Breaking Out: Universities should not require students to disclose criminal histories

In a criminal justice system that handles trauma with punishment, it can be hard to break out of stigma and rebuild a life. With incarceration itself being very traumatic, there are already so many people in prison incarcerated at a very young age or who have previously experienced unstable living situations. 

Post conviction, formerly incarcerated individuals can face a multitude of challenges such as difficulty landing internships or job opportunities, finding suitable housing and continuing their education. All of these factors can be linked to one question that many people have overlooked if it did not apply to them: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

On Feb. 12, the USC Suzanne Dworack-Peck School of Social Work repealed the question asking prospective doctoral applicants to disclose previous felonies. The decision also followed the Master’s of Social Work programs removing the question in 2014 to promote the equity and inclusion of applicants with criminal records. 

The Unchained Scholars at the School of Social Work, working with their co-advisor and social work professor Susan Hess, and the admissions office, are taking steps to replace this question with inclusive and equitable language. The Unchained Scholars is a caucus composed of formerly incarcerated masters and doctoral students working with allies to dismantle the barriers faced by people impacted by the criminal punishment system.

This initiative works in tandem with the Ban the Box movement, a country-wide effort to repeal the felony question in all forms, including in housing, workplace and higher education. 

According to Root & Rebound, 70% of colleges in the United States ask applicants to reveal if they have a history of a felony conviction. Additionally, two-thirds of all applicants with a criminal record forgo their applications once they encounter this question. Although California will require all colleges to remove the felony question from undergraduate programs beginning 2021-2022 school year, professional degrees and graduate programs will be exempt. 

Like the School of Social Work, other universities in California and worldwide should make education more accessible to prospective students with criminal records by removing the felony question. 

Excluding people with criminal records from fair consideration for educational and job opportunities is harmful to marginalized communities, with Black, Latinx and transgender people disproportionately represented in the carceral system. Many people in marginalized communities are already disadvantaged and face barriers to the workplace and higher education. A miniscule check in the box for one specific question can be the kiss of death for their hopes and dreams, regardless of how qualified they are.

The felony question on many school and job applications has been widely contested in recent years. In 2016, former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. urged colleges to no longer ask prospective students about previous felony convictions and sent the head of various universities across the country a guide to move “beyond the box.” However, schools such as New York University and Princeton University maintain that the question is a measure of safety and does not play a role in preliminary admission processes. 

While there has been some effort to make the application processes seemingly objective — as long as individuals are required to disclose their previous felony convictions — they will be subject to a stigma, and the process will never be fair to them. 

Society and the media perpetuate a stigma in regards to prisons and incarceration out of fear that the person will reoffend and cause harm in some way. This is psychologically harmful to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, who then feel a lack of confidence and self doubt.

Misdemeanors and some felonies can be expunged from records in California to prevent the individual from being discriminated against during onboarding employment and higher education applications.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, formerly incarcerated people are twice as likely not to have a high school education and eight times less likely to have a college education than their counterparts. Additionally, formerly incarcerated people are at rate five times higher for facing unemployment than their counterparts, which can also be linked to a lack of education. When a formerly incarcerated person makes a decision to further his or her education, we should support them and not pose any more barriers to their success. 

Education is a right, and formerly incarcerated people should be given equal consideration for opportunities to better themselves. Schools should eliminate the question about conviction history entirely, so that students are based on merit and fairness with no stigma involved. While their charges are unchangeable, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of change.

To support the advancement of formerly incarcerated students and workers, who in many cases are also from marginalized communities, we can follow the guidance of Unchained Scholars, as they are the students that have experienced this themselves.

In a newsletter sent out Tuesday (issued Sept. 22, 2020), Unchained Scholars called on USC to expand their scope of initiatives to address systematic racism by addressing the role of the carceral system more directly, and openly address the needs of students who have experienced it first hand by offering scholarships and housing assistance. 

Unchained Scholars also asked USC to develop curricula that address educational and economic effects of incarceration and the carceral system as part of training materials for Student Equity and Inclusion Programs. In addition, they called for extending space to systems impacted students and expanding collaborative initiatives such as participatory research in Los Angeles County, which has the largest jail population in the world.

Students who are formerly incarcerated bear an unfair stigma that prevents them from advancing and moving forward with their life. Formerly incarcerated students are strong and have persevered through far more than anyone could imagine. We must celebrate their perseverance rather than oppress it. We should recognize the accomplishment of someone who was incarcerated to overcome the barriers they faced and do incredible work after gaining admission to an elite school such as USC. 

Writer’s note: I would like to thank Deirdre Wilson, Susan Hess and Yehudah Pryce, who are part of the Unchained Scholars, Ernst Fenelon Jr. from the Prison Education Project and Susan Bustamante from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners for sharing their incredible efforts and perspectives about prison reform and equitable education for formerly incarcerated students.

Victoria Valenzuela is a junior writing about criminal justice and prison reform and policies. Her column, “Breaking Out,” runs every other Thursday.