“Minorities aren’t supposed to get an education…They’re supposed to be working for free or for very little pay.” This is what Dr. Emiko Soltis told her class of 15 stony-faced students on a recent Sunday afternoon. Soltis is the Executive Director of Freedom University (Freedom U), a nonprofit educational organization based in Atlanta. All of the students she was speaking to were there by both choice and necessity. These students are all Hispanic, most illegally entered the United States as children, and all are effectively banned by the Georgia Board of Regents from receiving more than a secondary school education.
Georgia Board of Regents Policy 4.1.6 bans undocumented students from being admitted into the top five universities in Georgia, and Policy 4.3.4 bans them from receiving in-state tuition to those schools they can attend. In response to these policies, Freedom U, a “modern-day freedom school,” was established in 2011. It was inspired by the makeshift Civil Rights-era schools that provided an education to racial minorities barred from segregated institutions like the University of Georgia (UGA).
So who are the students attending Freedom U? The thinktank Educators for Fair Consideration estimates that about 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools every spring. Only about 1,800-3,000 undocumented students, however, enroll in higher education programs every year. This translates to roughly 3 percent of undocumented high school graduates attending college. Compared to the estimated 66.3 percent of American citizens entering college, this percentage is staggering. However, there are other factors at play here besides bans like Georgia’s. Undocumented aliens tend to have lower incomes than citizens, making college a less feasible option for them regardless of admittance. Additionally, many fear deportation supposed to be working for free of for very little pay.” This is what Dr. Emiko Soltis told her class of and try to avoid detection by not applying to publicly-funded schools. That being said, state bans still have a major impact on an undocumented student’s decision on whether to apply to college.
In order to overcome these hurdles, students in Georgia can attain some level of college education by attending Freedom U. Freedom U provides free classes to undocumented students on topics such as immigration history, SAT prep, and debate. Educators come from across the state to voluntarily teach on Sundays. But education is only part of its mission. Freedom U is also involved in the fight to overturn the Board of Regents’ policies. Students are actively involved in protests and demonstrations of civil disobedience across the state, including at UGA. Nine such students, some documented and others not, were arrested in Moore College on Jan. 9, 2015—the 54th anniversary of UGA’s desegregation—while conducting a protest. Under the direction of Freedom U, students found a classroom in Moore College to listen to lectures on the Civil Rights Movement. Doors were marked with signs reading “Desegregation in Progress.” When the building closed, however, some students refused to leave the room in protest of what they consider to be “modern-day segregation.” The police escorted the students off the premises after receiving a tip from an unknown source. The nine students left the building wearing monarch butterfly wings, to symbolize the beauty of natural migration, and handcuffs.
Freedom U backs up its protests with several arguments against the ban. One is that, contrary to popular belief, undocumented immigrants do pay taxes. A 2010 study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants in Georgia pay over $300 million in state and local taxes each year. Moreover, Freedom U says that Georgia’s policy is unusual and economically unsound. Georgia is one of only three states that bans students from top universities and denies them instate tuition. Other states have done away with such bans, because as Roberto Gonzales, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington has said, “Given the opportunity to receive additional education and move into better-paying jobs, undocumented students would pay more in taxes and have more money to spend and invest in the U.S. economy.”
Freedom U students and volunteers have confidence that the ban will be rescinded in the future. They believe that the empathy their protests evoke, along with economic reality, will eventually win over the naysayers. Kevin Ruiz, one of the students arrested at Moore College, said that it was a great illustration by his undocumented peers that “they’re willing to give up everything for their education.” Ruiz also said that he and the other Moore College protesters are not worried about the punishments they face. They are accused of “disrupting normal university proceedings,” but Ruiz said that the “normal operations are segregation, immoral … and should be disrupted.”
If these higher education policies that Ruiz describes as “immoral” are to change anytime soon, reforms will likely have to face the Georgia General Assembly first. Although the ban technically comes from the Board of Regents, the Board did not put it in place completely by choice. If the Board had not implemented the ban, the General Assembly would have likely passed a law that banned undocumented students from all of Georgia’s colleges, not just the top five. Ruiz says that although most undocumented students recognize this, the Board of Regents is still “actively preventing qualified students from attending college,” and therefore cannot claim to be “the good guys.”
But many Georgians do see the Board of Regents as “the good guys.” The dominant sentiment among the general populace is that these students are not American citizens, and therefore should not be allowed to take the place of citizens in top schools. But this attitude might actually be hurting the top schools. If a qualified applicant is rejected due to their citizenship status in favor of a less qualified one, then the school is becoming less competitive due to a non-academic factor.
More controversial is the ban on in-state tuition. In South Carolina, which is a state with a similar immigrant population to Georgia’s, a study by immigration attorney Michael Olivas estimates that each undocumented student paying in-state tuition at a public university costs each taxpayer approximately two cents per year. Students who earn a degree in the United States are more likely to stay in the country after receiving their degree. With a college degree, it is easier for these students to gain U.S. citizenship and receive higher paying jobs. The resulting higher income levels translate into a higher tax bracket. Olivas’s study estimates that the average undocumented student who takes advantage of this program would pay back within just seven years of graduation more in taxes than what the taxpayers had given them.
Georgia’s legislative process makes it difficult to grant reprieve to undocumented students who want to be treated like their classmates, and who didn’t appear so different from them until they began filling out their college applications. Even though the Georgia General Assembly’s threat to pass legislation banning undocumented students from attending all of the state’s secondary schools is ultimately responsible for the current ban, some of its members are beginning to fight against it. SB 44, introduced by Democratic State Senator Nan Orrock in January, would effectively overturn the Board of Regents’ policy, as it calls for noncitizens to be considered the same as citizens when determining college admittance qualifications and tuition rates. Before the bill was considered by the Higher Education Committee on Feb. 10, Freedom U students spoke with Republican Senator Michael Williams, a member of the Higher Education Committee, who had said earlier that he did not support SB 44. The students said that after speaking with Williams, he seemed much more supportive of their position, particularly after realizing that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants do indeed pay taxes and that they are more likely to keep living in Georgia and better its economy if they can attend the top in-state schools.
Despite Williams’ apparent change of heart, the committee meeting on Feb. 10 did not go well. The meeting only lasted 45 minutes before the chairman cancelled it, and although the crowd in the room seemed supportive of the undocumented students, SB 44 was not put to a vote, as it was unable to garner the necessary support from the committee members. If SB 44 ever makes it out of committee, it will still face several legislative obstacles including the Rules Committee and a floor vote before making it to the Governor’s desk.
While Georgia is clearly not a receptive place for collegebound undocumented students, it is possible for these students to attend out-of-state colleges. Some schools, like UCLA, even encourage undocumented students to attend in order to gain the most competitive student body and to increase diversity. But many students in this situation are low-income and have trouble paying out-of-state tuition, regardless of their acceptance. If the Freedom U students had their way, Georgia would follow the rest of the nation and repeal the Board of Regents’ policy. And they might get their way before too long. Georgia and its top colleges are beginning to listen to their concerns. With measures like SB 44 coming through the General Assembly, Freedom U is now optimistic that the ban will soon be overturned. They believe that protests like the one at Moore College show the state that education is so important to them, they are willing to go to prison for it.
It is well known that Georgia has a less-than-stellar record when it comes to civil rights. But our history does not determine our destiny. Change is in the air. For the students at Freedom U who want nothing more than to attend college in the same state that they grew up in and to continue to live and work here, that change cannot come soon enough.
– By Cait Felt & Rob Oldham/Photo Credit: AHAM
