After a full 10 years of contacting representatives, gathering signatures, writing articles, and spreading the outrage, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, along with hundreds of supporting organizations was sure their determined efforts would finally pay off and that Congressional leadership would follow through with their pledge to repeal the counterproductive Aid Elimination Penalty of the Higher Education Act. However, we have yet again been terribly deceived.

    If you’ve ever wondered why you’re asked about drug offenses when applying for federal financial aid through FAFSA, thank Representative Mark Souder (R-IN), who somehow managed to slip the AEP into the Higher Education Act in 1998 without any debate or vote. Since then, this amendment has denied over 200,000 students federal financial aid, and in turn access to education. While we assume the reasoning behind Souder’s action was that he thought it would decrease drug abuse, it’s done the exact opposite by forcing students to drop out of school, therefore increasing their risk of drug abuse and criminal activity.

    Regardless of the penalty's intentions, it has blatantly attacked hard-working students, people of color, and the lower and middle class. Since the FAFSA already requires satisfactory academic progress in order for a student to be eligible for federal financial aid, the AEP only affects hard-working students who have been doing well in school. While African-Americans make up a fairly small portion of the population, racial profiling leads to an absurdly disproportionate higher number of African-Americans arrested for drug offenses. And since middle and lower class families are depending solely on financial aid, it’s easy to see why wealthy families may not be too concerned.

    Many members of Congress who were on our side initially have informed us that they became terrified of facing negative attacks, fearing they’d be labeled as “pro-drug”. In reality,it is precisely the Aid Elimination Penalty they are supporting that continues to increase drug abuse and decrease education. Anybody who is against racial profiling, increasing drug abuse, and decreasing education should be against this penalty. Please fill out this pre-written letter and demand an explanation from your local legislators! Unless they hear from their constituents, they won’t realize what their people want and will continue to follow their misguided instincts.

I was clicking around CNN when I stumbled upon a story. This little tale told a story of how more blacks are in prison then in college dorms, almost a 3 to 1 ratio.  This is compared to the Hispanic community, which is at 2.7 for prison to college.

Some interesting facts from the article:

• Blacks made up 41 percent of the nation's 2 million prison and jail inmates in 2006. Non-Hispanic whites made up 37 percent and Hispanics made up 19 percent.
• Non-Hispanic whites made up about 73 percent of the 2.3 million people living in college housing in 2006. Blacks made up about 12 percent, Asians about 7 percent and Hispanics about 6 percent.

Read the whole story here.

The day the towers fell was one I´ll never forget. All of us Americans no matter what our political stance we remember. My first reaction was shock and awe. I couldn´t believe someone would do something so crazy to so many people they didn´t know. But when I got home and turned on the TV there it was and they were indeed doing it. The faces of terror, confusion and disbelief just didn´t jive with any of the memories of my favorite city I had stored in my mind. This couldn´t be New York. I was glued to my TV set and forgot about the job hunting I was supposed to be doing. It was so painfully horrific. And to think all those people, brave firefighters, policemen and rescue workers were in there when it happened. A piece of my heart broke that day and hasn´t healed since.

I'm not the only one. The whole country was pushed from it´s center and rendered off balance. With no time to find our way back we did the best we could to find our way forward from where we were. We´re still not back to being back where we were. The old America seemed untouchable. Unable to be moved from it´s principles no matter what. Free and brave we all had a piece of the American pie as long as we put in the work to earn it. And at our cores there wasn´t a single one of us who believed we didn´t deserve it.

If somehow we found ourselves on the wrong end of the law we had the right to earn it back. I speak of our freedom. When one of us broke the law we became wards of the system of corrections. If we did our time worked extra hard and slogged our way back through the muddy trail of reform one day we´d be back shiny new Americans. Lessons learned with a bit of tarnish, some dents and perhaps a wrinkle or two. Take me for example. I broke the law when committing a violent act of student protest. Toiled for years if the fields of reform and finally realized my father´s dream when I was accepted to school and began to finally pick up where I had left off towards a new life. Eleven years had passed and I was ready for my new future.

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