Just weeks before his graduation from the United States Coast Guard Academy, Isaak Olson learned he wouldn’t receive the bachelor’s degree he had earned. The reason? He became a father before his final year of school.

“No parents allowed” sounds like a sign on a child’s bedroom door, not official United States policy. But the academy, along with the nation’s four other federal military service academies, bans parents from enrolling or graduating.

Cadets who learn they are expecting must terminate their (or their partner’s) pregnancies by 14 weeks or, if the cutoff has already passed, must irrevocably surrender their parental rights with no guarantee of ever getting them back. Those who don’t may face stiff penalties, including being kicked out of their home on campus, forfeiting their degree and commission, and repaying the cost of their education if they don’t enlist.

AP Photo/Stephen Dunn, File

Punishing cadets for becoming parents is unfair and sexist. That’s why the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, the ACLU, and the ACLU Foundation of Connecticut sued the academy on Mr. Olson’s behalf. In a settlement, the academy agreed to award Mr. Olson the mechanical engineering degree he should have received eight years ago. That’s a win for Mr. Olson, but thousands of cadets are still subject to the archaic policy.

Seemingly recognizing the absurdity of the ban on parents, last fall Congress directed the Department of Defense to draft a new rule allowing cadets at the Military, Air Force, and Naval academies to keep their parental rights. That proposal was expected in June, but it’s yet to be announced. Troublingly, the directive to revisit the ban excludes the Coast Guard Academy, which is run by the Department of Homeland Security, not the Defense Department.

“No parents allowed” wasn’t always the rule at the service academies. The Coast Guard Academy’s ban wasn’t adopted until after 1976, when women were first admitted. Though the academies weren’t alone in resisting women’s integration into the military, other parts of the armed forces have since updated their rules. In 1972, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a lawyer with the ACLU, challenged an Air Force rule that would have required Captain Susan Struck, a nurse in Vietnam, to terminate her pregnancy or lose her job; Captain Struck sought to carry her pregnancy to term while continuing to serve. The U.S. Supreme Court was set to hear the case when, at the last minute, the Air Force agreed to change its policy.

Today, parents are found throughout the military: among enlisted troops, Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), Officer Candidate Schools, commissioned officers, and even combat zones — everywhere except the service academies.

The Biden administration should do everything it can to protect pregnant and parenting cadets. That includes bringing all of our nation’s military academies into the 21st century by ending the ban on parents now.

Picture this: On your way home from work after a long week, you’re pulled over and issued a ticket for rolling through a stop sign. The fine is $75 — but once mandatory fees are tacked on, the ticket’s total cost is over $300.

What would happen if you couldn’t afford to pay this cost immediately? In most places in the U.S., your government would tack on additional fees and interest charges, suspend your driver’s license, or even issue a bench warrant — meaning that police could arrest and jail you.

This is just one of the ways that fees in the justice system trap far too many people in a vicious cycle of debt and punishment. Hard-working people living paycheck to paycheck are forced to make once-unimaginable choices: Do I forgo basic necessities like food, medicine, and housing for my family? Or do I pay all these fees in order to avoid arrest and jail?

A burgeoning movement is building momentum in states across the country to tackle this problem head-on. Americans for Prosperity and the ACLU, along with the Fines & Fees Justice Center, recently launched the End Justice Fees campaign to support and sustain advocacy efforts to eliminate fees charged to people at every stage of the justice system. Dozens of organizations from across the political spectrum have signed on as supporters, united in the belief that eliminating these fees is foundational to a fair and effective justice system.

While “fines and fees” are often spoken of in conjunction with one another, they are separate and distinct. Fines are ostensibly imposed as a punishment for violating the law, while fees exist solely to raise money for the government and try to recoup some of the costs created by law enforcement. In practice, fees are a hidden, regressive tax that harshly punish hard-working families living paycheck to paycheck.

Over the past three decades, the number and amount of fees imposed by the justice system has grown exponentially, as states and municipalities have chosen to become reliant on them to fund their growing systems of policing, surveillance, and incarceration. Fees exist at every stage of the justice system — warrant fees, booking fees, pretrial supervision fees, diversion program fees, prosecution fees, probation fees, fees for medical care, phone calls and more during incarceration, and parole fees, among countless others.

Almost everyone charged with a crime is required to pay fees, from people charged with a minor traffic violation or a low-level misdemeanor, to those charged with more serious felonies — who typically spend years in prison without the ability to earn a living, only to reenter their communities trapped in insurmountable debt.

Fees devastate families and entire communities. Most people who are arrested and prosecuted for a crime are already low-income, as evidenced by the fact that about four out of five people in the system are eligible for a court-appointed attorney.

Fees are also disproportionately assessed against certain groups, given the massive racial and economic disparities pervading the justice system. Funding the system this way takes money directly out of the pockets of the families least able to afford them and further locks many individuals in a cycle of economic instability.

When governments rely on fees to fund essential government functions, it creates an incentive for unnecessary laws, regulations, and enforcement. Law enforcement officers spend an extraordinary amount of time and resources on arresting and booking people for minor offenses with hefty fees attached, or for not paying those fees.

We must demand that state and local governments find a better solution for funding the justice system — not only to alleviate the harms caused by fees, but also because fees are an inefficient and unreliable source of funding. While states and municipalities don’t track how much they’re spending on collections and enforcement costs, available research shows the cost of collecting fees consumes nearly 100 times as many taxpayer dollars as collecting revenue through taxation. In fact, some jurisdictions spend more money on collecting fees than what they are raising in revenue through those fees.

A growing number of states are recognizing the harms associated with justice fees and have begun to address them. Oklahoma, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, and several other states have recently eliminated some or all fees charged to youth in the juvenile system. And just this week, Delaware Gov. Carney signed legislation to eliminate a wide range of fees, including probation and parole fees, counsel fees, and juvenile system fees.

Join us and collaborate in efforts to End Justice Fees. Get started by taking action and showing your support for eliminating fees, and ask your friends to get involved too.