TESTING TARGETS WRONG STUDENTS

In "Conway school board will study issue more before making decision" (Log
Cabin Democrat, July 10), a surprising number of parents agree with the
four associate justices of the Supreme Court who opposed random drug
testing of students participating in extracurricular activities.

In the dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that
the Tecumseh, Okla., drug-testing program "is not reasonable, it is
capricious, even perverse: (It) targets for testing a student population
least likely to be at risk from illicit drugs and their damaging effects."

The loser in this decision was Lindsay Earls, an honor student whose
academic and extracurricular achievements won her admission to one of the
nation's finest, most competitive colleges, Dartmouth. Before she sued her
school district, she had already passed several drug tests her school
demanded so she could pursue extracurricular activities.

The "winners" are academically low-performing students, the pre-dropout
crowd who spend their after-school hours by the railroad tracks. They will
not be tested for drugs under this decision. The Supreme Court gave the
go-ahead to force the chess team, the debating team and the calculus club
to submit to random urine testing.