COURT UPHOLDS DRUG TESTS FOR HIGH SCHOOLERS

The U.S. Supreme Court put public high school students on notice Thursday:
Drug tests may be required for playing chess or joining the pompom team.

Justices ruled 5-4 that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of
drugs outweighs students' right to privacy, allowing the broadest drug
testing yet of young people whom authorities have no particular reason to
suspect of wrongdoing.

The decision gives school leaders a free hand to test students who
participate in competitive after-school activities or teams - more than
half the estimated 14 million American high school students.

Drug tests had been allowed previously just 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.

The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, but
several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that
question at some point.

Locally, Petal High School Principal Jack Linton called the ruling good
news and said he would look into the cost of testing for extracurricular
activities such as band and the show choir.

"I'm a firm believer that any student involved in extracurricular
activities should be subject to drug testing because it is a privilege to
be part of those programs," Linton said. He said athletes and cheerleaders
have been tested for a number of years.