Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jun 2002
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Copyright: 2002 Tallahassee Democrat.
Contact:  http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/444
Author: Gina Holland, of The Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

DRUG TESTS UPHELD FOR HIGH SCHOOLS

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court put public high school students on notice 
Thursday: Drug tests may be required for playing chess or joining the 
pompom team.

Justices ruled 5-4 that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of 
drugs outweighs students' right to privacy, allowing the broadest drug 
testing yet of young people whom authorities have no particular reason to 
suspect of wrongdoing.

The decision gives school leaders a free hand to test students who 
participate in competitive after-school activities or teams - more than 
half the estimated 14 million American high school students.

Drug tests had been allowed previously just for student athletes.

"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular 
activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school 
district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug 
use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H. 
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer.

The court stopped short of allowing random tests for any student, but 
several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that 
question at some point.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a dissent, said the "program upheld today 
is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse."
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