Pubdate: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Contact: http://www.seattle-pi.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408 DON'T EXPAND DRUG TESTS IN SCHOOLS Essentially cornered by its decision seven years ago that public school athletes could be subjected to random, suspicionless urine tests for drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court has used a Tecumseh, Okla., case to expand the list of student drug-testing targets to those involved in any extracurricular activity. Depending on one's point of view on drug abuse and the efficacy of random drug testing in deterring it, the court has either moved in the wrong direction or not far enough in the right direction. For those who disagreed -- as we did -- with the high court's earlier erosion of the privacy rights of student athletes, there was nothing to like in the June 27 decision to also allow decreased privacy rights for those in the debate team, the choir, marching band, Future Farmers of America, the National Honor Society and other groups. For those who support battling the drug scourge with the assumption that public school students should be considered guilty of using illicit drugs until they prove their innocence, the obvious question is why stop short of subjecting all students to random drug testing. At least in the 1995 case, involving testing of student athletes in the Vernonia, Ore., school district, school officials had some rationale for singling out those who participated in sports. Vernonia's athletes (some of them at least) were described as "leaders" of an aggressive local "drug culture" that had reached "epidemic proportions." The athletes were further singled out because they were perceived as role models for other students. There was no such compelling evidence provided about the non-athletes in Tecumseh. But the 5-4 majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, seemed to dismiss the specific need for action it emphasized in the Vernonia case and indicated it was enough that the Tecumseh policy was "a reasonable means of furthering the school district's important interest in preventing and deterring drug use among its schoolchildren ..." The court did make a defensible distinction between searches conducted to determine eligibility for extracurricular activities and those conducted to determine grounds for criminal prosecution, in which case Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches are clearly essential. Under the Tecumseh district's policy, drug test results are not turned over to law enforcement, do not result in any discipline and have no academic consequences. The only direct consequence of failing or refusing to take a drug test is denial or suspension of rights to participate in those school-sanctioned extracurricular activities. Other than having the convenient carrot/stick of such participation as a deterrent to drug use, what rationale is there to single out these students? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her sharp dissent, dismissed the suggestion that, like athletes, participants in these drug-screened activities share "the risk of injury a drug-using student athlete cast on himself and those engaged with him on the playing field" that was used as rationale for Vernonia's testing of athletes. Ginsburg complained, "The great majority of students the school district seeks to test in truth are engaged in activities that are not safety sensitive to an unusual degree." Further, Ginsburg correctly argued, the school district is targeting the wrong group of students. "Nationwide, students who participate in extracurricular activities are significantly less likely to develop substance abuse problems than are their less-involved peers," she wrote. Ginsburg cited a study showing that 10th-graders who don't participate in such activities are 49 percent more likely to have used drugs than those who do participate. The result, Ginsburg wrote, is that the Tecumseh policy "invades the privacy of students who need deterrence least and risks steering students at greater risk for substance abuse away from extracurricular involvement that potentially may palliate drug problems." Seattle Public Schools does not impose random drug testing on student athletes or anyone else. But with this latest high court ruling confirming the constitutionality of such testing, pressure may arise to impose it here. That pressure should be resisted. As serious as drug use may be among a certain percentage of public school students, random drug testing, especially when limited to specific groups with no rational criteria for doing so, is an unproven deterrent and an unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the majority of public school students who don't abuse drugs. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth