Pubdate: Mon, 01 Dec 2003
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2003 PG Publishing
Contact:  http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

Editorial

WITHOUT SUSPICION - STATE JUSTICES WISELY RULE AGAINST BROAD DRUG TESTS

Hurrah for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. While the war on drugs in 
America has helped pave the proverbial road to hell with good intentions -- 
and even the U.S. Supreme Court has blinked at civil rights violations 
flowing from anti-drug fervor -- Pennsylvania's top court has offered a 
ruling full of good sense.

In a preliminary phase of a case, a three-justice panel ruled Nov. 20 that 
"suspicion-less" drug testing in high schools in the commonwealth was a 
problem under the state constitution, even though the U.S. Supreme Court 
has ruled such searches constitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

The ruling was confirmation that, in Pennsylvania, a stronger notion of 
privacy prevails in the law. It also served to illustrate what was wrong 
with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year in a similar case. An 
opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, ever the reactionary, rejected 
an exemplary student's objection to having been tested for drugs as a 
condition of belonging to the National Honor Society and the school choir.

The Pennsylvania case rivaled the federal case in its absurdity. Standing 
common sense on its head, the Delaware Valley School District in Pike 
County instituted an overly broad drug and alcohol testing program for 
"student leaders" -- those involved in extracurricular programs -- as well 
as athletes and students who drove to school. Meanwhile, the slackers, the 
very ones who might be supposed to be using drugs or alcohol, were not 
included in the program.

As the opinion by Justice Ronald D. Castille noted, "Nothing in this 
statement of purpose, or in any other pleading of record, suggests that the 
class of students targeted for random testing were the source of an 
existing, active drug problem in the district." It appeared, Justice 
Castille wrote, that certain students were "targeted for symbolic reasons, 
since they were deemed to be 'role models.' "

So that is what it has come to in the war on drugs -- role models singled 
out for attention in the name of a better educational environment, and 
this, moreover, in the absence of convincing evidence that a drug problem 
existed in the district at all. One might call this strange policy the 
Revenge on the Nerds, because simply being in the chess club would open a 
student for testing.

This is indeed good intentions gone awry. The school district's fault was 
not in trying to address drug use, as Justice Castille fully acknowledged 
in his opinion. The problem was that the school district went too far. It 
forgot that it is in the business of teaching citizenship.

As Justice Castille wisely put it, "What lesson does a program targeting 
the personal privacy of some but not all students, and lacking both 
individualized suspicion or any reasoned basis for a suspicion-less search, 
teach our young?"

Although this case is still in a preliminary stage and awaits further court 
action, the obvious answer to Justice Castille's question needs to be 
considered by more districts in Pennsylvania than the one in Pike County.
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