TECUMSEH DRUG POLICY SHOULD BE UPHELD

Sometime this summer the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide an
Oklahoma case as to whether public school districts can expand random drug
tests given to athletes to students participating in other activities, even
absent direct suspicion of drug activity. The Tecumseh school district in
Pottowatomie County had such a policy that was challenged by then-student
Lindsay Walls, who claimed it violated the Constitution's protections
against unreasonable searches or seizures.

U.S. District Judge David Russell upheld the policy but was overturned by
the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In oral arguments before the high court yesterday, the school district
defended its action as one designed to counter the general problem of
illegal drug use among students and a logical extension of the testing of
athletes permitted under a 1995 Supreme Court ruling.

The Bush administration sided with the school district. Solicitor General
Theodore Olson noted a 2000 government survey showing 54 percent of high
school seniors reported some illegal drug use, with nearly 25 percent
saying they had used drugs within the past month.

Opponents of the drug testing policy included the American Civil Liberties
Union and the libertarian Cato Institute of Washington, D.C.

Predicting the case's outcome is risky. But Justice Stephen Breyer, thought
to oppose expanded testing, said he thought the Tecumseh policy was
consistent with the court's 1995 ruling. The school district, he said, "did
what I would have done. I would have asked my kids what's really going on
in the school."

Serious questions arise whenever government -- in this case acting through
a school district -- involves itself in private affairs. But a reasonable
distinction can be made between government interference in lawful conduct
by an individual and reasonable, proactive steps to deter unlawful conduct,
such as illegal drug use.

Additionally, if it already has been decided that public school athletes
may be subjected to random drug testing, the merits of such testing
shouldn't go out the window because the activity is band or the 4-H Club
rather than football.

Protecting minor-age children from the scourge of drug addiction is a
legitimate societal concern. In balancing this concern against the
Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections, the court should uphold
Tecumseh's policy.