FREEDOM MAY LOSE AGAIN TO WAR ON DRUGS

The Supreme Court is on the verge of surrendering another slice of freedom,
this time to the war on drugs. At oral arguments this week, a majority of
the justices seemed ready to permit mandatory drug tests for public school
students involved in extracurricular activities. Universal drug testing in
the schools may not be far behind.

Whatever gain that drug testing might offer to the fight against drugs is
not worth the loss of freedom, privacy and dignity. Mandatory drug tests
demean our children and send them a loud message: We don't trust you.

A mandatory drug test is a search. The Fourth Amendment, which protects
people's privacy, requires that all searches be "reasonable." Time was when
that meant that the police at least had to have a reason to suspect someone
of a crime. But that freedom has been sacrificed to the drug war.
Previously, the court has decided that mandatory drug tests are reasonable
- - even without suspicion - for railroad engineers, customs agents and high
school athletes.

The notion of a "reasonable suspicionless search" is a contradiction.
Searches can only be reasonable if they are based on suspicion or evidence.
But that's not the way the Supreme Court saw it in the high school athlete
case. It said that drug tests were reasonable because the school had a drug
problem and it was centered among the athletes.

Now the public schools in Pottawatomie, Okla., want to take that a step
further and extend the testing to other extracurricular activities such as
orchestra, choir, band and debate - even when students in these programs
don't have demonstrated drug problems.

Lindsay Earls was a student in the Tecumseh High School choir in 1999 when
she was called out for her drug test. Ms. Earls passed the test, but felt
that her privacy had been violated and went to court.

The school district argues that after-school activities are not compulsory,
so students who object to drug tests can simply avoid them. That argument,
as Justice David H. Souter pointed out, is unrealistic for any student who
hopes to get into a good college.

President George W. Bush's Justice Department argued that the
voluntary-compulsory distinction doesn't matter, because mandatory drug
tests for all students would be constitutional, even for those who don't
opt for extracurricular activities. What a dreary future it will be if the
nation's students come to associate their education with a government that
suspects them without reason and invades their privacy without cause.