DRUG TESTING -- TESTING THE LIMITS

One supposes it's not much of a leap: If you're going to test high school
football players for drugs, why not the school's chess club? It's just
making extracurricular activity requirements the same across the board.

But when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the issue later this year, it
won't be a slam dunk. And it shouldn't.

The line between civil rights and the "compelling public interest"
necessary to intrude on those rights keeps getting moved all the time. And
it's troubling.

At first, the argument for testing student athletes was that schools not
only have the right, but the also the obligation, to make sure the students
are safe. Playing sports while on drugs isn't safe. Drug testing arguably
makes sense.

But is it unsafe for students to play chess while on drugs? Or sing in the
school choir? What about participation in the Spanish Club -- should that
be grounds for drug testing?

Here the argument in favor of more testing must shift in order for the case
to survive. And shift it does: Now the reason for drug testing is that even
in non-athletic contests, students involved in extracurricular activities
represent a school. So, they open themselves up to more scrutiny than other
students.

This notion of intrusively testing students in order to protect the
school's image -- especially where there is no evidence of a widespread
problem -- may or may not fly with the high court. If it does, then the
line has moved again.

That may be OK, in and of itself. If it helps catch drug use and save a
student from it, it has served its purpose. But where will the line be
drawn next? Couldn't the argument be made that all students represent a
school? Could that fact not be used to expand testing to all students?

Even limited suspicionless testing is already a broad departure from the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares that "the right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." The
amendment then explicitly says that "no warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause." In layman's terms, that means the government must have
good reason to suspect a crime before it searches your personal effects.

And in this instance, we're not talking about your papers, books or even
your home -- we're talking about your bodily fluids.

The case, which involves a Tecumseh, Okla., school district, is unsettling
enough that a federal appeals court has struck down the drug-testing policy.

The U.S. Supreme Court may reinstate it. If so, it won't be done lightly.
No erosion of our civil rights ever should be.