Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Ian Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
Friday, December 5, 2003
Crimes mean
prison time;
violations lead
to paying fines
Editor's note: This commentary is part of the Emerald's and
ASUO Legal Services' ongoing efforts to assist students through
education as well as representation. ASUO Legal Services' at
torneys are licensed to practice in the state of Oregon. Informa
tion disseminated in this article does not constitute legal ad
vice and does not create an attorney/client relationship. For
legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your state. You
should not make legal hiring decisions
^ased uPon brochures, advertising or
KZ, «!□* I other promotional materials.
COMMENTARY s , f ,
_ Students often ask me about the
difference between a crime and a vio
lation. The answer is best understood by examining the pun
ishment imposed for each: Violations result in fines and are
similar to speeding tickets, while crimes carry the possibility
of jail or prison. Being found guilty of a crime means you
have a criminal conviction on your record until it is ex
punged, and not all crimes can be expunged.
Why should a University student care about this distinction?
First and foremost, obtaining a drug-related criminal convic
tion means you lose eligibility for federally funded student
loans. Per the 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act
of 1965, P.L. 105-244, a student convicted of any state or feder
al drug offense is ineligible to receive any grant, loan or work
assistance for one year on a first offense, two years on a second
offense and indefinitely on a third offense. A student may re
sume eligibility before the end of the ineligibility period by
completing a drug rehabilitation program that complies with
certain federal criteria.
Because the State of Oregon decriminalized possession of less
than an ounce of marijuana, such possession is charged as a vio
lation and does not result in a criminal conviction. Student loan
ineligibility applies to students who are "convicted" of drug of
fenses. Therefore, it appears that ineligibility is not triggered by
pleading guilty to a violation.
If you have a less than an ounce of marijuana charge in Eu
gene Municipal Court, you can resolve your case through a one
year diversion program if, on the date you received the ticket,
you had no other marijuana charge pending, no prior drug
convictions and had not previously done the drug diversion
program. You must file a diversion petition within 30 days of
your first court appearance and pay a $212 fee. Once admitted
to diversion, you must pay for and complete a drug evaluation
and treatment program. Treatment costs can run in the thou
sands of dollars, although some less expensive programs exist.
Upon successful completion of the diversion program, the
charge is dismissed.
Be aware that a violation can quickly escalate to a crime, de
pending on the circumstances. For example, sharing some mar
ijuana with a friend, in an amount of five grams or more, ele
vates a simple possession of less than an ounce violation to the
crime of Delivery of Controlled Substances. If the delivery is
purely gratuitous, the charge is a Class A misdemeanor which
carries a maximum penalty of up to a year in jail and up to a
$5,000 fine. But if the exchange of marijuana is for anything of
value (a slice of pizza, a beer, a dollar), it can be charged as the
crime of Delivery for Consideration, which is a Class B felony
carrying significant consequences, including incarceration in
jail or prison, huge fines, supervised probation for up to five
years, prohibition on owning firearms, and drug evaluation
and treatment costs.
Another concern about criminal convictions arises for students
who are not U S. citizens, for whom a drug conviction may curtail
the ability to remain on a student visa or to obtain or maintain
legal resident status. Immigration authorities apply shifting defi
nitions to what constitutes a serious drug offense and any drug
arrest becomes fair game for their scrutiny.
Whether a crime or violation, any citation issued by the po
lice carries significant and potentially life-altering conse
quences. Your best bet is to avoid police contact. If you are cited
by police, seek legal counsel so that you understand your rights
and choices.
Laura A. Fine is an attorney with ASUO Legal Services.
Eric Layton Illustrator
Imprisoned by politeness
Heard the whirring drone of a hard
drive lately? Or maybe you've depressed
the brake pedal on a recent Albertson's
run? As it turns out, culturally insensi
tive language has weaseled its way into
both, crossing the ever-advancing chalk
line of political correctness.
In May, a particular employee of Los An
geles County's Probation Department di
vision spotted "master" and "slave" labels
on electronic equipment. (Far from being
an ill-placed sociological or historical com
ment or worse, a racially divisive and dis
tinctly uncreative prank, the terms are in
dustry-standard, and elegantly describe
similar parts of a mechanical or electrical
system wherein one part unidirectionally
controls another. To wit master and slave
cylinders in a braking system, or master
and slave drives — say hard drives — on an
IDE controller in your computer.)
