ACLU PLANS TO SUE DISTRICT THAT TESTS STUDENTS FOR DRUGS

The American Civil Liberties Union said it would file suit today against an
Oklahoma school district that administers drug tests to students who want to
participate in extracurricular activities like the debate team, chorus and
Future Farmers of America.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court refused last year to hear a challenge to a
drug-test requirement for after-school programs at an Indiana high school,
the ACLU contends that the Tecumseh School District in Oklahoma has gone a
critical step further: Many extracurricular activities are tied to courses
during the regular school day.

Thus, according to the ACLU and the two teen-age plaintiffs it is
representing in the suit, anyone at Tecumseh High School who refuses to
submit to the urine test required for the choir, for example, would have to
drop the accompanying music course, which provides a credit for graduation.

And that, the civil liberties union argues, is a violation of a student's
right to a public education, as well as of the Fourth Amendment protection
against illegal search and seizure.

Graham Boyd, a lawyer for the ACLU's National Drug Policy Litigation
Project, wrote in papers that the group intends to file that by "targeting a
group of students who are relatively unlikely to use drugs" and who are
participating in activities with "no physical danger," the district was not
addressing a "proven problem."

In filing a complaint in federal District Court in Oklahoma City against
Tecumseh, the school district of a rural town about 45 miles to the
southeast, the civil liberties union says it is attempting to check a rash
of tests for illegal substances that, while largely accepted when applied to
athletes, have recently been applied to thousands of students involved in
more cerebral pursuits.

Individual school districts in Idaho, North Carolina and Wyoming, among
other states, have implemented similar policies for cheerleaders, language
club members and chess competitors, while other districts in Wisconsin,
South Carolina, Ohio and Florida are considering expanding such testing to
nonathletes.

Proponents argue that an extracurricular activity is a privilege, not a
right, and should be open only to those who are demonstrably drug- and
alcohol-free.

"School districts get blamed for a lot of different things," said Linda
Meoli, a lawyer representing the Oklahoma district. "Unfortunately, we have
to be policemen, we have to be psychologists, we have to be parents, and
educators are far down the list. Some school districts feel like they have
to take a proactive role in keeping children safe."

But Lindsay Earls, 16, one of the two plaintiffs in the Oklahoma case, says
the policy is less about safety than a humiliating invasion into students'
lives. On Jan. 12, she said, she was pulled out of a choral rehearsal in the
middle of the school day and escorted to the girls' bathroom. There, she
said, a monitor stood guard outside a stall while she filled a cup with urine.

Lindsay said that while she opposed the test philosophically, she did not
want to be dropped from the choir, and so she consented. "I would have been
out of my activities, which is unacceptable to me," she said.

As in other districts -- including Winston-Salem/Forsyth in North Carolina,
and smaller localities like Campbell County, Wyo., and Council, Idaho -- the
policy in Tecumseh applies to "illegal and/or performance-enhancing drugs,"
including alcohol, marijuana and amphetamines. Though the testing was random
last year, when the policy began, students were told to present samples
before joining activities this year, Lindsay said.

The superintendent of schools referred all questions to Meoli, the district
lawyer, who refused to answer any questions about the policy's
implementation, including whether any tests had returned positive.

Though the policy says that no student will be subject to "academic
sanctions," Lindsay said she knew of several students who had to drop out of
the choir, and its academic course, because they refused to consent to a
drug test.

In that respect, the Oklahoma district's policy breaks with that of Rush
County, Ind., the district whose policy was challenged as high as the
Supreme Court last year, having been upheld by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Chicago.

In Rush County, a district 45 minutes southeast of Indianapolis, students
who fail the drug test -- or decline to take it -- are barred from
after-school activities and concerts, as well as from driving to school, but
can keep course credits by sitting in with the band or debate team during
meetings during the school day.

Ed Lyskowinski, the superintendent in Rush County, said that of 250 students
tested in the high school last year, 30 tested positive for tobacco, a
substance barred by the policy, and one student tested positive for marijuana.

Because the Supreme Court declined to take up the Rush County policy, it
remains unclear how firm a precedent it will prove to be.