TESTING STUDENTS FOR DRUGS HAS ITS PLACE

Nowhere does the argument for the common good outweigh civil liberties more
persuasively than it does in the classroom. This is just another way of
saying that even though students do not surrender the Constitution when
they enter their schools' gates, the freedoms guaranteed by the
Constitution do not carry the same import in the classroom as they do in
society at large.

The difference comes about because students are minors, but more
importantly because teachers cannot execute the weighty mission of
educating them if students make a habit of litigious protest whenever
school policy goes against the grain of their thinking.

It is true that the producers of a television quiz show cannot randomly
subject me to a drug test before I am allowed to appear on their show. This
would be in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which
protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Is the situation significantly altered if in the above scenario one were to
substitute a student in my place and change the event from a quiz show to a
state choir championship in which the student is slated to compete?

This is the question before the Supreme Court. Is it constitutional for a
school board, such as the one in Pottawatomie County, Okla., to require
students to pass drug tests as a condition for participating in
extracurricular activities?

In 1995 the Supreme Court ruled that such drug tests were constitutional
when applied to athletes. The case involved a school district in the small
town of Vernonia, Ore., where it was established that athletes were at the
center of a substantial drug problem. The safety of the athletes also
provided a compelling argument for that decision.

The drug culture, however, is not a pervasive influence among students who
are enrolled in programs such as band, and safety while competing is no
longer part of the equation. This was the argument posited by lawyers for
Lindsay Earls, a member of the Tecumseh High School choir and marching
band, who thought the drug-testing policy in Pottawatomie was unfair.

All this sounds perfectly reasonable until one considers that students
enrolled in such programs frequently travel on overnight trips to compete
and that teachers in chaperone positions assume full responsibility for the
conduct and well-being of students while they are away from home. These
teachers would certainly like to know that children in their charge are
drug-free.

None of us can be naive to presume that drug problems are endemic to the
jock population. At a recent parent-teacher conference, some ex-students of
mine who dropped by to say hello stated, with a nonchalance that vexed me,
that they had been approached at school with invitations to do drugs. Over
the years I have spoken with area high-school teachers who said they knew
some of their students were drug users but that they didn't know how to
effectively combat the problem.

If the possibility of random testing should convince our youngsters to be
more reflective and circumspect with regard to drug use, then the law may
be said to have served a useful purpose.