opinion
Colleges Flunk Fair Admissions Test
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I
t’s the beginning of a new year
and that means it is time for
high school seniors to begin
completing college applications.
Increasingly, whether they get
admitted will have nothing to do
with their grades, their SAT
scores, or their overall aptitude for
college. They may end up getting
denied admission to the college of
their choice because of a criminal
record.
Whether a person’s past should
continue to be held against them
— even after they have completed
their sentence – has long been an
issue of public debate. Some states
hamper an ex-offenders’ rehabili-
tation by denying them the ability
to vote or to hold certain trade
licenses.
The trend among colleges to use
a person’s criminal history against
them in the admissions process is
being perceived as a new civil
rights issue because a college
degree increases people’s ability
to obtain a job commensurate with
their skills and abilities.
A survey by the Center for
Community Alternatives (CCA) in
collaboration with the American
Association
of
Collegiate
Registrars
and
Admissions
Officers (AACRAO) sent out a
59-page questionnaire in late 2009
to 3,248 institutions. Of those, 272
responded.
Á majority of the responding
colleges (66 percent) collect crim-
inal justice information, although
not all of them consider it in their
admissions. The survey found,
“Private schools and four-year
schools are more likely to collect
and use such information than
t hE c urry
r EpOrt
George E.
Curry
their public and two-year counter-
parts.”
In most cases, colleges depend
on applicants to self-disclose their
criminal history.
The report by CCA notes that
African-Americans and Hispanics
are disproportionately hurt by the
admissions policy because they
are overrepresented in the criminal
justice system.
“Racial disparities have been
documented in the processing of
every type of crime, from juvenile
delinquency to low-level misde-
meanors to the imposition of the
death penalty,” the report stated.
“So pervasive is the criminal jus-
tice system in the lives of Black
men that more Black men have
done prison time than have earned
college degrees. Because racial
bias occurs at every stage of the
criminal justice system, screening
for criminal records cannot be a
race-neutral practice.”
It explained that the use of crim-
inal records “has become a surro-
gate for race-based discrimination,
serving the same function, albeit
unintentionally, as the Black
Codes and Jim Crow laws in earli-
er times.” The report continued,
“Hyper-aggressive law enforce-
ment in low-income communities
of color has led to the overrepre-
sentation of African Americans
and Latinos among those with
criminal convictions. Excluding
otherwise qualified applicants
from attending college because of
a criminal record has the effect of
depriving large numbers of people
of color from opportunities that
form the core of the ‘American
Dream.’”
The move to consider criminal
records originated from a concern
for campus safety, especially in
the aftermath of the Virginia Tech
shooting.
“While college campuses are not
immune from crime, the data show
that they are remarkably safe
places compared to the communi-
ty-at-large,” the report observes.
“This is particularly true for seri-
ous crimes that involve personal
violence. ... The Virginia Tech
incident, a tragic but aberrational
event, was committed by a student
who did not have a criminal
record.”
The report found that there is no
measurable difference in the cam-
pus safety of colleges that examine
a person’s criminal past and those
that don’t.
“Our argument for eliminating
the collection and use of [criminal
histories] in admission decisions is
in large part based on the absence
of any empirical evidence show-
ing that students with criminal
records pose a safety risk on cam-
pus,” the report said.
If colleges are determined to use
the records, there are ways they
can limit the adverse impact on
applicants lives. For example, the
colleges can limit disclosure to
specific types of convictions, such
as felonies, but not misdemeanors
or infractions; convictions that
occurred only within the last five
years or only felonies committed
after the applicant’s nineteenth
birthday.
Additionally, colleges can pro-
vide applicants with an opportuni-
ty to document personal growth
and rehabilitation. They can also
remove barriers to admission for
applicants still under some form of
community supervision.
The push to get colleges not to
consider criminal backgrounds in
college admissions is an extension
of “ban the box” movement to pre-
vent employers from discriminat-
ing against ex-offenders. Even the
American Bar Association (ABA)
has passed a resolution calling for
increased opportunities for people
who got into trouble as juveniles.
Our communities – on-campus
and off-campus — will be safer if
ex-offenders are effectively eased
back into the society.
