Maryland Governor Larry Hogan [official website] vetoed [WP report] a bill on Friday that would have barred colleges from inquiring about applicants criminal history. Senate Bill 543 [text, PDF], also called the Maryland Fair Access to Education Act, prohibited colleges from using applicant’s criminal history to automatically restricting their admission or limit certain collegiate activities. In his veto letter [text, PDF], Hogan stated that the bill limits the ability of colleges to provide a safe campus environment for its students by dictating how and when schools can ask about an applicant’s criminal history. Stating that “laws must balance the opportunity for second chances with our most important duty ensuring public safety,” Hogan concluded that the bill does not adhere to this balancing need because it does not consider the difference between violent felonies and nonviolent misdemeanors. Hogan further expressed his belief that it was important that colleges retain the ability to know who they are accepting onto their campuses. Maggie McIntosh, the House sponsor for the bill, expressed her intention to move for a veto override. McIntosh criticized Hogan’s veto stating that the bill does not prohibit colleges from using third-party forms, which ask about an applicant’s criminal history, provided that the colleges include a statement on their websites to the effect that answering “yes” does not disqualify an applicant.

The US education system has been undergoing numerous changes amid massive litigation and a wave of new laws and regulations in the area. In April the US Department of Education [official website] opened a civil rights investigation [JURIST report] into Richmond Public Schools at the request of advocacy groups who argued their policies discriminated against black students and students with disabilities. In March ACLU reached a settlement [JURIST report] with a Pennsylvania school district over the placement and education of refugee students. In February Trump administration revoked [JURIST report] guidelines regarding transgender students, which required federally funded schools to treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s “sex.” A few days after that revocation, the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania [official website] ruled [JURIST report] in favor of three transgender students ordering the school district to allow students to use the bathroom of their choice.