Victory: NIU Allows Drug Policy Reform Group on Campus

Victory: NIU Allows Drug Policy Reform Group 

on Campus

Young adults are the most vehement critics of the war on drugs, with polls showing voters under 35 overwhelmingly oppose marijuana prohibition in particular. But when Jeremy Orbach tried to start a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) at Northern Illinois University (NIU) to channel anger with the status quo into action, the student government stopped him, refusing to even allow his group to organize and post fliers on campus.

But after challenging the school administration to defend free speech -- and after more than 230 Change.org members wrote NIU President John G. Peters demanding he intervene -- Orbach reports the university is overturning the decision and recognizing his chapter of SSDP as a student organization.

“We’ve done it,” Orbach tells Change.org. “We’ve gotten it done.”

As he explained in an interview earlier this week, Orbach founded the NIU chapter of SSDP about nine months ago after attending an on-campus debate about marijuana legalization. “When I walked in, I noticed the fact that there were many hundreds of students at Northern Illinois that really obviously had a passion toward changing drug laws, and specifically marijuana policy.”

But when Orbach tried to get his group recognized as a “social advocacy” organization, the NIU Student Association (SA) Senate refused to do so, ordering him to instead apply for recognition as a “political” group, an arbitrary distinction that would deny it the funding from student fees that other campus organizations -- many decidedly political -- receive.

In a December 10 letter (pdf) to Orbach, NIU Associate Vice President John R. Jones III announced that, after a “careful review of your application, minutes from the meetings where SSDP business was addressed, information submitted by SSDP, the standards set forth within the SA bylaws for student organization recognition, etc., I have made the determination, under the unique circumstances of this case, to administratively recognize SSDP as a student organization at Northern Illinois University.”

The administration’s move overrides the SA Senate’s December 5 decision to refuse SSDP recognition, and establishes that it will from now on “be treated as all other recognized student organizations.”

Orbach had been pushing for more than just recognition, however. After witnessing firsthand the school's arbitrary method of recognizing student groups, he wanted a complete overhaul of the system. And it looks like he just might get that.

As Associate Vice President Jones writes, "the Division of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management is establishing a task force comprised of University officials and Student Association members to review and revise the recognition and funding processes as they relate to student organizations." The task force will issue recommendations by the end of the Spring 2011 semester. The school will also be developing "a more formal training module for use by the Student Association on the applicable legal standards that have been established by the court systems regarding student recognition processes in public university settings," a move that comes after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) accused the school of violating SSDP's constitutional rights.

In an emailed statement to supporters, Orbach says "we could not have gotten such an incredible response without your help. On behalf of NIU SSDP, we appreciate everything that you have done, and we also appreciate that this was brought to the appropriate light."