Logline: When he's wrongfully accused of a drug related crime, an HBCU undergrad is faced against some challenging odds to overcome.

Here's my treatment. Please note, I'm still in the process of revising, but I'm close to finalizing. Thanks.:


After a recent victory the football team of Bazemore College (A Historically Black college in South Carolina) is caught partaking in illegal drugs and hiring a prostitute. When campus security OFFICER DAVIS notifies the president of the college he is concerned that another scandal would add to the university’s already bad press. Davis works with the local sheriff, SHERIFF LIGHT to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement that allows the whole incident to be forgotten.      We then meet a hardworking Bazemore student JAMAL WILLIAMS who seems to be thriving academically and respected by his professors and peers.      Meanwhile a new campus security officer OFFICER BROOKES is getting introduced to the way the campus works – including the fact that officers are not allowed to fraternize with students and the fact that the school has rather open admission policies – a fact which most officers blame for the severe rise in crime on campus.      Jamal may be a stand-up student but some of his friends sell weed to other students on campus and it doesn’t seem to bother him. They invite Jamal to hang out to celebrate their friend TY’s birthday where he knows there will be weed (which isn’t legal in this state) and alcohol (even though Jamal is under the legal drinking age). When he shows up they decide to go to his room to smoke since they don’t want to get caught for smoking in the same place they usually do.      It isn’t long before an RA smells the smoke and MR. PHILLIPS, the dorm director has called in campus security. When campus security searches the room they find weed on one of the guys named BROOKLYN who had brought his own but they also discover a large bag that someone else had stuffed under Jamal’s pillow. Officer Brookes assumes that it belongs to him and when none of the other guys step forward to claim it that seems to be enough evidence to send him to a detention center. One of the other officer’s debates if its fair considering they’ve let more clearly guilty students get away with worse, but it seems like they won’t be as forgiving this time without the president’s authority weighing down on them.              Jamal and Brooklyn are stuck in detention overnight before they can plead their case to be released in front of bond court. After Jamal’s father bails him out it’s clear he’s frustrated with the situation but believes Jamal’s insistence that he’s innocent of the crime for which he’s been accused.        Jamal tries to return to class as if nothing happened, but Mr. Phillips warns him that he should figure out which guy let him take the blame for his stash if he wants to get out of trouble. So Jamal confronts one of his friends who tells him that Ty was the one who brought the weed in question. Unfortunately Ty was so scared by the close call that he immediately dropped out of school and disappeared, leaving Jamal with no usable explanation of his innocence to present to the disciplinary board.      Meanwhile the Sheriff Light is debriefed by Officer Brookes about what happened with the drug bust and Brookes learns that it was the sheriff himself who helped get him this job (and off the hook for some unspecified past mistake) as part of an arrangement. Brookes is apparently being bribed and blackmailed by the Sheriff to go along with their informal policy of aggressive targeting whatever black students from the college that they can. Brookes seems to think that Jamal will be okay if he’s innocent but the Sheriff seems disappointed that Jamal isn’t more aggressive because that would make him an ideal ‘target’.      Before Jamal goes to the board hearing he meets a guy who also had been harassed by the overly aggressive campus security, indicating this isn’t just a one-time incident.       The somewhat hostile disciplinary board tells Jamal that if Ty has withdrawn from the school it’s too late to blame him for what happened. Officer Brookes explains to Jamal and his dad that he might be eligible for a program called PTI which might get the charged dropped.      When Jamal decides to drop out he’s told by his advisor to find a way to pay for a good lawyer because the one the system provides isn’t going to be enough to bring him justice.      Jamal decides to confront Officer Davis about everything that happened but Davis doesn’t make any effort to sympathize with Jamal who he assumes is guilty.       So Jamal goes through with his plan to drop out—at least for a semester—despite knowing that he can’t easily move on from this incident after taking a break since he will still have disciplinary probation and his credits likely won’t transfer to another school.     After some time living with his dad Jamal meets an old friend Donovan who offers him the chance to live with him closer to campus instead of sticking around his dead-end hometown. Jamal’s dad really doesn’t like the idea of Jamal moving in with him because Donovan sells weed, but Jamal does it anyway.      Around this time Jamal learns he was denied for Pre-trial Intervention because there was no real evidence to prove he was innocent. In addition, the college’s decision to treat the unclaimed weed as his possession seems to outweigh the potential testimony of his innocence from Brooklyn. So his lawyer recommends pleading guilty despite the truth to avoid prison time and focus on the potential chance to get pardoned in the future.      An unspecified amount of time later Jamal is back at school and is accepted into the Chi Beta Gamma Fraternity which apparently does not care about his criminal record. Afterwards Jamal and his friends witness Officer Brookes arresting someone for supposedly smoking weed in their car. Brookes sees Jamal in the crowd and accuses him of being the one who sold the drugs and brings up his previous charge in an attempt to embarrass him in public but ultimately it doesn’t work like he thought it might.      Jamal starts hanging out with a girl named TERRI who encourages him to continue to fight against the unfair treatment he’s getting. Officer Brookes confronts the two of them and explains he used to date Terri during the semester that Jamal was away and taunts him again for his record, but not long after that Brookes is fired when his history of fraternizing with students comes to light.      Jamal’s next step in clearing his name involves finding people who can serve as character references in order to pardon his offense and undo some of the damage, but he’s ashamed to ask professors and admit what he’s been charged with. Not long afterwards, he reunites with Donovan in the most unexpected place – a church- where he learns that Donovan has turned his life around and become a pastor. When Donovan hears of his situation he agrees to write him a reference.      Jamal’s plan for the pardon hearing is to have his father and now-pastor Donovan speak on his behalf, but the day of he is surprised by the appearance of an unlikely visitor who shows up to serve as the mandatory third reference – Ty himself. Like Donovan he had turned his life to God and was coming to make up for the mistake he made that got Jamal involved with this whole mess. After each person vouches for him Jamal himself makes a statement about how he may have made some poor choices to associate with drugs but how after all he’s been through its really time for him to move forward with his life. Ultimately the board agrees and grants his pardon and we get a brief indication that Jamal went on to marry Terri, have two kids and work in technical writing and hemp farming.