The
report
concluded,
“Depriving people of access to
higher education based on a crim-
inal record does not make campus-
es safer; instead it undermines
public safety by foreclosing an
opportunity that has proven to be
one of the most effective deter-
rents to recidivism.”
george e. Curry, former editor-
in-chief of emerge magazine and
the nnPa news Service, is a
keynote speaker, moderator, and
media coach. he can be reached
through his web site, www.george-
curry.com.
let’s Not Praise Haley Barbour Too Much
H
aley Barbour, Mississippi’s
governor, wants everyone
to believe he is the good
guy in the case of two Black
women who have spent nearly 20
years in prison because of an $11
robbery that they may not have
even committed.
Once the heat over his recent
civil rights flap got a little too
warm for his big backside,
Barbour generously decided that
they should be released on the
condition that one donates a kid-
ney to the other. New York Times
columnist Bob Herbert wrote in
October about the cascading pleas
for mercy: “This should be an easy
call for a law-and-order governor
who has, nevertheless, displayed a
willingness to set free individuals
convicted of far more serious
crimes. Mr. Barbour has already
pardoned four killers and suspend-
ed the life sentence of a fifth.”
The judge who essentially sen-
tenced the Scott sisters, Jamie and
Gladys, to life in prison was
downright lenient in 2005 when it
came to sentencing one of the
ringleaders of the lynching of
three civil rights workers in
Mississippi in 1964 — Michael
Schwerner, Andrew Goodman,
and James Chaney. That despica-
ble human being was given 60
years — 20 years for each murder?
— but left free while appealing his
conviction.
As Nina Simone would say, if
she were still among us, and see-
page 4 The Portland and Seattle Skanner january 5, 2011
t hE r OOt /NNpA
E.R. Shipp
ing what Judge Marcus Gordon
has wrought, “Mississippi, god-
dam!” The NAACP, which has
pushed hard for the release of the
Scotts, is grateful that Jamie and
Gladys are about to be freed (the
process may take 45 days), but the
NAACP and the NAACP Legal
Imams, do you hear me? Greeks,
do you hear me? Professional ath-
letes, do you hear me?
Barbour clearly has his eyes on
the 2012 race against President
Obama or whoever is the
Democratic candidate. So, he’s
counting on Black folks giving
him some love — and votes — for
releasing Gladys and Jamie Scott.
He is especially counting on
White people — conservative
Republicans and White Citizens’
I think that what Barbour did was
about as courageous as my trying to
make a chicken parmesan ...
Defense and Educational Fund, as
well as other civil rights organiza-
tions — and especially individual
lawyers like Chokwe Lumumba
— want this kind of miscarriage of
justice to never happen again.
The Scott sisters, like the
Scottsboro Boys in Alabama
decades ago, have learned all
about rural Southern justice and
the politics that control that jus-
tice. We must learn from this. And,
in 2010 and beyond, we must
mean it when we say, “Never
again!” Let’s keep up with these
sisters once they are on the out-
side; being symbols is not enough.
Oprah, do you hear me?
Reverends, do you hear me?
Council alums and Tea Partiers —
to give him some love (and votes)
because the sisters “no longer pose
a threat to society.”
This is the statement Barbour
issued:
… I have issued two orders
indefinitely suspending the sen-
tences of Jamie and Gladys Scott.
In 1994, a Scott County jury con-
victed the sisters of armed robbery
and imposed two life sentences for
the crime. Their convictions and
their sentences were affirmed by
the Mississippi Court of Appeals
in 1996.
To date, the sisters have served
16 years of their sentences and are
eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie
Scott requires regular dialysis, and
her sister has offered to donate one
of her kidneys to her. The
Mississippi
Department
of
Corrections believes the sisters no
longer pose a threat to society.
Their incarceration is no longer
necessary for public safety or
rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s
medical condition creates a sub-
stantial cost to the State of
Mississippi.
The Mississippi Parole Board
reviewed the sisters’ request for a
pardon and recommended that I
neither pardon them, nor commute
their sentence. At my request, the
Parole
Board
subsequently
reviewed whether the sisters
should be granted an indefinite
suspension of sentence, which is
tantamount to parole, and have
concurred with my decision to
suspend their sentence indefinite-
ly.”
Well, la-di-da. Humanitarian.
Tough on crime. Watching the bot-
tom line. All in a stroke or two of
the pen, after these women have
been in prison since 1994 for what
is less than the cost of a couple of
sandwiches.
One Mississippi legislator,
Willie Simmons, told the Jackson
Clarion-Ledger that Barbour had
made a “courageous move.” I
think that what Barbour did was
about as courageous as my trying
to make a chicken parmesan din-
ner for a friend’s birthday the other
night.