SUPREME COURT WILL TAKE UP STUDENT DRUG TESTING

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether school
administrators must demonstrate that schools have a serious drug problem
before randomly testing some students.

The court will give more guidance to schools that want to use screening to
keep classrooms drug-free. Justices are following up on their 1995 ruling
that upheld testing of athletes in an Oregon school district, where
drug-using sports team members were blamed for discipline problems. That
ruling stopped short of endorsing blanket drug testing.

In the case accepted for review by the Supreme Court on Thursday, an
appeals court said a rural Oklahoma district violated the Constitution's
ban on unreasonable searches by requiring random tests of students involved
in extracurricular activities, such as the chorus.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the district had no
justification for drug testing because it had few problems. Among the more
serious incidents was a choir member caught with alcohol in a cough syrup
bottle on a trip. The court struck down the district's policy, and school
officials appealed to the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for the school said the Supreme Court determined in the 1995 case
that public schools are a special environment and students have a lower
expectation of privacy.

"The mere entrance through the schoolhouse gates does not include the
blanket invitation to subject students in America's public schools to drug
tests," American Civil Liberties attorneys, representing three students,
told the court.

The Fourth Amendment case turns on whether schools have to prove narcotics
problems before testing children and if testing is appropriate only for
students who are involved in potentially dangerous activities, such as sports.

"This issue is obviously a difficult one with which courts will continue to
grapple," the appeals court had said.

Tecumseh school officials tested about 500 students from 1998 to 2000. Four
tested positive for drugs. Officials in the community 40 miles from
Oklahoma City said they use multiple methods to deter drug use, including
surveillance cameras, drug education, drug dogs and the testing program.

Students who test positive must be counseled and quit using drugs to remain
involved in the extracurricular activities.

The Supreme Court in 1989 upheld drug testing of railroad employees
involved in accidents and U.S. Customs agents who enforce anti-drug laws or
carry guns. In both decisions, the court cited public health and safety as
justification.

The high court in 1997 struck down a Georgia law that required political
candidates to take drug tests, partly because there was no evidence of a
drug-abuse problem among the state's elected officials.

In the case accepted Thursday, the appeals court said there was no evidence
of drug use among the Oklahoma students required to take tests - members of
the academic team, choir, Future Farmers of America and Future Homemakers
of America.

The Oregon case involved testing only of athletes, who officials said
encouraged drug use by peers.

"Deterring drug use by our nation's schoolchildren is at least as important
as enhancing efficient enforcement of the nation's laws against the
importation of drugs," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the 6-3 Oregon decision.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in dissent that the ruling means millions
of student athletes, "an overwhelming majority of whom have given school
officials no reason whatsoever to suspect they use drugs at school, are
open to an intrusive bodily search."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted with the majority but said the ruling
leaves undecided whether public schools can require all students to undergo
drug tests.