DON'T EXPAND DRUG TESTS IN SCHOOLS

Essentially cornered by its decision seven years ago that public school
athletes could be subjected to random, suspicionless urine tests for drugs,
the U.S. Supreme Court has used a Tecumseh, Okla., case to expand the list
of student drug-testing targets to those involved in any extracurricular
activity.

Depending on one's point of view on drug abuse and the efficacy of random
drug testing in deterring it, the court has either moved in the wrong
direction or not far enough in the right direction.

For those who disagreed -- as we did -- with the high court's earlier
erosion of the privacy rights of student athletes, there was nothing to
like in the June 27 decision to also allow decreased privacy rights for
those in the debate team, the choir, marching band, Future Farmers of
America, the National Honor Society and other groups.

For those who support battling the drug scourge with the assumption that
public school students should be considered guilty of using illicit drugs
until they prove their innocence, the obvious question is why stop short of
subjecting all students to random drug testing.

At least in the 1995 case, involving testing of student athletes in the
Vernonia, Ore., school district, school officials had some rationale for
singling out those who participated in sports. Vernonia's athletes (some of
them at least) were described as "leaders" of an aggressive local "drug
culture" that had reached "epidemic proportions." The athletes were further
singled out because they were perceived as role models for other students.
There was no such compelling evidence provided about the non-athletes in
Tecumseh.

But the 5-4 majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, seemed to
dismiss the specific need for action it emphasized in the Vernonia case and
indicated it was enough that the Tecumseh policy was "a reasonable means of
furthering the school district's important interest in preventing and
deterring drug use among its schoolchildren ..."

The court did make a defensible distinction between searches conducted to
determine eligibility for extracurricular activities and those conducted to
determine grounds for criminal prosecution, in which case Fourth Amendment
protections against unreasonable searches are clearly essential.

Under the Tecumseh district's policy, drug test results are not turned over
to law enforcement, do not result in any discipline and have no academic
consequences. The only direct consequence of failing or refusing to take a
drug test is denial or suspension of rights to participate in those
school-sanctioned extracurricular activities.

Other than having the convenient carrot/stick of such participation as a
deterrent to drug use, what rationale is there to single out these students?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her sharp dissent, dismissed the suggestion
that, like athletes, participants in these drug-screened activities share
"the risk of injury a drug-using student athlete cast on himself and those
engaged with him on the playing field" that was used as rationale for
Vernonia's testing of athletes.

Ginsburg complained, "The great majority of students the school district
seeks to test in truth are engaged in activities that are not safety
sensitive to an unusual degree."

Further, Ginsburg correctly argued, the school district is targeting the
wrong group of students. "Nationwide, students who participate in
extracurricular activities are significantly less likely to develop
substance abuse problems than are their less-involved peers," she wrote.
Ginsburg cited a study showing that 10th-graders who don't participate in
such activities are 49 percent more likely to have used drugs than those
who do participate. The result, Ginsburg wrote, is that the Tecumseh policy
"invades the privacy of students who need deterrence least and risks
steering students at greater risk for substance abuse away from
extracurricular involvement that potentially may palliate drug problems."

Seattle Public Schools does not impose random drug testing on student
athletes or anyone else. But with this latest high court ruling confirming
the constitutionality of such testing, pressure may arise to impose it
here. That pressure should be resisted.

As serious as drug use may be among a certain percentage of public school
students, random drug testing, especially when limited to specific groups
with no rational criteria for doing so, is an unproven deterrent and an
unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the majority of public school
students who don't abuse drugs.