When I first started this work, I had I had no connection to incarceration.

I came across I say I and their ballot box campaign.

I mentally fell in love with people that were doing it and the greater Chicago organizing around it.

Getting to any form of higher education means so much to everyone because it means an opportunity for careers, for graduate schools, Ph.Ds, whatever you have in your future.

St Vincent de Paul ministered to incarcerated people for 40 years of his 80 year life, so this is really central to his mission.

You just have brilliant, brilliant people who are in there who whose intellect has been discounted for years.

And so for me, it's a tragedy to for so much of this mind power to get squandered by lack of opportunity to take these classes.

Seeing how much of an impact I could have as a single student on my campus by just being an that's I am or just writing a letter and then taking it up a notch by by doing in-person actions, doing the petitions.

It's not work.

It's just what we do.

We've heard countless reactions and responses from DePaul leaders to trustees who talked to the president, and we've gotten a very similar response.

And this is from media relations at DePaul.

Removing barriers to a DePaul education for marginalized, qualified students aligns strongly with our Vincentian mission.

At the same time, protecting our current students and ensuring a safe campus environment are also top priorities.

DePaul has removed the box on its first year Common Application and moved it to the intent to enroll for one.

This means once students are accepted and decided to enroll, they do have to answer a question about disciplinary or criminal history.

Oh, this entire quarter has been that exact same reaction of me, just like kind of sitting in anger for a moment because I have read a form of this statement so many times, and it's either been a false promise of, oh, we're going to talk to our Cabinet members and we're going to review everything you've written or something like this where it's like, Well, we're already done.

We've already removed the question from our common application.

I think that students are tired of the woe is me and thinking more creatively about how do we deal with these problems in a way that can alleviate some of these problems.

And like going around for a beer in the box, our current model in the U.S. is that you do your time.

You've been reformed from whatever crime you've committed, and now you are reentering society.

So that should include reentering all the things that should better yourself, which includes education, housing, employment.

But the fact that higher ed education does reduce recidivism, just like anybody else who gets a degree, they do better.

It increases their life chances.

That's a public good that everybody benefits from.

To have a huge obstacle like the question of criminal history on the application, we know that it can severely affect if they get access to DePaul as a whole but also to huge services like financial aid and and housing.

By removing that question, it will hugely affect the goals of people.

That's all been the boxes, and that's all that I say stands for as a whole.

Oh.