The
Perry
Fund
and
DRCNet
Go
to
Boston
12/10/04
Photos from this event will be posted on our web site this weekend. Video will be available in the near future. Dozens of drug reformers, educators, and concerned citizens with checkbooks in hand crowded into the Omni Parker House Hotel in downtown Boston Thursday evening to donate money to provide scholarships for college students denied federal financial aid because they have a drug conviction -- no matter how minor. While the John W. Perry Fund (http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/perryfund/) has been in existence for 2 1/2 years and has already helped 10 students survive the loss of financial aid, Thursday's Boston fundraiser is the first in what organizers hope will be a series of events designed to kick the Perry Fund's largesse -- and profile -- up to the next level. The fund, named after New York City policeman and libertarian John Perry, who perished at the World Trade Center during the 2001 attacks, is a direct response to the Higher Education Act's (HEA) anti-drug provision. Authored by self-described evangelical Christian Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), the provision bars students with drug convictions from receiving financial aid for specified periods of time. Under pressure from a broad coalition to repeal the measure because of its deleterious impact on the educational careers of affected students, Rep. Souder has taken since the law's passage to insisting that he only meant for the provision to apply to students who are currently receiving financial aid and has offered a legislative "fix" that would change the law's language to make that the case. But Souder's "fix" does not go nearly far enough for the Coalition for Higher Education Reform (CHEAR), an umbrella coalition of civil rights, education, drug policy reform, recovery groups and others (http://www.raiseyourvoice.com), or for DRCNet and the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, the groups who sponsored the Thursday evening fundraiser. As Patricia Perry, John Perry's mother, expressed in a written statement read by DRCNet associate director David Guard, "As much as I am pleased by the recognition of my son, I join with you in support of the dissolution of this Fund when Section 484 is rescinded." And as DRCNet (https://stopthedrugwar.org) executive director Dave Borden noted in his introductory remarks, "All these people, who have already been punished once by the criminal justice system, are suffering additional hardships, even being forced to drop out or not start school at all, because their convictions continue to follow them." Not just a second time, said Yakov Kronrod, a Worcester Polytechnic Institute grad student whose academic career took a big hit after he got busted. After detailing an impressive raft of achievements to his name, Kronrod described to the rapt audience, "After my arrest, I went to trial and got probation, I got my car taken by the state, I got my drivers' licence taken by the DMV, and I got thrown out of school. "And I couldn't get federal aid, either." Though one prominent speaker had to cancel -- Chuck Turner, a Boston city councilman who was kept away by a last minute council vote -- Thursday's event was both star-studded and spirited, and the message that the HEA anti-drug provision must be repealed and that the Perry Fund should be supported and expanded came through loud and clear. Following a rousing introduction by state Rep. Byron Rushing, a well known legislator who led progressive opposition within the state's Democratic Party to policies of the former Democratic House Speaker, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) took the stage to deliver a humorous yet passionate keynote address. Frank said repeal could be achieved, even in a Republican-controlled Congress, if his bill to do just that could actually get to the floor. "This issue is ripe," he said. "My colleagues in Congress are ready to move on this and other issues," he said. Also addressing larger national drug policy, Frank noted, "The damage done by this mindless assault on drug users is a terrible, terrible problem." And it doesn't stop there, Frank said, pointing to huge numbers of disenfranchised minority voters. "The most significant factor in the disenfranchisement of African-Americans is the drug laws and the racially discriminatory way they are enforced," he argued. There are numerous issues where Congress is just plain wrong, Frank told the crowd. "We have to keep after them, we have to provide them with the courage of their convictions," he said. Prominent author and essayist Wendy Kaminer, who is also an attorney who serves on the board of the ACLU of Massachusetts (http://www.aclu-mass.org), was among a number of other speakers addressing an attentive crowd. "I don't know if I should say this, but I'm a former drug user myself, said Kaminer to appreciative chuckles from the crowd. "There is an easy way to reduce crime, and that is by reducing the number of activities that are criminalized, beginning with drug use," Kaminer argued. It's going to take more than reasoned argument to do that, she suggested. "A public information campaign is necessary but not sufficient. What we are up against is not a reasoned criminal justice policy but an anti-vice crusade." Also present and addressing the audience was Massachusetts drug reformer Joe White of Change the Climate (http://www.changetheclimate.org), who related how his group last week won a long legal battle with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority over placement of its marijuana law reform ads on MBTA property. Honesty in drug policy is key, said White. "My son asked me, 'Dad, why do adults always lie to us about marijuana?'" Students, the group directly targeted by the HEA anti-drug provision, were also in the house. "We're here tonight because higher education has been hold hostage by the war on drugs," said Scarlett Swerdlow, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (http://www.ssdp.org). "Congress thought it was acceptable to deprive 150,000 thousand students of educational opportunity. We don't think it's acceptable. We're the D.A.R.E. generation, and we say not in our name," she said to loud applause. If students feel the impact of the HEA anti-drug provision, so do student financial aid administrators. "This is one of the most difficult aid provisions to explain" why it exists, lamented Bernie Pekala, a member of Boston College's financial aid team and chair of the government relations committee of the Massachusetts Association of Financial Aid Administrators -- the organization which first pointed the law out to Rep. Frank, and which has called for the outright repeal of the law. "We want repeal, and the national organization wants repeal as well. This law just does not make sense." And prevention was there too, in the form of Roberta Leis, program director of Join Together, a national organization based within Boston University, which co-convened with the American Bar Association a blue ribbon panel on discrimination against people in recovery. Repeal of the HEA drug provision figured prominently in the recommendations, and Leis' remarks expressed strong enthusiasm for continued HEA reform efforts. Also addressing the event was Judge Robert Ziemian, a prominent Massachusetts jurist who was careful to say that state rules disallowed him from taking any position of political or legislative issues. Nevertheless, Ziemian's remarks clearly reflected a belief in policies that help people with drug problems rather than hurt them. And while not every deserving activist or organization was on the program, that didn't prevent them from coming out to show support and be part of the night. Just a few of the luminaries in attendance were Jack Cole of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Bill Downing of MassCann/NORML (whose membership made up a big chunk of the night's attendees), and Cliff Thornton of the Hartford, Connecticut, based group Efficacy. The evening's immediate proceeds came to about a thousand dollars, according to Borden, who added, "Often the real return comes in later. For example, we've been told that at least one $500 donation is likely. Our NYC fundraiser 2 1/2 years ago -- where there were many friends of John Perry -- brought in about $2,000 at the door but several thousand dollars in all." But fundraising was not the only motivation for the event, Borden added. "There were media in attendance, and while won't know for a couple of days how much coverage we will get, that's the idea." Borden continued, "The event also served as a 'coming out party' for our local host organization, the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts (http://www.dpfma.org), and a way to get people in the area excited and eager to be involved." (See this week's interview with DPFMA executive director Whitney Taylor, who emceed last night's event.) "We've established and deepened relationships that will advance many aspects of DRCNet's work and of the collective drug reform effort for the long run," Borden said.
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