DRUG TEST RULING OFF THE MARK

Man, was I ever in a boring middle-school chorus.

Sure, we sang, we laughed, we threw spitwads, but not once did the baritone
section or, in particular, the sopranos, ever meet the norm of national
behavior described this week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a majority opinion that allows drug-testing for public-school students
who participate in extracurricular activities, Justice Clarence Thomas
wrote that "some of these clubs and activities require occasional
off-campus travel and communal undress."

Communal undress? Why, our principal was such a sourpuss that getting
caught in the school hallway with your shirt untucked was enough to get a
kid booted out of National Junior Honor Society.

One thing about the war on drugs has never changed through the decades. The
targets are always moving.

Now the Supremes have thrown a legal lasso around the students least likely
to show up high on campus. The motivated ones. The college-bound set,
concerned not only with grades but with plunging into debate and student
government and all those other bonus activities that look so good to a
scholarship awards committee sifting through stacks of resumes.

Athletes have been at the center of this issue since 1995, when the high
court gave approval to an Oregon school district's policy that no student
may participate in sports without submitting to random drug testing. No
such requirement was made of the student population as a whole, just the jocks.

The concept, though ruled to be constitutional, never was seriously
discussed in Palm Beach County, or implemented anywhere else in the state.

"I'm not a proponent of it," said Marc Houlihan, athletic director at Royal
Palm Beach High School. "That's an opinion based on the cost, and based on
a belief that when you're talking about a student-athlete, particularly one
who is under the age of 18, there is a right to privacy there.

"We've had some athletes who have been involved in drugs before, but they
usually end up getting picked up by the drug-sniffing dogs on campus or by
word of mouth. This year, we didn't have any athletes at all involved in a
drug case, but we did have two involved in alcohol consumption. One athlete
came in with a pretty bad hangover before a game. The coach made the
decision to sit him two or three games, which I backed."

Coaches and administrators handle, and sometimes mishandle, these kinds of
situations more often than anyone knows, and on an individual basis. It's
the same when a linebacker gets a stern warning about a dip in his grades,
or a volleyball player misses a few starts for mouthing off to one of her
teachers. Seems to me that most athletes are already held to a slightly
higher standard than non-athletes, if only because they are bound to the
rules of behavior and performance that make them eligible to compete. Many
times, sports participation is the only reason they stay in school at all.

Bob Hughes, commissioner of the Florida High School Activities Association,
said drug testing of athletes is, for the moment, none of his
organization's business.

"We have no policy or requirements," said Hughes, who last was asked about
all of this when steroid use was the hot topic. "What we require is a
physical examination and nowhere does it say that it has to include a drug
test."

Nobody wants to risk getting sued, regardless of where the Supremes are
leading us, but there are other causes for concern. Some kids, for
instance, are already uncomfortable with the thought of trying out for a
team they may well reject them. These are the students who have the most to
learn from and about competition. Why would you want to add another
psychological barrier, namely the humiliation of an on-campus urinalysis
sample during which some faculty member waits and listens outside the
bathroom stall door for a warm cup of cooperation?

Even the learned men and women in the black robes are divided, 5-4, on the
best way to protect both the health and the privacy of our teenagers.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissenting opinion that the kind
of drug testing program backed by the court is "capricious, even perverse."

Don't worry. The justices are still talking to each other. In fact,
Ginsburg took some hilarious liberties in her opinion, writing about the
possibility that members of extracurricular groups like the Future
Homemakers of America, the Future Farmers of America or the marching band
might escape the drug-test snare.

"Notwithstanding nightmarish images of out-of-control flatware, livestock
run amok and colliding tubas disturbing the peace and quiet," Ginsburg
wrote, "the great majority of students the School District seeks to test in
truth are engaged in activities that are not safety sensitive to an unusual
degree."

That's not the way Supreme Court justices are supposed to write.

Singling out the most active and productive among us for increased
suspicion is not how they are supposed to think.