COURT'S DRUG-TEST OK

Isn't A School Mandate

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that high schools may conduct random drug
testing of any student involved in after-school activities, even if there
is no reason to suspect wrongdoing or use.

While the decision means testing is constitutionally permissible, high
schools should not take this as a call to rush toward random drug testing.

In its 5-4 decision, the court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school
honor student, who challenged extracurricular testing after she was
subjected to it. A self-described "goody two-shoes" who competed on an
academic quiz team and sang in the choir, Lindsay Earls tested negative for
drug use and sued over what she called a humiliating and accusatory policy.

The court said schools' interest in eliminating drugs from campuses
outweighs students' privacy rights.

Yet the court ruling applies only to those involved in after-school teams
or activities like chess club and band -- more than half of the nation's 14
million high school students.

Studies have shown that most drug use, teen sex, crime and general juvenile
mischief occurs between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., when students are out of school,
unsupervised, and parents are still at work. Students who engage in
after-school activities are more likely to be supervised during this
critical time and consequently less likely to use drugs.

Drug testing companies will no doubt be knocking on administrators' doors,
ready to promote -- and profit from -- the latest testing methods.

Before jumping on the test-the-band-students wagon, however, administrators
and school boards must ask themselves whether they would be helping
students with such a policy, or subjecting them to humiliation and
unjustified suspicion.