Let Students Graduate

Blankenship and David must be allowed to complete their degrees. Upon enrolling students, the University has an obligation to see them through to graduation, even if they make serious mistakes, and to remove them from the community permanently only under the gravest of circumstances--such as when they commit murder. We find it utterly draconian to expel two students, both of whom are just months away from graduation, for a first-time drug - dealing misdemeanor.

The staff's insistence on the criminalization of petty drug offenses is also absurd. Currently, our judicial system is overloaded with drug charges against non-violent first-time offenders, such as Blankenship and David. Even worse, in many states, violent criminals such as murderers and rapists are paroled and released from prison to make room for small-time drug offenders who recieve ridiculously punitive mandatory sentences.

Further inequities in the criminal justice system include disparities in sentencing for possession of equal weights of crack and powder cocaine and the school zone measure which Blankenship and David narrowly escaped. Such folly is a result of political posturing in the war on drugs. This ill-conceived war should be abandoned in favor of vastly improved drug treatment services and the decriminalization of the use of marijuana.