Sports play not a right under the constitution

The Constitution of the United States does not guarantee the right to play sports, or chess or an instrument at school.

Last week, Douglas County School Board trustees altered their drug testing policy to include off season for students participating in extracurricular activities.

In order to participate in these activities, the students must sign a contract whose provisions include submitting to random drug testing for an entire year.

Last week's was the third meeting held on the issue, which was properly agendized and had been written about at length in the pages of The Record-Courier. We believe that if there was any argument with the school board's action there was ample opportunity for it to be heard.

Four days after the meeting, when the story appeared in both The Record-Courier and the Nevada Appeal, the state head of the American Civil Liberties Union weighed in, warning that the school district was entering a legal gray area, something that a school administrator brought up during the meeting and appeared in The R-C's story.

Shockingly, the ACLU is opposed to the program.

There might actually be a worthy debate over whether the school district is overstepping its bounds in subjecting students who aren't actually participating in an activity to random drug testing. We think there's a fairness issue between students who participate in spring and fall activities. There isn't much the school district can do to a football senior who opts out of the program when the season ends. But a senior who plays baseball is subject to testing through the entire year. The two could play side by side in the fall, but be subject to very different rules under the new policy.

The hardest thing for us to do is to protect individuals from the tyranny of the majority. It's the reason the government can't take your property without due process, or your liberty.

But now that the ACLU's weighed in, the whole debate over whether the government should be deciding what's best for people has been swept away, replaced by another one " whether an advocacy group judging Douglas County from a distance should decide what's best for our people.