I’m annoyed to have to post this again, but it seems some people are jumping in with their hot takes without reading through the thread.
When you play competitive sports in school, it’s extremely common to sign a pledge to not do recreational drugs or drink during the season. It is a pledge to your teammates, your coach, and yourself. It is a way to show that you’re on their side and will stay in shape and work toward the goal of championship or whatever. This student broke that pledge and made it very public and is facing the consequences she already knew about. No rights were violated here.
They didn’t suspend her from sports, they suspended her from the team. She just can’t play in any of the official games for 45 days. She still gets to train, practice, etc.
She and her team and the coach are all facing the consequences of someone on the team flagrantly breaking the rules. I don’t know why this is causing people to get so riled up.
In most US schools, team sports are extracurricular activities. They are something fun for kids to do after school, that just happen to (usually) be beneficial to physical health. Just as a parent might take away a child’s iPad to punish misbehavior, a school uses extracurriculars as a carrot and stick to encourage good behavior. A class grade falls below a “C”? You’re off the team (stick) until you bring your grade up (carrot). This can be applied to any number of things: grades, substance use and abuse, bullying, etc.
It’s relatively low stakes consequences for unacceptable behavior. It isn’t expulsion from school, harming her education. It isn’t death by alcohol poisoning, liver failure, or drunk-driving accident. It isn’t 45 days in juvie. It isn’t even being kicked off the team – she just can’t compete in matches against other schools. From what is in the article, she made a bad choice – underage drinking (until she blacked out) – and is now experiencing some consequences.
I hope she receives counseling and appropriate social services to address the root cause of this incident, and fact-based counseling on alcohol use and abuse. If she was pressured by others to drink, I hope they face appropriate consequences and receive counseling, too. But unless there is a double standard in the punishment (like a football player getting a one-game suspension and a slap on the wrist for a similar infraction) her punishment doesn’t appear particularly severe.
