Pubdate: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Sacramento Bee Contact: P.O.Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852 Feedback: http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html Website: http://www.sacbee.com/ Forum: http://www.sacbee.com/voices/voices_forum.html SUPREME COURT CURBS STUDENT DRUG TESTING Must Suspect Youth Is Under Influence The Supreme Court, limiting the drug testing of students, refused Monday to allow a school district to test all those who violate its disciplinary rules. While individuals who appear to be under the influence of drugs can be tested at school, officials may not routinely test groups of students, under the ruling that the high court let stand. The Constitution's Fourth Amendment protects students, as well as adults, from unreasonable searches by public officials, the ruling stressed. "This decision says just because you are a student, you don't lose all your rights to privacy," said Kenneth Falk, a lawyer for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. He represented a freshman who successfully fought the school drug-testing policy in Anderson, Ind. In other action, the court: * Allowed Charlottesville, Va., to enforce a teen curfew generally requiring children under age 17 to stay off the streets from midnight to 5 a.m. weekdays and 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays. A lower court upheld the curfew as a valid tactic aimed at reducing juvenile violence and crime. * Rejected a challenge to the Violence Against Women Act filed by the first woman convicted under the law. Rita Gluzman of New Jersey was sentenced to life in prison for her husband's 1996 murder. She argued Congress exceeded its power to control interstate commerce by making it a crime to cross state lines to harm a spouse or intimate partner. Mandatory drug testing in schools, once considered a likely next step in the war on drugs, now appears to be fading as an option, experts say, a victim of privacy concerns, high costs and adverse court rulings. Most large urban school districts have not adopted widespread or routine drug testing. At roughly $50 per student, such testing is expensive for a large system, officials say. Moreover, it would be seen as a highly intrusive invasion of privacy for officials to insist presumably innocent students undergo drug tests, said Howard Friedman, an assistant general counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Instead, the lead cases in school drug testing have come from small towns in Oregon, Indiana and Colorado. "They have the feeling they don't want to become like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. In these (small-town) communities, there is minimal opposition" to mandatory drug testing, Falk said. Four years ago, the Supreme Court opened the door to routine testing at schools when it upheld a urine-testing program for school athletes in rural Vernonia, Ore. Because students playing sports while under the influence of drugs could be injured, it is reasonable to force them to undergo regular urine testing, the high court said. A year later, a school district in Rushville, Ind., went one step further and adopted regular testing for all students who participated in extracurricular activities. Since then, however, the trend toward more testing has been halted. No court has condoned the testing of all students, and several courts have struck down policies that target for testing students who have violated certain disciplinary rules. The Associated Press contributed to this report. - --- MAP posted-by: Patrick Henry