KIDS' RIGHTS AN OXYMORON, HIGH COURT SAYS

It should go without saying, but in this era of hypersensitivity, we
probably have to say it anyway: The fact that children cannot vote, drive,
drink, etc., doesn't mean they have no rights at all. Certainly, adults
cannot abuse them physically or otherwise. And children are of course have
a right to expect their parents' love and all that goes with it, including
food, shelter, guidance, moral nurturing and so forth.

That disclaimer having been stated, we must say we found ourselves
reassured by the overall good sense on the subject of children's rights
that seemed to emanate from the nation's highest court last week.

The case at hand involved a sophomore choir singer at a rural Oklahoma high
school who had objected to the mandatory urine tests that came with
participation in extracurricular activities, whether or not any student was
believed to be using drugs.

Sweeping aside the student's lawyers' concerns about the need for precisely
such "individualized suspicion" - some evidence the student to be tested is
under the influence or uses controlled substances - before a school can
test for drugs, several justices made clear the Fourth Amendment's bar on
unreasonable searches and seizures simply doesn't apply to those in the
custody of the school system.

Granted, there's much overkill and just plain silliness, all too often
politically motivated, to be found in the host of "zero-tolerance" policies
being embraced by school boards around the country. Though there are
understandable worries about violence and drug use among teens and even
pre-teens, many of the responses are overwrought and unreasonable.

What the court seemed to be saying, though, is that the way to file the
rough edges off of such overreaching policies is through parents
interacting with their duly-elected school board members. Which is to say
these debates aren't really constitutional fodder for the courts as much as
they are policy matters for representative government to sort out.

When most of us entrust our minors to the daily oversight of public
schools, we extend to those schools the authority to ensure those kids are
safe, disciplined and of course educated. As a result, student newspapers
can't publish anything they like; students don't get exclusive access to
their lockers, and they may even be asked to file through metal detectors
every morning and then provide a urine specimen just to join the football team.

Whether or not any of those policies makes sense under the circumstances in
any given locale is for that community, not the courts, to figure out.