COURT EXPANDS SCHOOL DRUG TESTS

WASHINGTON - Children attending public schools can be required to submit to
random drug tests, even when school officials have no reason to suspect
widespread use of illicit narcotics. In a major exception to Fourth
Amendment prohibitions against suspicionless searches, the US Supreme Court
has given a green light to public schools across the nation to use random
drug-testing procedures on a wide variety of children. The high court said
in a 5-to-4 decision announced Thursday that the deterrent effect of such
drug testing was enough to overcome Fourth Amendment privacy protections.

The ruling opens the way for schools to dramatically expand drug testing if
they so choose for students involved in extracurricular activities like
band and choir. But some experts believe that the cost of carrying out the
tests, coupled with lingering privacy concerns, will limit the number of
schools that will actually do so.

In writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas says, "The need to
prevent and deter the substantial harm of childhood drug use provides the
necessary immediacy for a school testing policy." He adds, "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."

The decision marks a major victory for antidrug groups and others who
believe random testing can provide an effective deterrent to the use of
illicit narcotics by teens. "It is a victory for common sense, and our
schools will be safer as a result," says David Evans of the Drug-Free
Schools Coalition.

Privacy advocates see it as an erosion of Fourth Amendment protections
against government intrusion in the daily lives of children. "What the
court has done here is a very serious departure from its prior precedent,"
says Graham Boyd of the drug-policy litigation project of the American
Civil Liberties Union. "It had allowed testing when there was a
demonstrated need. Now they've thrown it open to schools even when there's
no need," he says. "They can do it on a whim."

The decision upholds a drug-testing program adopted by the school board in
Tecumseh, Okla. The 1998 policy required all students participating in
extracurricular activities such as band, academic team, and the Future
Farmers of Americato submit to random urinalysis tests. The policy was
challenged by two high school students, Lindsay Earls and Daniel James, who
argued that students have a right to participate in extracurricular
activities without having to surrender privacy to suspicionless drug tests.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from searching an individual
unless government officials have reason to suspect criminal activity. But
the court has long recognized that Fourth Amendment privacy protections are
somewhat relaxed in a school setting, where school officials have a
responsibility to protect the health and safety of schoolchildren.

Although the majority upheld the constitutionality of the school policy,
the justices stopped short of endorsing it.

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the school's policy violated
Fourth Amendment protections. "It is capricious, even perverse," she
writes. The "policy targets for testing a student population least likely
to be at risk from illicit drugs."

In earlier rulings involving random drug tests, the court had established
that Fourth Amendment prohibitions could be overcome when a "special need"
existed that justified extraordinary measures. The court has ruled that a
special need justifies the random drug testing of train drivers involved in
an accident, US Customs inspectors working in areas of high drug smuggling,
and student athletes who formed the leadership of the drug culture in a
particular high school.

The court's decision is significant because it broadens this "special need"
rationale to include any student, not just those at higher risk of
involvement with illegal drugs.

The Tecumseh school board adopted its policy in an effort to create a
strong incentive for students to avoid any involvement with drugs. School
officials justified the policy by saying that any student wishing to avoid
the test could choose not to participate in after-school activities.

Some education and drug-abuse experts say that students who participate in
extracurricular activities are much less likely than other students to use
illegal narcotics. Others maintain that such random testing is useful
because if offers drug-free children a means to reject invitations by their
peers to try drugs.

Over the past three years, about 5 percent of schools nationwide have
required drug tests for athletes, while about 2 percent have tested
students in other extracurricular activities.

In the student's lawsuit, a federal judge upheld the drug-testing policy.
But the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver disagreed. The appeals
court ruled that school officials could not subject students engaged in
extracurricular activities to drug tests without first showing that those
students were somehow more at risk for illicit drug use than other students.

* Mark Clayton in Boston and Liz Marlantes in Washington contributed to
this report.