DRUG-TEST RULING LEAVES DISTRICT STUCK IN PARADOX

Whether you think the Shasta Union High School District's stymied
drug-testing policy is a gross violation of students' right to privacy
or a sensible way to fight youth drug abuse, wouldn't it be nice if
the courts would give the district and the plaintiff students a final
answer? If everyone could get back to studying English and math
instead of legal pleadings?

No such luck. The state's 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, based in
Sacramento, last week rejected the district's appeal of an injunction
that Shasta County Superior Court Judge Monica Marlow had granted last
year. At the same time, the court declined to decide the case on its
merits (as the district also requested), instead throwing it back to
the lower court for a possible trial.

Two of the three original plaintiffs have already graduated from high
school. At this rate, they might have their own law degrees by the
time the litigation is settled.

Even so, if the district chooses to push forward with defending its
policy at trial despite an openly skeptical ruling from the Court of
Appeal, parents of high-schoolers might learn something valuable -
whether the random drug tests actually work.

The district's rationale for its decision to extend random drug tests
from athletes to students in band, choir, math club and other
extracurricular activities was to give students an extra reason to
avoid drugs. Many researchers, however, argue that the testing will,
if anything, backfire. They say random testing promotes a climate of
mistrust and leads at-risk students to avoid extracurricular
activities that might enrich their lives, connect them with their
schools, and give them a real reason to avoid drugs. Naturally, in
court the district had its own expert who argued otherwise.

Who's right? The question matters for parents and district
decision-makers, but also is critical under the law.

As the court ruling explains, students have a strong right to privacy
under the California constitution, but that right is balanced by
administrators' duty to maintain a safe school (no less a right in the
state Constitution). But striking the right balance depends on what
works. It's one thing to haul students out of class, make them pee on
demand, and potentially force them to reveal prescription medications
they're taking if the testing regime actually cuts drug use among
students. But if it doesn't work, what's the point of the embarrassing
rigmarole?

Paradoxically, the most straightforward way to learn whether the tests
achieve their goal would be to let the district carry them out - and
then see if student drug use, as measured in state surveys or
otherwise, in fact drops. But the courts have barred that path.

That leaves the district stuck in a legal pincer. If the drug-testing
program worked, the 3rd Circuit ruling suggests, it would be far more
likely to pass constitutional muster. But that same court won't let
the high school district try it and see.

The courts are vital for enforcing our rights, to be sure, but this is
a heck of a way to run a school system.