Ohio College Evicts Veteran Who Questioned Financial Aid Office

A Marine Corps veteran who questioned how Marietta College managed his GI Bill benefits was evicted from the southeastern Ohio campus under dubious circumstances on April 16, the day after the Boston Marathon bombing.

marietta-college-erwin-hall-630x400In autumn 2012 Robert Bried, a veteran of the Iraqi and Afghan wars, declined a job offer from Royal Dutch Shell in order to pursue a petroleum engineering degree at Marietta College. Bried received an enhanced GI Bill scholarship due to the school’s participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program enacted following 9/11.

On April 16, 2013, Marietta College Police Chief Tom Saccenti and two other Marietta College Police Department officers knocked on Bried’s door and asked to search his apartment. Bried consented.

Police Chief Saccenti told Bried he had been seen “handing off a suspicious package to a faculty member” and was suspected of having “dangerous weapons.”

During the search, Bried realized the “suspicious package” in question was a QuikClot gauze packet, an item which is widely used by the military and which Bried keeps in his first aid kit.

On February 20, 2013, after a series of discussions with Marietta College Director of Student Financial Services Kevin Lamb and office assistant Jennifer Zide about his scholarships and enrollment costs, Bried had visited the financial aid office to ask why a veterans scholarship created by QuikClot’s inventor, a Marietta College alumnus, was not an option for him.

Bried alleges that Zide had told him she was not allowed to discuss the scholarship, but that she would like to see a QuikClot packet. Bried then handed her a QuikClot gauze pack from the first aid kit in his vehicle.  READ MORE

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