Student Union
- By Katie Nicora
Committed a Crime? Good Luck Getting Into College
Imagine the excitement and pride of opening a college acceptance letter from one of the most prestigious Ivy League schools in the United States.
Now imagine the defeat you’d feel when Harvard University rescinded that offer after finding out you had served time in jail.
Such is the journey Michelle Jones, who is both talented and a convicted murderer. Jones finished a 20-year sentence this summer for the murder of her four-year-old son, Brandon. Although given a life sentence, her time was reduced for showing intelligence and skill at research and scholarship.
“With no internet access and a meager prison library, she led a team of inmates that pored through reams of photocopied documents from the Indiana State Archives to produce the Indiana Historical Society’s best research project last year,” reported the New York Times.
Jones also wrote several dance compositions and authored historical plays, one of which is slated for production at an Indianapolis theater, while serving her sentence.
But when Harvard found out the details of Brandon’s death, Jones, admitted to beating him and burying his body in the woods, her offer was rescinded. Instead, she enrolled at New York University, where she is a Ph.D. student in American studies.
No data exists on exactly how many college students with criminal backgrounds are enrolled in college. But, a 2012 study from the American Academy of Pediatrics calculated that, by age 23, nearly one-in-three people will have been arrested.
Application attrition
A survey of post-secondary institutions found that 66 percent collect criminal justice background information from prospective students, and most consider that information during the initial admissions process.
On most applications, it starts with a simple "yes" or "no". Does the applicant have a criminal background? Check the “yes” box, and the application takes a detour.
Nearly two-thirds of individuals with a felony criminal-offense record did not proceed with their application after being asked, according to a study of those seeking higher education at the State University of New York.
When an applicant checks the box that they have a criminal background, they must answer subsequent questions detailing their arrest or conviction. The 2015 study from the SUNY system found 21 percent of applicants without a record didn’t finish the admissions process.
Checking the criminal background box, “yes” also affects a student’s eligibility to receive financial aid. A 2014 study in the Journal of Urban Economics concluded that “for this high-risk group of students, eligibility for federal financial aid strongly impacts college investment decisions” negatively.
Transition into society
For the people coming straight out of prison, completing an online college application can feel daunting and overwhelming.
“A lot of our guys who have done a lot of time maybe have never been online,” said Jed Tucker, the director of Reentry at Bard Prison Initiative, which operates out of select New York State prisons to offer inmates the opportunity to earn a degree from Bard College while serving their sentence.
“Our top student who’s one class away from getting a bachelor’s degree, who’s never been on the internet or dealt with the bureaucracy of a big public institution, absolutely is in need of people who have real experience navigating the bureaucracy of a public university,” he said.
Tucker said the admissions office should address the needs of these students like any other.
Colleges and universities often struggle with admitting previously incarcerated students due to concerns for campus safety.
But analyses have concluded these screening questions have low predictive value and the research does not suggest campuses that admit previously incarcerated applicants have higher crime or violence rates.
“Potentially, more than a moral issue, it’s a reputation and prestige issue,” said Judith Scott-Clayton, an associate professor of economics and education at Columbia University.
Schools don’t want to run the risk of bad press or the liability of being sued should a student with a criminal background get into trouble on campus.
“Several rigorous quasi-experimental studies indicate that increasing education reduces crime,” Scott-Clatyon wrote in an essay for the Brookings Institute. “Thus, excluding applicants with prior convictions likely makes society less safe as a whole, even if it shifts some risk off-campus.”
Education has long been proven to reduce recidivism, or repeated crime, rates. The country’s recidivism rate is approximately 60 percent, it falls to 22 percent when education is available to prison inmates.
Campaigns such as Ban the Box (BTB) aim at eliminating the criminal background questions from employment applications and housing paperwork. A parallel campaign called Beyond the Box wants to eliminate those questions from college applications. The goal is to make it easier for previously incarcerated people to get past the initial application process.
Some universities have begun to change the wording on their applications. The Common Application, used for admissions at 600 institutions, has narrowed that question, asking specifically about prior felony and misdemeanor convictions. Other schools, like New York University, look at a student’s criminal record only after initial admissions decisions have been made. The California University system doesn’t ask about students’ criminal backgrounds.
According to NYU’s website, they “believe these narrower questions better strike a balance between giving people a second chance through higher education and providing the University with information that may have a bearing on our campus’ safety.”
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
