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08 January 2011
It’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’ rehabilitation 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%) collect criminal 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 their public and two-year counterparts.”
In most cases, colleges depend on applicants to self-disclose their criminal
history.
“If it is discovered that an applicant has failed to disclose a criminal record
there is an increased likelihood that the applicant will be denied admission
or have their admission offer rescinded,” according to report titled, The Use
of Criminal History Records in College Admissions Reconsidered.
At the end of 2008, more than 100 million Americans had either been arrested
or convicted of a crime, the study said. Another 2.3 million were in jails and
prisons, giving the United States the highest incarceration rate in the world.
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 misdemeanors to the imposition
of the death penalty,” the report stated. “So pervasive is the criminal justice
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 criminal records “has become a surrogate for race-based
discrimination, serving the same function, albeit unintentionally, as the Black
Codes and Jim Crow laws in earlier times.” The report continued, “Hyper-aggressive
law enforcement in low-income communities of color has led to the overrepresentation
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 community-at-large,” the report observes.
“This is particularly true for serious crimes that involve personal violence.
Violent crime on campus is rare, and the few college students who are victims
of such crimes are mostly victimized off-campus by strangers. 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 campus 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 showing that students with criminal records pose a safety risk on campus,”
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 provide applicants with an opportunity 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 prevent employers from discriminating
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 criminal record does not make campuses safer; instead it undermines public
safety by foreclosing an opportunity that has proven to be one of the most effective
deterrents 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.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.com
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