Critics of a law that bars the awarding of federal student financial aid to students convicted of drug offenses have offered up no shortage of reasons why they think the law is unnecessary, unfair and even unconscionable. But that doesn’t mean the statute is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday in dismissing a lawsuit two advocacy groups filed against the U.S. Education Department in March.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Unfair, not Unconstitutional
The federal student financial aid law was changed in January, but it still requires that financial aid be denied if the person is convicted of a drug crime while they are a student. Recently, there was a lawsuit challenging this provision:
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Obviously the recent decision to uphold this statute goes along with the ideology of punishment verses rehabilitation. The fact that an individual pays for his or her crimes and then must face an uphill climb to gain upward mobility in our society would seem to give us a cue to why some people simply give up on recovery or resort back to criminal means to satisfy their basic needs. If we can not give someone an opportunity to ressurect their life in every sense of the term than we are going to be forced to build more prisons and create more strains on social systems. This gives us in the recovery field another tough barrier in which we must work through with clients. I wonder how the legislature and court members would respond if they had their educational or economic opportunities stripped away from them after a drunk driving conviction or a drug charge.
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