DRUG TESTS FOR MANY STUDENTS UPHELD

Justices Rule 5-4 To Allow Testing Of Participants In Extracurricular
Activities

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court put public high school students on notice
yesterday: Drug tests may be required for playing chess or joining the
cheerleader squad. Justices ruled 5-4 that schools' interest in ridding
their campuses of drugs outweighs students' right to privacy, allowing the
broadest drug testing yet of young people whom authorities have no
particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing.

The decision gives school leaders a free hand to test students who
participate in competitive after-school activities or teams - more than
half the estimated 14 million American high school students.

Drug tests had been allowed previously for student athletes.

"We find that 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," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G.
Breyer.

The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, but
several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that
question at some point.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a dissent, said the "program upheld today
is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."

The court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school honor student who
competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir. Lindsay Earls, a
self-described "goody-two-shoes," tested negative but sued over what she
called a humiliating and accusatory policy. She called yesterday "a sad day
for students in America."

"I find it very disappointing that the court would find it reasonable to
drug-test students when all the experts, from pediatricians to teachers,
say that drug testing is counterproductive," said Earls' lawyer, Graham
Boyd, director of drug policy litigation at the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The best way to prevent drug use is to involve them in extracurricular
activities," Boyd said.

Breyer, who provided the crucial fifth vote for the ruling, wrote
separately to say that he hopes the testing reduces peer pressure and
"addresses a serious national problem."

"It offers the adolescent a nonthreatening reason to decline his friend's
drug-use invitations, namely that he intends to play baseball, participate
in debate, join the band or engage in any one of a half-dozen useful,
interesting and important activities," he wrote.

The court also ruled 5-4 that judicial candidates may talk more freely
about such issues as abortion and school prayer while campaigning.

The free-speech ruling changes the political landscape as 33 states are
getting ready for judicial elections. It provoked criticism among law
groups, which called on candidates to limit campaigning lest the integrity
of the judiciary be harmed.

Candidates for any office, including a judgeship, cannot be barred from
discussing issues, the court ruled.

The justices also declared in a 6-3 ruling that an Alabama prison practice
of handcuffing inmates to a metal pole in the summer heat is
unconstitutional, saying it is "obvious" cruel and unusual punishment.