Pubdate: Tue, 19 Mar 2002
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Joan Biskupic
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

COURT TO CONSIDER SCHOOL DRUG-TESTING

Students sued after Okla. district required urine tests for extracurricular 
activities

WASHINGTON -- One of the most pressing questions for parents and educators 
comes before the U.S. Supreme Court today as the justices consider how far 
schools can go in trying to keep students off of drugs.

An Oklahoma school district is defending a policy of random urine testing 
for high school students who want to join the marching band, academic team 
or any competitive extracurricular activity.

The students and parents who object, represented by the American Civil 
Liberties Union, say testing those who have done nothing to arouse 
suspicion is unconstitutional and can backfire.

"I don't think stripping students of their privacy rights is any way to 
solve the problem," says Lindsay Earls, who with her sister and another 
student challenged the urinalysis testing in the Pottawatomie County school 
district, 40 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.

With illegal drug use prevalent across America, the case has drawn wide 
interest from teachers, parents and social workers. Many of them disagree 
over whether testing is an effective way to keep students from using narcotics.

The justices' eventual ruling will have ramifications for the most 
aggressive anti-drug efforts in schools today and likely influence the 
legitimacy of other government-sponsored urine testing down the line.

The Bush administration's Justice Department is siding with the school 
district. In a brief to the high court, Justice Department lawyers refer to 
a 2000 national survey in which 54% of 12th-graders and 46% of 10th-graders 
said they had used illegal drugs.

"Schoolchildren not only are more vulnerable to drug use than adults, but 
such abuse is much more likely to devastate their lives," U.S. Solicitor 
General Theodore Olson says in the brief.

But the question in oral arguments today is whether such broad-based 
testing, covering all students in interscholastic extracurricular 
activities, violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable 
searches.

In previous cases, the Supreme Court has said the collection and testing of 
urine is a type of search that under usual circumstances would require a 
warrant or some evidence of wrongdoing.

But the justices also have ruled that administrators generally have more 
leeway to search in the school setting, based on the assumption that 
students expect less privacy than adults do.

In a case in 1995, the court specifically allowed urinalysis for student 
athletes. In that case from Vernonia, Ore., the high court cited the safety 
concerns involved in athletics and noted that athletes usually undress 
together and have lower expectations of privacy.

Now the question is whether schools can justify testing non-athletes, 
particularly those with no documented drug problems.

The Pottawatomie County School Board began requiring students who wanted to 
participate in interscholastic competitions to undergo random urinalysis 
testing in 1998. Each month, a teacher would accompany students into a 
bathroom and wait outside the stall to try to guard against cheating.

Earls, then a sophomore at Tecumseh High, submitted to the tests in order 
to continue participating in the school's choir and academic team. In a 
recent interview, she said it was "humiliating" to urinate as a teacher 
listened outside the stall. "We all tried to make jokes about it to feel 
more comfortable," she said.

Her tests were negative. Earls says she has never used drugs. Even so, she 
and her parents decided to challenge the policy because of the personal 
liberties at stake. "It's nobody's business but my parents' if I'm doing 
drugs," says Earls, 19, now a freshman at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

A trial judge sided with the school district, citing students' presumed 
lower expectation of privacy. The judge said the collection of the urine 
minimally affects them. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit 
reversed that ruling. Referring to the 1995 Oregon case, the appeals court 
said athletes face a higher risk of injury from drug use than others and 
concluded that testing could be used only if "there is some identifiable 
drug abuse problem" to screen for.

The Pottawatomie County school district says students who take part in 
non-athletic competitions "voluntarily choose to abide by heightened 
regulations" and automatically "submit to additional privacy intrusions."

School officials say the need to eliminate drug use outweighs privacy 
interests. William Bleakley, an attorney for the district, says officials 
see testing as a "caring approach" that gets students into counseling if 
they need it.

ACLU lawyer Graham Boyd, representing the students, counters that there is 
no justification for testing non-athletes who have no history of drug use 
or discipline problems and who do not engage in dangerous sports.

He says that participating in choir, band and similar activities can help 
keep kids off drugs and that schools should not discourage such pursuits.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom