Parents have the right to be concerned about their children and the problems the children might encounter with drugs and alcohol. What they do not have the right to do is prevent NIU from accepting legal sponsorship for athletic events from alcohol distributors.

The DeKalb Board of Education is asking NIU to give up about $31,000 in alcohol sponsorship that appears in ads and on some printed distributions.

Don Robinson, board of education member, said the reason they want NIU to give up this sponsorship is because “parents and educators are worried about substance abuse by (their) youth.”

Of course parents and educators are concerned about the well being of young people. We all are. But what does concern about DeKalb minors have to do with NIU?

Board members claim because DeKalb minors might attend a football game where a beer tent is present or pick up a basketball schedule that has the name of a brewery on the back, children are being told it is all right to consume alcohol.

Solution: Don’t let the kids out to see an afternoon football game at NIU. Make them stay home and watch the Super Bowl on television where breweries and other companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for 30 seconds of air time.

Obviously this is not the solution. Parents and educators should be concerned about the use of alcohol by minors, so it is their responsibility to prepare minors for the real world.

If a child is not taught how to “say no” to alcohol when they see the name of a brewery written on the back of an athletic schedule, they certainly will not be able to handle some of the glamorizing and sexually oriented commercials they can see in their own home.