Staff Editorial | Drug testing policy fails to prioritize student welfare concerns

Student-athletes and Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council members debated the merits of the new drug testing and education policy proposed by the Athletics Department at the Sunday, April 8 meeting, and several points of concern were raised. The proposed policy would allow Athletics Department personnel to test student-athletes suspected of using illegal substances as defined by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The proposed policy aims to accomplish two goals: one focuses on a preventative education and treatment policy while the other hopes to discourage student drug use by detection and punishment.

While the task of balancing these two goals is understandably difficult, the way the new program is described in the policy and how the Athletics Department intends to actually implement it seem to be very different. When Jeff Carter, Head Athletics Trainer in the Athletics Department, attended a recent VSA Council meeting, he emphasized the Athletics Department’s concern for the safety and health of students, both on and off the playing field. The Vassar student-athletes who visited the VSA by and large echoed that this is the primary concern of the policy’s institution.

The written proposal of the policy, however, does not accurately reflect this concern. The policy, which has been posted on the Athletics Web site, provides a Mission Statement for the Drug Testing and Education Program at the very top of the document. The first paragraph of this statement identifies the need for a student-athlete to be “positively representing the character of Vassar College” and “to maintain the integrity of Vassar College, both academically and athletically.” While The Miscellany News does not dispute that student-athletes should responsibly represent the College both on and off the field, the primary concern for a drug testing policy—to ensure the health of student athletes—is absent. Instead, the first impression that the policy gives is that Vassar’s image is given more weight than the health and safety of students.

To the credit of the proposed policy, the Mission Statement does identify the goal to “promote the health, safety and welfare of all student-athletes” as the first on the list of what the drug testing program will do. However, this goal should be the very first sentence on the page; as with all policies and mission statements, the order of points in a mission statement matters and indicates the level of priorities. If the Athletics Department wants to demonstrate their serious concern for student-athletes’ health and safety, then students’ well-being should be the first thing one encounters on the page.

In line with this emphasis, the policy’s section on education should be expanded to include specific guidelines and options for treatment and rehabilitation, and should describe how such processes would work after a student has been tested. The current form focuses solely on prevention and distribution of general knowledge. The College has provided general resources related to drug use for years, and these should be expanded so that student-athletes have even more information related to treatment and rehabilitation when a primarily preventative approach does not work.

The Drug Testing and Education Program seems a perfect place to address this. When asked about the possibility of writing treatment details into future drafts, Carter responded that the investigation of matters such as local counseling options will likely begin once student-athletes have had a chance to provide feedback on the program itself, and the primary ideas of the policy are solidified. He also said that the Athletic Drug Testing and Education Program Committee is continually working to fairly outline the program in a way that will not obscure or “destroy its foundation.”

Clearly, the Athletics Department has thought carefully about providing flexible education and treatment options for student-athletes found abusing drugs, but the language of the document as it stands implies that the emphasis within the policy is on punishing students who threaten the “integrity of Vassar College.” Drug abuse and addiction are complicated subjects that need to be treated with care; addiction is not a choice that an individual makes or controls, and treatment is an incredibly sensitive choice that requires institutional support.

If passed, the drug testing policy will set a precedent for other Division III schools that may chose to adopt programs of their own in the future. Other schools will be looking to Vassar’s policy as an example, and Vassar will be representing itself as an institution through the language that is used. It is thus imperative that the final document clearly reflect the College’s values to its peer institutions, and emphasize that students’ well-being comes above all else.

The Staff Editorial represents at least a two-thirds majority of the 20 member Editorial Board.