"He had no understanding
of the punitive drug laws and spoke out often against them."
Patricia Perry
The Higher Education Act Can’t Stop
a Good Education-
The Launch of the John W. Perry Scholarship
Fund
John William Perry-
June 24, 1963- September 11, 2001
by Preston Peet
March 27, 2002
Despite the Government, Education Goes Forward
An estimated 46,000 students either applying for
or receiving federal student aid for college in the United States
this school year have been refused, or lost their aid because
of drug convictions, thanks to the Higher
Education Act passed by Congress in 1998. The Drug Reform
Coordination Network, (DRCNet)
with the help of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, (SSDP),
has now launched the John W. Perry Scholarship Fund to help as
many students as possible go on to obtain a higher education despite
the damaging and outright fool-headed HEA anti-education, anti-drug
provisions.
John William Perry was an outspoken opponent
of the War on Drugs. A Libertarian and ACLU activist, Perry was
also a New York City Police officer and lawyer, an actor, and
fluent in 5 languages. It took a lot of education to achieve all
this, so it is apt that a new scholarship fund in Perry’s name
will enable others to also obtain a good education. Perry died
on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center in Manhattan
while heroically assisting in rescue efforts. When the first plane
hit, he was in the process of retiring, turning in his badge and
paperwork downtown at One Police Plaza. Instead he rushed to help,
and is now listed as missing.
Judith Wallach, the representative of the
New York Society for Ethical Culture, who
gave the initial welcome at the beginning
of the session. - Photo Preston Peet
Due to the cost of higher education in the
US today, the HEA drug provision is effecting not only poor and
minority applicants and students, but is also taking a toll on
the middle class white kids who also need the federal aid. This
has brought home the fact to many more young people that the War
on Drugs can and does target anyone. Hence, there is a mass movement
underway in the US of young people especially looking anew at
the failed War on Drugs, searching for ways to reform the laws,
and ultimately end the War.
Miriam Kramer from New York PIRG. NY PIRG
has
done a lot of work this school year toward repealing
the drug provision. - Photo- Preston Peet
Remembering John W. Perry in a Variety of
Ways
Friends and associates of Perry‘s, along with
students, activists, journalists, and the simply curious, gathered
at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on 64th Street and
Central Park West on Tuesday evening, March 26, 2002, for the
launch of the Perry Scholarship fund. Some spoke of their memories
of Perry. Others discussed the HEA and the War on Drugs, outlining
the many efforts by DRCNet, SSDP, and many other civil rights,
education, and drug policy reform groups around the country to
repeal the HEA drug provision and raise public awareness of the
War on Drugs in general. There is an ongoing bill in Congress
backed by 61 sponsors, H.R. 786, that seeks to repeal the HEA
drug provision. There has also been a resolution opposing the
drug provision signed by 89 different student governments around
the US.
Norman Siegel and Ira Glasser-
Photo Preston Peet
"John was a renaissance man," said Normal
Siegel. Perry worked for Siegel, former head of the NY Civil
Liberties Union, and founder of the new Freedom Education and
Legal Defense Fund, during Siegel’s run
for NYC Public Advocate as the Green candidate in 2001. "John
would be very pleased by what we’re doing in his name tonight."
David Borden- Photo Preston
Peet
"The vast majority of financial aid councilors
are sympathetic and support repealing the HEA drug provision,"
said David
Borden, founder and Executive Director of DRCNet, a Washington
DC-based educational organization advocating an end to the War
on Drugs and prohibition, and creator of the Perry Scholarship
Fund. "What we hope and believe will occur is that a chain of
communication will open," and that the Perry Fund will be a "catalyst
for social awareness" of the issue.
Patricia Perry, mother of
John Perry- Photo Preston Peet
"He had no understanding of the punitive drug
laws and spoke out often against them," said Patricia Perry, John
Perry’s mother. "We must learn to be tolerant and embrace those
who think a little bit differently, give them space and let them
grow." She said that her son would be glad to know what was being
done in his name.
SSDP President Shawn Heller-
Photo Preston Peet
"We’re trying to get aid to students so that they
can go to college. Federal aid was put there to help disadvantaged
students go to school," said SSDP President Shawn
Heller. "SSDP members grew up as the prison boom exploded.
We were used as the excuse, ‘save the children’. We were those
children, the D.A.R.E. generation, and we say no more will our
names be used to justify the War on Drugs."
Kenny Kramer- Photo Preston
Peet
Ira Glasser- Photo
Preston Peet
Ron Crickenberger- Photo
Preston Peet
Other speakers included Kenny
Kramer, Libertarian candidate
for NYC mayor in 2001, Eric
Blumenson of the Suffolk University Law School, Ron
Crickenberger, Political Director of the national Libertarian
Party, and the keynote speaker, Ira
Glasser.
Civil Rights Issues
"If the drug laws were enforced in an unbiased
and unracist way, they’d still be outrageous," said Glasser, former
Executive Director of the ACLU from 1978 until retiring in 2001,
and now on the board of the Drug
Policy Alliance. "But because they are biased and racist,
they’re doubly outrageous." Noting that Americans shouldn’t be
surprised that racial profiling continues unabated despite clear
evidence that white people use and carry drugs in much larger
proportions than do blacks, Glasser pointed out it has been less
than 150 years, no time at all in the life of a nation, since
the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of chattel slavery
in the US. "The way to continue the war is to arrest those who
can’t vote them out of office," said Glasser, pointing out that
only 4 states in the US don’t revoke voting rights to convicted
felons. He was remarking on why minorities are receiving the brunt
of the War, and how the War on Drugs serves to further stifle
their right to participate in deciding how the country will be
run.
Eric Blumenson- Photo
Preston Peet
"It is a civil rights issue, or we wouldn’t
be sitting here listening to acoustic guitar in a church basement,"
Glasser said, drawing laughs. "It would be funny if the situation
weren’t so horrific." Using, though not agreeing with, the assertion
by some prohibitionists that stopping more minorities in random
drug sweeps is justified because more dealers are black than white,
Glasser said, "So what? Even if it were true, and I’m not saying
it is or isn’t, just because more drug dealers are black, doesn’t
mean all blacks are drug dealers. That’s like saying more jazz
musicians are black than white. If I wanted to put together a
jazz band for my sister’s wedding, I wouldn’t go out on the highway
and round up the first 5 black people I saw."
Ken Post on Acoustic
Guitar- Photo Preston Peet
Glasser was derisive of the ruling by the
US Supreme Court, on March 26, 2002, that it is constitutional
to kick entire families out of federal public housing over
the use and or arrest of just one member of their family, no matter
where the use or arrest takes place, and regardless of whether
the family even had any knowledge of the drug use. "Is Governor
Jeb Bush going to lose his public housing in Florida because his
daughter was caught trying to buy drugs illegally?" He was just
as derisive of the "crack baby" syndrome bandied about by politicians
and the press a few years ago in the US. "If we called them ’poverty
babies’, we’d have to do something to help them, but if we call
them crack babies, we can arrest them and lock them up. If we
called them poverty babies, we’d have to label them political
prisoners. The explosion of prisons built has created a major
economic incentive for the communities that house them. Now they
have to fill them."
Tom
Haines, of the Partnership for Responsible
Drug Information
and Dan
Forbes, investigative journalist, enjoying
the evening
- Photo Preston Peet
For more on the HEA, please see the following
links:
More information on how to help repeal HEA
www.raiseyourvoice.com
Tell Congress to Repeal the HEA Drug Provision
in Full
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/229.html#repeal
