SCHOOL DRUG TESTING RULING UNWARRANTED, THREATENING

Issue: Supreme Court Approves Tests Of Students Least Likely To Use Drugs.
We Suggest: Young People Are Not Excluded From Fourth Amendment Protection.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, has ruled that the interests of
schools in ridding their campuses of drugs outweigh an individual's
Constitutional right to privacy. The decision allows schools to do random
testing of students who join the debate squad or Chess team or participate
in other extracurricular activities.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the dissenting justices, called the
ruling "perverse."

We agree wholeheartedly.

In writing the minority opinion for herself and Justices John Paul Stevens,
Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter, Justice Ginsberg said "the
particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is
capricious, even perverse: [It] targets for testing a student population
least likely to be at risk for illicit drugs and their damaging effects."

The ruling came in the case of a former Oklahoma high school honor student
who sued over what she called "a humiliating and accusatory policy."
Lindsay Earls was forced to take a drug test, which proved negative,
because she competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir.

A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that
participation by students in such extra-curricular activities can "lessen
their chances of engaging in risky behaviors, such as drug use or
delinquency, by occupying idle time, strengthening commitment to school and
other conventional institutions, and exposing teens to beneficial peer and
adult influences."

A study by the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse also supports the
minority opinion that the ruling is unreasonable and capricious. It
suggests that drug prevention initiatives should include strategies to
encourage students to participate in extracurricular activities. Those who
participate in such activities are less likely to use drugs than the
general student population, the study concludes.

The majority of the justices of the Supreme Court, however, believe it is
proper to punish students for such participation by violating their Fourth
Amendment rights.

That amendment guarantees the right of Americans to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, and that no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.

It does not say "unless they are high school students," or "except when
they join the Chess Club or the academic quiz team."

The court told the Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma school system to proceed
with the rights violations of students such as Earls. Those students, and
others at schools that follow the Pottawatomie lead as a result of the high
court's ruling, will learn a peculiar lesson about life in America: That
they can be subjected to intrusive personal searches without probable cause
or even a reasonable suspicion.

If future citizens are conditioned by our schools to accept as normal the
violation of constitutional guarantees, we face the danger of losing the
most important rampart of democracy - a citizenry knowledgeable and
protective of its rights.

Our school systems now have authority from the highest court in the land to
force students to prove their innocence, strip them of their rights, deter
participation in extracurricular activities, create incentives to switch to
more dangerous drugs that don't show up in tests, and foster mistrust
between administrators and students. Responsible systems will not exercise it.