Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jun 2002
Source: Oklahoman, The (OK)
Copyright: 2002 The Oklahoma Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.oklahoman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/318
Author: Christy Watson

COURT OKS TECUMSEH DRUG TESTING

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of the Tecumseh School 
District, granting schools the right to drug-test middle school and high 
school students in competitive after-school activities. The 5-4 decision 
allows schools to test without proof of an epidemic drug problem and 
expands a previous court decision that sanctioned random testing only of 
student athletes. Justices wrote that giving schools an opportunity to rid 
their campuses of drugs outweighs privacy rights.

The case centered on the Pottawatomie County district's 1998 drug-testing 
policy. It called for random urine testing of students in competitive 
activities such as band, choir, cheerleading and FFA.

A student who refused to take the test or who tested positive more than 
twice could not compete for the rest of the school year. Students were 
tested at the start of the school year and then randomly throughout the 
year, with names drawn monthly.

Lindsay Earls, a former Tecumseh honor student who competed on an academic 
quiz team and sang in the choir, challenged the policy with help from the 
American Civil Liberties Union.

A self-described "goody two-shoes," Earls tested negative but called the 
policy humiliating and accusatory and a violation of a constitutional 
protection against unreasonable searches. She attends Dartmouth College. 
"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 all public school 
students, although several justices indicated they are interested in 
answering that question.

"This is a sad day for students in America," Earls said Thursday from New 
Hampshire. "The ruling is in the name of protecting students from drug use, 
but I don't really see how that works."

Earls said some Tecumseh students dropped extracurricular activities to 
protest the policy.

"I find it very disappointing that the court would find it reasonable to 
drug-test students when all the experts, from pediatricians to teachers, 
say that drug-testing is counterproductive," said Graham Boyd, Earls' 
lawyer and director of drug policy litigation at the ACLU.

"The best way to prevent drug use is to involve them in extracurricular 
activities," Boyd said.

Boyd said he hopes schools will find more effective ways of dealing with 
drug use that don't usurp parents' rights and student privacy.

Justices found the privacy intrusion was minimal. They said the policy only 
prevents students from participating in extracurricular activities and has 
no academic or criminal consequences.

Breyer wrote that Tecumseh's policy offers teens a "nonthreatening reason" 
to reject drug-use invitations.

Lori Earls, Lindsay Earls' mother, said dealing with drug use is a parental 
responsibility, not the school's.

Tecumseh schools Superintendent Tom Wilsie expressed immediate relief the 
case has ended. He said he expects the district to consider re-implementing 
the twice-suspended policy. School board members will make the final 
decision on any policy changes.

"We have to do something to try to make a dent in this drug situation we 
have in our society," he said.

Wilsie said the district enjoyed community support for the policy even 
before it was approved by school board members. However, several Tecumseh 
residents filed a brief supporting Earls. David Earls, Lindsay's father, 
said the issue has been divisive.

"The particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable, it is 
capricious, even perverse," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the 
dissenters.

In a brief, separate dissent, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter 
said they disagreed with the court's ruling in 1995 regarding random 
testing of athletes.

Ginsburg rebutted the district's argument that like athletes, students 
involved in other activities face health and safety risks.

"Notwithstanding nightmarish images of out-of-control flatware, livestock 
run amok and colliding tubas disturbing the peace and quiet of Tecumseh, 
the great majority of students the school district seeks to test are 
engaged in activities that are not safety-sensitive to an unusual degree," 
she wrote.

Of the estimated 14 million American high school students, more than half 
probably participate in some organized after-school activity, educators say.

Drug-testing became more popular after a 1995 ruling involving athletes 
when an Oregon district demonstrated a widespread drug problem spearheaded 
by athletes and that athletes had a lower expectation of privacy than other 
students.

Wider testing remains sparse in Oklahoma and throughout the country, with 
only about 5 percent of schools testing student athletes and only 2 percent 
testing other students.

U.S. District Judge David Russell upheld the drug-testing policy in 
Oklahoma City federal court but was overturned by the 10th Circuit Court of 
Appeals in Denver. The district appealed to the Supreme Court.

Court documents show that during the 1998-99 school year and the first 
semester of the 1999-2000 school year, as many as 800 Tecumseh students 
participated in extracurricular activities. Only three students, all 
athletes, tested positive.
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