Asserting that they have a right to access government information and data, the interest group Students for Sensible Drug Policy sued the U.S. Department of Education last week for failing to disclose a state-level breakdown of students who were denied federal financial aid due to prior drug convictions.
As per the 1998 Drug Provision of the Higher Education Act, students convicted of a state or federal drug offense are not eligible to receive federal financial aid. This is a law Tom Angell, campaigns director for SSDP, said the group has been seeking to abolish for seven years.
Since the provision was passed, 175,000 applicants have been denied financial aid on that basis, Angell said.
Erik Cooke, an SSDP legislative director, said a state-by-state analysis of the impact of the Drug Provision is vital to inform legislators of the law’s effect on constituents and for them to start paying a more particular interest in it.
“When we’re in a meeting with legislators, they want to know how this is going to affect their constituents. By withholding this information, it is bad for our advocacy efforts to inform Congress. It limits Congress’s ability to quantify how the law affects citizens across the country,” Cooke said.
The specific question being addressed by the Jan. 26 lawsuit does not involve the merits of the Drug Provision but whether the SSDP should be charged fees for compiling and printing the information. The Department of Education has said it will only provide the information if the SSDP pays $4,100, but the group is asserting its right under the Freedom of Information Act to receive the data at no charge.
Under the FOIA, information that is “likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government” can be acquired without any fees. Whether the SSDP’s actions fall into that category is the matter of disagreement.
In a letter to Michelle Clark, the chief information officer for the Department of Education, SSDP Legislative Director Ross Wilson claimed it does.
“Providing me with this information will significantly contribute to public understanding because it will allow me to inform policy makers, the news media and private citizens about how the presence of the drug conviction question of the (Free Application for Student Aid) affects applicants for aid in each state and territory,” Wilson wrote.
But according to an e-mail sent by Stephanie Babyak, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, the SSDP “failed to demonstrate that its request was in the public interest ... and that it was not primarily in the commercial interest of SSDP.”
The standard for what is in the public interest, however, is extremely vague, said UCLA law Professor Lynn LoPucki.
“Under these circumstances, it will simply depend on what the judge thinks is in the public interest,” he said.
Cooke said “there’s a much bigger issue at stake” than the $4,100 fee – group members assert it is a question of the public’s right to know and say the Drug Provision is harmful to students denied financial aid and the nation as a whole.
“Denying access to education is only going to make our national drug problem worse,” Angell said.
But Babyak’s tone about the provision was very different.
“In 1998 Congress decided that they didn’t want federal taxpayer-funded student aid going to students convicted of drug offenses,” she said in an e-mail.
Though Cooke was optimistic about the lawsuit, LoPucki pointed to difficulties the case may face in the District of Columbia, where it is being tried.
“They are in the worst district in the country, ... in the D.C. circuit, and that is the place (Freedom of Information Act) cases are least likely to succeed.”
With reports from Sara Taylor, Bruin senior staff.