Lake Michigan College bans child-sex convicts

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2-26-2010 Michigan:

Those on sex-offender registry or on parole or probation for sex offenses against children can no longer take classes on campus

BENTON HARBOR - People convicted of sex crimes against children and listed on the state's sex offender registry will no longer be able to take classes on any of Lake Michigan College's four campuses, and three students have been suspended with the new rule.

The community college made the announcement Feb. 17 on its Facebook page after someone questioned the new policy.

Dana Marie Edwards posted this comment: "Why is LMC, an adult education facility, discriminating by denying education to students who happen to have a CSC on their record?" CSC stands for criminal sexual conduct.

In an unsigned response, LMC said: "In the best interest of those we serve, we've made the decision that students convicted of sexual offenses in regards to children will not be allowed to take classes on LMC campuses, but may take online classes."

School officials said the decision was made earlier this month after a prospective student tried signing up for winter semester classes at the Bertrand Crossing campus near Niles and informed school officials he was a registered sex offender and his victim had been a child. The age of sexual consent in Michigan is 16.

"(He) self-identified during that process that (he'd) been convicted of criminal sexual conduct against a minor," said college spokeswoman Laura Kraklau. "This brought to light that we could have other students enrolled who could have the same conviction on their record. So that's kind of what sparked it."

Kraklau said the prospective student wasn't allowed to register, and afterward three students were suspended between Feb. 11-15. She said the dean of students met with each student, "and that meeting is considered due process."

Kraklau said tuition money has been reimbursed. The winter registration period runs between October and Jan. 11. She said the rule change was made Feb. 7.

"There's not yet a (formal) policy regarding this issue," Kraklau said. "The college cabinet (upper-level college administrators) made a decision for the protection of children on the college's four sites to not allow convicted child sex offenders who are still on the sex offender registry and/or on probation or parole to be students on any of our four campus locations."

She said administrators used the "other prohibited misconduct" section of the student conduct code to enforce the new rule. That section states that either the assistant dean of college life or the executive dean of student services can, with the president's approval, stipulate other actions that can be considered misconduct.

Kraklau said school officials are calling the removal of the three students from LMC suspensions, which means they'll be allowed to take classes on-site once they're no longer required to register as sex offenders and are no longer on probation or parole. But because offenders are required to register for either 25 years or life under Michigan law, the suspensions are essentially expulsions.

Along with the Bertrand Crossing campus in Niles, LMC has campuses in Benton Harbor, Benton Township and South Haven. The ban does not include students on the registry who have been convicted of a sex crime against an adult.

Kraklau said child day care is provided at the South Haven and Benton Township campuses, but children also use the other campuses. As an example, she cited the Youth Robotics and Fabrication classes being offered at Bertrand Crossing. The classes began in January and are open to children as young as 5.

LMC declined to release the names of the suspended students, citing federal privacy laws. The Michigan sex offender registry lists 10 sex offenders attending LMC's various campuses. Of those, five committed a sex crime against a child. Kraklau said that of the five, only the three suspended were actually students enrolled at LMC. Using information from the registry, The Herald-Palladium could not reach the prospective student or the three suspended students for comment.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Education said they did not know if any other college or university bans people convicted of committing sex crimes against children. An official of a national association of college registrars and admissions officers also said he was not aware of any other such college policy.

It wasn't immediately known if LMC's rule change could make the college vulnerable to a lawsuit for possibly violating the three suspended students' civil rights.

But one lawyer said the college's rule is overly broad and could ban students who pose no threat to students or children.

Blanket policies a problem

Miriam Aukerman, a lawyer with Legal Aid of Western Michigan, based in Grand Rapids and with an office in St. Joseph, said she couldn't speak specifically about the cases of the three suspended students and the one prohibited from enrolling. But she said some potential students could be unfairly excluded from enrolling at LMC.

"What I would say is that seems to me to be a pretty shortsighted policy," she said. "Because if you're denying admission or expelling anybody who is on the registry, you're going to catch a lot of people. Clearly the intention here is to not have the individuals on campus who are potentially dangerous.

"But the registry is much, much broader than that. It includes people who are on for offenses that are 'Romeo and Juliet' offenses. And even if these are three individuals - I don't know anything about their circumstances - (whose) cases are not that, they're obviously precluding other individuals from attending who might be in that situation.

"There's also lots of people who are on the registry who adjudicated as juveniles," continued Aukerman, who helps offenders with obstacles in re-entering society, such as obtaining housing and work. "There are people on the registry who are on for offenses they committed when they were 9 years old.

"The sociological research shows that juvenile offending and 'Romeo and Juliet' offending is not predictive of subsequent sexual misconduct. It's very different from what we think about as the kind of predatory behavior that people are concerned about.

"And so the concern really is that what universities should be doing is making individualized decisions, looking at the specific circumstances of everybody's case and saying, 'Is this person a danger to the community? Is this person a threat to the safety on our campus?' And if someone is, then it seems a university can make an appropriate decision. But making blanket policies that deny education based on someone's registered status is lumping everyone together when these situations are very fact specific."

Not a college's job

Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said determining who can and who can't attend college based on aspects of their criminal history can become a slippery slope. The AACRAO is a nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based organization that lobbies on behalf of higher education.

Nassirian said the ban could also be viewed as additional punishment for the convicted and not as a stop-gap safety measure. He said he's not aware of any other college or university banning sex offenders whose victim was a child.

"We tend to believe that the judicial system and the criminal justice system are the appropriate venues for working out who ought to have access to higher ed and who should not if it is a matter either of privilege or a matter of safety," Nassirian said.

"We don't think we in higher ed are qualified to conduct threat assessments on individuals, because, frankly, we're not qualified and we're not good at it. We think there are different professions that focus on different kinds of threats. We have law enforcement, and then the judicial system for people who may have criminal tendencies that may put others at risk. And we have the mental health infrastructure in this country as well as the public health infrastructure in this country to conduct threat assessments with regard to emotional, behavioral or medical issues.

"But it would be as silly for us to suddenly enact a ban on the basis of our medical judgments that people who sneeze should not be admitted to our school because, of course, they would be carrying the bird flu or the swine flu or whatever the next plague may be, as it is for us to get involved in other matters that we don't know about," Nassirian continued.

"We think we should do our job. We think we should assess people academically and reach out to them, and make sure that people who are academically qualified to benefit from education do so. We leave these other matters to other competent authorities and, you know, frankly, I think that's the way it ought to be." ..Source.. SHAWN McGRATH - H-P Staff Writer