Pubdate: Fri, 22 Mar 2002
Source: Montana Standard (MT)
Copyright: 2002 Montana Standard
Contact:  http://www.mtstandard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/609
Note: Originally published as an editorial by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n539/a01.html

SCHOOL IS WHERE FREEDOMS DIE

The Supreme Court is on the verge of surrendering another slice of freedom, 
this time to the war on drugs. At oral arguments this week, a majority of 
the justices seemed ready to permit mandatory drug tests for public school 
students involved in extracurricular activities. Universal drug testing in 
the schools may not be far behind.

Whatever gain that drug testing might offer to the fight against drugs is 
not worth the loss of freedom, privacy and dignity. Mandatory drug tests 
demean our children and send them a loud message: We don't trust you.

A mandatory drug test is a search. The Fourth Amendment, which protects 
people's privacy, requires that all searches be "reasonable." Once that 
meant that the police at least had to have a reason to suspect some one of 
a crime. They had to have a warrant to search. But that freedom has been 
sacrificed to the drug war. Previously, the court has decided that 
mandatory drug tests are reasonable -- even without suspicion -- for 
railroad engineers, customs agents and high school athletes.

The notion of a "reasonable suspicionless search" is a contradiction. 
Searches can only be reasonable if they are based on suspicion or evidence. 
But that's not the way the Supreme Court saw it in the high school athlete 
case. It said that drug tests were reasonable because the school had a drug 
problem and it was centered among the athletes.

Now the public schools in Pottawatomie, Okla., want to take that a step 
further and extend the testing to other extracurricular activities such as 
orchestra, choir, band and debate -- even when students in these programs 
don't have demonstrated drug problems.

Lindsay Earls was a student in the Tecumseh High School choir in 1999 when 
she was called out for her drug test. She described the humiliating 
experience this way to The New York Times: "It was really tense, with each 
girl in a stall, and a teacher we all knew outside listening for the sound 
of urination." Earls passed the test, but felt that her privacy had been 
violated and went to court.

The school district argues that after-school activities are not compulsory, 
so students who object to drug tests can simply avoid them. That argument, 
as Justice David H. Souter pointed out, is unrealistic for any student who 
hopes to get into a good college.

President George W. Bush's Justice Department argued that the 
voluntary-compulsory distinction doesn't matter, because mandatory drug 
tests for all students would be constitutional, even for those who don't 
choose extracurricular activities.

What a dreary future it will be if the nation's students come to associate 
their education with a government that suspects them without reason and 
invades their privacy without cause.
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