SUPREME COURT HEARS ORAL ARGUMENTS ON STUDENT DRUG TESTS

WASHINGTON - Several Supreme Court justices embraced the idea of
random drug tests for students involved in after-school activities
ranging from band to chess club, a major step toward allowing drug
testing for all students.

A lawyer for a rural Oklahoma school district argued Tuesday that
random drug tests for some students was a reasonable response to a
general problem of drug use among young people.

If the court agrees, it would allow far broader scrutiny of the
majority of the nation's 24 million high school students who
participate in extracurricular activities. The Conway School District
has adopted a drug-testing policy similar to the one in Tecumseh,
Okla., but has delayed its implementation pending the ruling by the
Supreme Court.

"Do you think any school in the United States does not have a drug
problem?" Justice Antonin Scalia asked rhetorically at one point.

"The danger is getting kids used to the drug culture," he said.
"They're forming their habits for the rest of their lives."

The court has already ruled that schools may test athletes for drugs.
That 1995 ruling made an exception to the general rule that
authorities must have some specific reason to suspect wrongdoing
before targeting someone for search.

The court found that the school in the first 1995 case had a
widespread drug problem, and student athletes were among the users.
Students who routinely strip naked in a locker room have a lower
expectation of privacy than other students, the court reasoned then.
Students who used drugs while playing vigorous sports could also be a
danger to themselves or others, the court said.

Justice Stephen Breyer suggested the Oklahoma school district took the
logical next step in light of the earlier ruling. Breyer voted with
the majority to approve athlete testing, and he noted on Tuesday,
"It's hard for me to see if I came out one way (then) I'd come out
different here."

The court's ruling in the current case, expected by summer, should
fill in a major question left from the 1995 ruling: whether the
factors that made drug testing acceptable for athletes apply to other
after-school activities, or even students at large.

Wider drug testing remains relatively rare among the nation's 15,500
public school districts. Lower courts have reached differing
conclusions about the practice.

Some members of the Tecumseh school board wanted to test all students,
but lawyers advised limiting tests to students involved in competitive
after-school activities on the theory that they, like athletes, had
opened themselves to greater scrutiny than had students at large.

The Bush administration is backing the school district, as is a long
list of organizations including the Drug-Free Schools Coalition and
the National School Boards Association.

"I think this is a deterrent," argued school district lawyer Linda
Meoli. "If they want to audition or go out for one of these
competitive activities, they know" drug testing is a
requirement.

Having a test hanging over students' heads "is a way to say no," to
peer pressure, Meoli said.

Universal testing was clearly on the minds of many justices, and they
challenged all sides to say whether such a policy would be
constitutional. Meoli said probably not, and the American Civil
Liberties Union lawyer challenging the school said definitely not.

But in what may be the Bush administration's first such statement,
Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement said universal testing would be
constitutional.

Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter were the most vocal
in questioning the Tecumseh policy.

O'Connor noted that lower court testimony indicated students involved
in seemingly wholesome after-school activities were less likely than
their peers to get into trouble with drugs.

"It's just so odd," she said of the testing plan. "It's so
counterintuitive, isn't it?"

The Tecumseh testing program ran for part of two school years. It was
suspended after Lindsey Earls, captain of the school academic quiz
team and self-described "goodie two-shoes," sued over a 1998 drug
test. She passed the test.