DRUG TESTING DECISION IS JUST PLAIN WRONG

THE U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision allowing random drug testing of
middle and high school students participating in extracurricular activities
is not only a frightening erosion of privacy rights, but it is also
counterintuitive. Why test the students least likely to use drugs? We think
the court's decision was reactionary and surprisingly wrongheaded. The case
grew out of policy instituted by a rural Oklahoma school district to
randomly test students involved in extracurricular activities. Students in
the band, the honor society, even the Future Farmers of America faced drug
tests. Two students filed a lawsuit against the district, claiming it
violated their constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.
They made the compelling argument there was no evidence that students
participating in the school clubs used drugs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Colorado agreed and outlawed the testing on
the basis the district had not established there was a drug abuse problem.

For the majority of the Supreme Court justices, however, such evidence
wasn't necessary. Referring to a "national epidemic of drug use," Justice
Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion that found "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."

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blasted the drug
testing program: "It is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."

"Nationwide, students who participate in extracurricular activities are
significantly less likely to develop substance abuse problems than are
their less-involved peers," she wrote. She cited a study that found
students who are not involved in school-sponsored activities are 49 percent
more likely to have used drugs than their classmates who are.

"It invades the privacy of students who need deterrence least," she
continued, "and risks steering students at greatest risk for substance
abuse away from extracurricular involvement that potentially may palliate
drug problems."

If the justices were truly interested in drug deterrence, drug counselors
say drug testing is not the answer. Education and prevention programs help
young people stay away from drugs. Drug testing students involved in
extracurricular activities only cuts off another avenue troubled young
people might have to turn their backs on drugs and re-engage.

Based on this ruling, more than one-half the country's 14 million high
school students could be randomly tested. Legal experts interpret it as a
step closer to random drug testing of all students. It broadens a 1995
decision upholding a testing program for school athletes. Ginsburg pointed
out in that case, drug use among athletes was an established problem and
posed specific health risks.

One professor of constitutional law said the recent decision illustrates
the fact that the justices don't take seriously the idea that children have
privacy rights. Vikram Amar, a professor at the University of California's
Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, also warned the ruling was so
broadly worded it would allow the testing of any student.

Thomas dismisses the privacy concern by playing down the intrusiveness of
the testing. In his view, urinating in a closed restroom stall with a
faculty member standing outside to listen for any tampering with the sample
is "minimally intrusive."

It's an indication of how far we've already come down the road of invasion
of privacy that a Supreme Court justice would argue such a humiliating
exercise in providing bodily fluids is minimally intrusive, particularly
when the students involved have done nothing to indicate they take drugs.

What happened to the students' presumption of innocence? What happened to
their protection against unreasonable searches? What happened to common sense?

We can't believe the majority of the court actually ruled in favor of this
illogical drug testing program. We can only urge school administrators not
to implement such a bad program that teaches our students the wrong lessons
about our constitution and their rights.