Regrettably, this employee didn't appre
ciate the distinction between innocuous
technical terms and imaginarily divisive
and subversive racial attack, and filed a dis
crimination complaint with the Office of
Affirmative Action. After the request snaked
its way through the usual bureaucracy for
six months, Joe Sandoval — the division
manager of Purchasing and Contract Ser
vices of the county's Internal Services De
partment — sent out an e-mail to the coun
ty's equipment vendors. "Based on the
cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los An
geles County," the e-mail read, the master
and slave labels are "not acceptable"
The e-mail went on to request that "each
manufacturer, supplier and contractor re
view, identify and remove/change any iden
tification or labeling of equipment or com
ponents thereof that could be interpreted
as discriminatory or offensive in nature be
fore such equipment is sold or otherwise
Travis Willse
Rivalless wit
provided to any County department."
Fortunately, Sandoval keenly recog
nized the absurdity of the situation: "1 do
understand that this term has been an in
dustry standard for years and years," he
told Reuters. "It appears that some folks
have taken this a little too literally."
Indeed: In a separate memo, the di
rector of the Office of Affirmative Ac
tion said that the county was conduct
ing an "exhaustive search" to find all
such labels and replace them. Forms
were sent to all departments in the
county, asking them to identify equip
ment labeled "master," "slave," or any
other "offensive" terms. As most hard
drives bear "master" and "slave" labels,
the process should be long, tedious
and ultimately, a miserable waste of
taxpayer money in an already cash
strapped state.
The Internal Services Department e
mail and messages that promote the
same ideas perpetuate a dangerous un
dercurrent that threatens reasonable dis
course, fiscal prudence, and the robust
ness of language itself. By censoring
terminology on the basis of what"could
be interpreted as discriminatory or offen
sive" (emphasis added), this letter pro
motes a policy essentially imprisoning
Los Angeles County government officials
in the skewed interpretations of the most
nonsensical and hypersensitive members
of the community.
Clearly, such a metric guides public pol
icy to senselessness rather than sanity. If
master and slave are offensive because of
some imagined historical allusion, surely
other computer terms are suspect, too.
Should county officials refrain from using
terms like "a system hang," or "a burned
CD" or "spam" because they might offend
death penalty activists, bum victims or veg
etarians? Should officials request that any
future copies of a Macintosh Operating
System purchased by the county use alter
nate names for "enabled" and "disabled"
folders to avoid offending people with dis
abilities? Should government techies es
chew the term "server" because it alludes
to social stratification? Should manufac
turers print manuals giving different
names to the conveniently named male
and female cable connectors because they
promote a traditional binary constructions
of gender, prescribing a polarity in the
same way that gendered pronouns do, po
tentially offending transsexuals, or simply
because they mention gender at all?
Of course not! None of these terms are
actually offensive, their technical connota
tions don't encompass a wide historical
context, and crying foul in response to
them says more about the complainer's le
gitimacy than that of the supposedly offen
sive word. Words can hurt a lot but undue
political correctness — including cynically
pretending that harmless technical jargon
is 'discriminatory' — evidently wastes lim
ited temporal, fiscal and human resources.
Contact the editorial editor
at traviswillse@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Travis Willse adds yet another dron
ing, boring voice to the cacophony of
self-righteous critics of the PETA Cam
paign comparing slaughterhouses with
concentration camps ("Preposterous
PETA," ODE, Nov. 14). The compar
isons are pretty obvious. This is Ameri
ca, folks — the cradle of free speech and
the "marketplace of ideas." PETA cer
tainly didn't fabricate any of the infor
mation or photos. The purpose of the
campaign is to enlighten people as to
the horrors of factory farming and the
slaughterhouses.
One must remember that people of
ten protest loudly when they don't
want to accept the truth. For every an
gry person who resents the comparison
of dead slaughterhouse victims to dead
concentration camp victims, there are
probably three people who angrily in
sist that the Holocaust never happened
at all.
Until Willse personally inspects the
slaughterhouses, factory farms and ani
mal testing laboratories which he de
fends so vigorously, he has no case. And
I'm betting he hasn't the guts to look
face-to-face at that cruelty and misery
and write a first-hand account.
Mary Jo Brooks
Ridgeland, Miss.