HIGH COURT BACKS SCHOOL DRUG TESTS

Washington - The Supreme Court put public high school students on notice
yesterday: Drug tests may be required for playing chess or joining the
pompom team.

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 14 million American high school students. Drug tests had been
allowed previously just 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 the majority.

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.

"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 Graham Boyd, director of
drug policy litigation at the American Civil Liberties Union and Earls' lawyer.

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

Justice Stephen Breyer, who provided the crucial fifth vote for the ruling,
wrote separately 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.

In another ruling, the court outlawed the Alabama prison practice of
chaining disruptive inmates to outdoor "hitching posts," calling it cruel
and unusual punishment. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority
in the 6-3 decision, said the practice "unnecessarily and wantonly
inflicted pain." The court also said a prisoner could sue over his chaining.

The court also struck down limits on what some judicial candidates may tell
voters, a landmark free speech ruling that could heat up court campaigns
around the country.

Nearly 40 states restrict what judges say or do while campaigning, to
promote an image of fairness and independence for courts. The court, in
throwing out strict limits in Minnesota on a 5-4 vote, said the rules
impose an unconstitutional gag order.