Opinions from around the country

Depending on a Supreme Court ruling, students who engage in after-school extracurricular activities may be required to give more than just their time and effort to be included in clubs and sports teams.

A case originating in Oklahoma City is debating the merits of allowing high schools to conduct drug tests on students involved in after-school activities.

If the court votes in favor of the Oklahoma school district, members of high school chess clubs, cheerleading squads, choirs and any other group that uses high school facilities after regular classes would all have to consent to drug tests in order to be eligible to participate. Forcing such regulations on students would be as misguided as it would be inappropriate. If the school districts and high school administrators want to keep their students from doing drugs, drug testing the students that are already using their time productively after school is an asinine method of prevention.

Extracurricular activities are a type of drug prevention in themselves. Students who get involved in after-school clubs and teams will have less time and inclination to use or abuse drugs. If schools start putting up barriers to these activities, some students, who might otherwise join after school groups, might be discouraged from doing so.

Our society needs to think of smarter ways of combating what many call a major drug problem rather than making our nation’s youth suffer the indignity of submitting themselves to drug tests.

If anything, schools need to make it easier for their students to get involved in their academic and athletic groups. Encouraging a trusting and active high school community will do more to fight drug problems than mandatory drug testing will.

Criminalizing innocent students by requiring them to give urine samples in exchange for membership in after school clubs is an altogether embarrassing proposition, and the Supreme Court should see it as such.

While drugs may be becoming a bigger problem in our society, school administrators need to realize that students aren’t the root of the problem but are the final victims. Work must be done to uproot the source of the problem. Keeping a student who tests positive from not singing in the choir won't help solve the problems we face today.

This editorial comes from The Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech.
This column was distributed by U-Wire.

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