JUSTICES CLEAR WAY FOR DRUG TESTS FOR STUDENTS IN HOST OF ACTIVITIES

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court gave public school officials much wider
authority yesterday to test students for drugs, setting the stage for
districts to move toward screening everyone who attends school.

The 5-4 ruling permits districts to require random tests of any student who
takes part in extracurricular activitities such as band, chorus, or
academic competition. Previously, the court had upheld mandatory testing of
student athletes.

"Given the nationwide epidemic of drug use, it was entirely reasonable for
the school district to enact this particular testing program," Justice
Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision significantly narrows the obligation for school officials to
justify urine sampling among students who are not suspected individually of
drug use. Thomas indicated that districts would no longer be required to
offer proof that the specific activity in which students took part provided
a reason to screen them.

When it upheld testing of athletes in 1995, the court appeared to have done
so in part because sports involve physical risks and a reduced level of
personal privacy in the locker room. Those factors, the justice said, were
"not essential" to the constitutional analysis.

What was most important in weighing the constitutionality of student drug
testing, Thomas said, is that school officials are entrusted with the care
and tutoring of children during their time at school. Enlarging on a
rationale that would justify testing any student, the main opinion said
that "a student's privacy interest is limited in a public school
environment where the state is responsible for maintaining discipline,
health, and safety."

"The nationwide drug epidemic makes the war against drugs a pressing
concern in every school," Thomas said.

Across the nation, schools with drug-testing programs mainly began them for
athletes. But a number expanded to include students taking part in
extracurricular activities - as in the case decided yesterday.

The ruling went against Lindsay Earls, a former honor student who competed
on an academic quiz team and participated in choir and band at Tecumseh,
Okla., High School, in a town of around 6,000 southeast of Oklahoma City.
Earls, who now attends Dartmouth College, tested negative but sued over
what she called a humiliating and accusatory policy. She told the
Associated Press that yesterday was "a sad day for students in America."

In other districts, officials have given drug tests to any student who
brings a car to school. A school district in Texas experimented with a
program that tested every student, but abandoned it after it was challenged
in court.

It now seems likely that a program to test all students will emerge and
provide the basis for a new appeal to determine the scope of yesterday's
ruling. When the court heard the Oklahoma case in March, a Justice
Department lawyer said that it would be constitutional to give a drug test
to every student in a public school - an issue that the high court has not
addressed.

The fate of such a program is uncertain, because the court was so closely
divided on the issue. Thomas's main opinion had the support of Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin
Scalia, and Stephen G. Breyer, who also wrote a separate opinion listing
some reasons why he thought the program at the Oklahoma school was valid.

Among other reasons, Breyer noted that the program "avoids subjecting the
entire school to testing," a factor that he appeared to regard as
significant. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in the key dissenting opinion,
argued that the constitutional issues were very different when testing of
students in extracurricular activities was at issue, compared with testing
athletes. She cited data showing that students who take part in
extracurricular activities "are significantly less likely to develop
substance abuse problems than are their less-involved peers."

When the court upheld drug testing of student athletes, Ginsburg said, it
involved students with reduced privacy interests, with a special
susceptibility to drug-related injury, and with proof in that case that
individual athletes were heavily involved in drug use.

The decision upholding that program, she argued, provided no basis for
upholding "a program so sweeping" as the one in Oklahoma for students with
none of those problems.

Also dissenting were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter, and
John Paul Stevens.