TEACHING WRONG LESSON

It was perhaps inevitable in the wake of a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
June that local school systems would consider expanding their random drug
testing of students to include all participants in all competitive
extracurricular activities. After all, concurring Justice Stephen Breyer
wrote such a "drug testing program, constitutionally speaking, is not
'unreasonable.'"

However, school board members in Vestavia Hills and Shelby County - to name
two systems where more drug testing is being considered - would do well to
read all of the opinions in the case and particularly that of the lead
dissenter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who laid out the bad lessons that such
programs can teach.

They would find that Breyer concedes he has no idea whether a random
testing program would reduce drug use by young people.

And even the author of the majority opinion, Clarence Thomas, specifically
says the ruling makes no judgment about the wisdom of such drug testing
programs, only whether they are permissible.

The question for school boards is not whether they should have programs in
place to discourage drug use. They should. And such programs might even
include drug tests based on a reasonable suspicion.

The issue is whether random drug testing teaches young people the wrong
lesson about constitutional rights. As Ginsburg wrote, "The government is
nowhere more a teacher than when it runs a public school."

Both the majority and dissenting justices agree that school officials have
to balance their custodial and tutelary responsibilities with the rights
even children have "against unreasonable searches and seizures." Where the
justices divided was on the balance point.

We believe Ginsburg was closer to the mark when she wrote for the four
dissenters, "When custodial duties are not ascendant, however, schools'
tutelary obligations to their students require them to 'teach by example'
by avoiding symbolic measures that diminish constitutional protections."

Absent a far more widespread drug problem than anybody claims exists in
area school systems, random drug testing is precisely the type of symbolic
measure to avoid.

It teaches the wrong lesson about our constitutional freedoms.