SUPREME COURT DECISION BROADENS DRUG TESTING OF STUDENTS: BLOUNT SCHOOLS
LOOKING AT TESTING ANY MEMBERS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Blount County students involved in extracurricular activities could
eventually face random drug tests as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The Supreme Court approved random drug tests for many public high school
students Thursday, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses
of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.

The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet
permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to
suspect of wrongdoing.

It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or
teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and
high-school students.

Previously these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.

"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular
activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school
district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug
use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer."

In Blount County, all three local school systems are discussing the
development of a possible drug testing policy for students.

"Our system is very interested in developing a policy, but we would like to
do it in conjunction with the two other school systems so there is a
consistency," Alcoa Director of Schools Jane Qualls said.

Such a policy would probably focus on all students involved in
extracurricular activities, she said.

The biggest question about a drug testing policy at this point is whether
the school systems would have the money to implement one, Qualls said.

"Financing seems to be one of the big stumbling blocks that may keep us
from going as far as we'd like with it," she said.

Maryville Assistant Director of Schools Stephanie Thompson said she did not
know if such a policy would mandate random tests for all students involved
in such activities or only athletes.

"It's hard to say," she said. "Probably right now, we would focus on the
athletic part of it, but that would be up to the board to decide what they
would like to do."

Blount County Director of Schools Alvin Hord is not sure whether a county
drug policy would cover all students involved in extracurricular activities.

"That's a possibility, but I don't know that would happen," he said.

The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, whether
or not involved in extracurricular activities, but several justices have
indicated they are interested in answering that question at some point.

'Goodie two-shoes'

The court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school honor student who
competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir. Lindsay Earls, a
self-described "goodie two-shoes," tested negative but sued over what she
called a humiliating and accusatory policy.

"I find it very disappointing that the court would find it reasonable to
drug-test students when all the experts, from pediatricians to teachers,
say that drug testing is counterproductive," said Graham Boyd, director of
drug policy litigation at the American Civil Liberties Union and Earls' lawyer.

"The best way to prevent drug use is to involve them in extracurricular
activities," Boyd said.

Privacy expectations

The Pottawatomie County school system had considered testing all students.
Instead, it settled for testing only those involved in competitive
extracurricular activities on the theory that by voluntarily representing
the school, those students had a lower expectation of privacy than did
students at large.

The ruling is a follow-up to a 1995 case, in which the court allowed random
urine tests for student athletes. In that case, the court found that the
school had a pervasive drug problem and that athletes were among the users.
The court also found that athletes had less expectation of privacy.

"The particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is
capricious, even perverse," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent
for herself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and David
Souter.

In a brief, separate dissent, O'Connor and Souter said they disagreed with
the court's ruling in 1995 and disagree now.

The case is Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of
Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 01-332.