AN EROSION OF RIGHTS

In ruling that random drug testing in schools is constitutional, the
Supreme Court is encouraging the indiscriminate violation of student privacy.

What lesson should our children learn from the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision
upholding the constitutionality of widespread, random drug tests in our
schools? That Americans should be happy to be subjected to demeaning
searches even when they have done nothing to warrant suspicion of criminal
behavior? That our schools have no better uses for their limited time and
money? Or that a majority of our current justices have even less
appreciation for our Fourth Amendment than the average sixth-grader picks
up in civics class?

Everyone knows that illegal drugs are a serious problem in our schools, and
in the rest of society. However, the problem does not justify, on either
practical or constitutional grounds, the indiscriminate violation of
people's privacy.

Schools have long had the authority to test students who exhibit suspicious
or disruptive behavior, but the court has been steadily chipping away at
the rights of students (and adults) who have done nothing to provoke such
intrusive searches.

In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas expanded on the court's
strained argument that students who elect to participate in football,
cheerleading, chess club and other extracurricular activities implicitly
give up rights that apply to those students who somehow manage to avoid
such activities.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissenting opinion, the ruling
has the perverse effect of discouraging students from participating in
activities that can enrich their educations. Nor can indiscriminate testing
of students who participate in extracurricular activities be justified on
the public safety grounds that allow for the random testing of pilots,
chauffeurs and people in similar professions. What clear and present danger
is this ruling designed to prevent? Flying pompoms? Runaway rooks?

A narrow court majority has deemed random drug tests constitutional, but
that doesn't mean school districts are obliged to start lining up their
students. Pinellas County schools spokesman Ron Stone had the appropriate
response to the ruling. "It's really a question of trust," he said. "It's a
very expensive proposition, and unless there's been some cause for
suspicion, I don't see us doing it."

Pinellas County and most other area school districts have zero-tolerance
policies that deal harshly -- sometimes too harshly -- with students who
drink or use drugs. Still, they are likely to avoid the treacherous path
the court has opened for them. There are less expensive and less demeaning
ways of dealing with the problem of drugs in our schools, but some of our
current justices won't be satisfied until they leave the Fourth Amendment
reduced to a puddle that would fit in a small cup.