SCHOOL ISSUES:

Challenging Drug Testing

Washington - Lindsay Earls was a sophomore in high school in Tecumseh,
Okla., when the school board decided that all students - athletes and
nonathletes alike - who wanted to participate in extracurricular school
activities had to take a drug test.

Now, four years later, after Earls and other students sued the school board
for violating their constitutional right to privacy, the Supreme Court must
decide whether the policy of testing students who it has no reason to
believe are taking drugs is legal.

Under the policy, all students choosing to participate in extracurricular
activities are required to take a urinalysis to test for drugs and agree to
periodic random testing. The thinking on the tough antidrug stand is that
the tests would give students an incentive to say no to drugs.

The court had said it is OK for schools to test athletes involved in
rigorous activity for their own protection. A school may also test those
students it suspects might be using drugs, but it has never addressed
testing the entire student body.

The last court to hear the case, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled
against the policy, saying drug tests for nonathletes are unreasonable.

When the Supreme Court heard the case in March, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
said the policy punished a student population largely untouched by drug
use. The policy, she said, was structured in a way "to do very little good."

Justice David Souter agreed and said the goal of drug testing should be to
stop use, not participation in extracurricular activities, which can keep
teens away from drugs.

But Justice Antonin Scalia said he wondered whether the fact that teenage
drug use is a huge problem nationwide might justify the school's testing of
the nonathletes.

According to a survey conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in
1999, more than 21 percent of senior boys and 18 percent of senior girls
reported using drugs other than marijuana, and 50 percent of high school
seniors admitted to trying marijuana.

Before instituting the policy, the Tecumseh high school had boasted an
impressive record of stopping drug use. Between 1989 and 1997, the school
reported few drug incidents and said drug use was decreasing, according to
court documents.

In 1998, after one mother reported marijuana use on the football team,
parents demanded the school board do more to prevent student drug use.

At first, the board considered drug testing the athletes, which the
constitution permits because there was evidence of drug use in that group.
The board president, however, extended testing to other students, saying it
wouldn't be fair to single out the athletes.

More than 500 students at the school, who are involved in extracurricular
activities, were tested for drug use the year the plan took effect,
according to court documents. In the first year, three tested positive for
drug use. The second year, only one tested positive. Those students all
were involved in athletics, documents indicate.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said he thought the best way to
understand a drug problem at a school is for parents to talk with their
children about the dangers of drug use.

Earls, now a Dartmouth student, said she was humiliated the first time she
was tested for drugs, according to court documents. School officials made
her urinate in a plastic vial while three faculty members listened outside
the stall for "the normal sounds of urination," court documents state.

When Earls was finished, one of the faculty members, whom she saw on a
regular basis, inspected her sample to make sure it was the right
temperature and color. Tests indicated Earls did not use drugs.

Opponents told the court that if Earls had refused to take the drug tests,
she would be embarrassed and humiliated by having to give a urine sample,
isolated from other students and excluded from extracurricular activities,
which would have hurt her chances at getting into a competitive college.
They argue that the Constitution's Fourth Amendment bans unreasonable
searches and seizures.

Attorneys for the Justice Department told the court that the invasion of
privacy caused by drug testing is reasonable considering the government's
responsibility of protecting children in its schools.

An opinion is expected by summer.

[Remainder of article unrelated to drug policy]