August 4, 2008

Dear Congress

As your constituent, I'm writing to let you know that I'm very disappointed Congress reauthorized the Higher Education Act without taking the opportunity to repeal the provision that denies college aid to students with drug convictions.

I've sat as a Grand Jury foreperson in the Borough of the Bronx, where in one four week session, we heard over 240 cases. Unfortunately, despite the "jury trial" stipulation of "$20 or over" in the US Constitution, many Bronx youths were being incarcerated and tried on less than $20 "buy and busts" for "crack cocaine" the inequity of sentencing on that substance becoming a well known example of unfair punishment bordering on institutionalized racism. I also observed that these substances were coming in from New Jersey where those defendants caught were released having a "right" as a resident of another state.

I wish this to stop, not just because police officers were/are posing to entrap, which they have and entrapped a grandson of Malcolm X, for example, and he claimed beaten over the $10 offered, which he thought the lady could use for a beer instead, incarcerated for the alleged theft in the transaction. To further imagine these people kept out of school and college for such paltry sums, created partly to fulfill some police department quotas perhaps, is a crime, where we might actually help, "get over" some of these small tribulations the US Constitution forbids having a jury trial for. The woman police officer sued for being placed in the role in the South Bronx where I spent time as a youth in the 1950s.

If you haven't already, please show me that you understand my concerns by co-sponsoring H.R. 5157 or S. 2767, both of which would help keep students in school and on the path to success, and which would consequently help to reduce our nation's drug problems.

Thank you for taking the time to consider these thoughts.