keep saying is that we want to promote
a drug-free society. One of the things I've been batting around is
when a student applies for financial aid from the state, they have to
pass a drug test."