The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a drug-policy reform group are asking the federal courts to void a law that prevents students with drug convictions from getting financial aid for college.

And when the case does come to trial, the ACLU and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) will have more data to back up their case: the U.S. Department of Education recently agreed to release records on students denied aid under the law, after the groups filed suit against the agency.

Legislation introduced by Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and passed by Congress led the Education Department in 1998 to add a question about drug convictions to the Free Application for Federal Student Assistance (FAFSA) -- the main vehicle for federal college grants and loans. Students who admitted on the FAFSA form that they had a drug conviction on their record were denied federal student aid.

Souder later said that the Education Department had misinterpreted his legislation, and that he only meant the aid ban to apply to individuals convicted of drug offenses while they were in college, not years before. In February 2006, Congress amended the Higher Education Act to clarify that the aid ban only applies to contemporaneous offenses.

SSDP, however, has long argued that the ban should be repealed in its entirety. In March, the group joined the ACLU in a lawsuit filed in federal court in South Dakota asking a judge to throw out the law, saying it violates the principle of double jeopardy as well as the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The suit names Education Secretary Margaret Spellings as the defendant.

"Young people should not be punished twice for the same 'youthful indiscretions' many of our nation's leaders got away with," said SSDP executive director Kris Krane. Added Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project: "This law creates an unfair barrier to education and singles out working-class Americans. Closing the campus gates denies these students a crucial chance to get themselves back on track by staying in school."

As it pursues the lawsuit, SSDP will have in hand data from the Education Department detailing aid denials to as many as 175,000 students since the law went into effect. The department had derailed SSDP's Freedom of Information Act request for a state-by-state breakdown of student-aid denials back in January by ruling that the group needed to pay $4,000 in fees for the data. Education Department officials said that SSDP did not qualify for a 'public-interest' waiver of the fees, saying that the information would help those who might profit from drug legalization.

Subsequently, the group Public Citizen filed suit against the agency on behalf of SSDP challenging the denial. "The requested records reveal how the government operates when determining who does and does not get financial aid," said Public Citizen attorney Adina Rosenbaum. "The public interest in disclosure of the records clearly outweighs SSDP's nonexistent commercial interest in the information."

In late March, the Education Department announced that it would waive the fees and turn the student-aid data over to SSDP.