Random Drug Testing for US Students

US Supreme Court approves random drug tests in public schools

Many school teachers and administrators, in the US and abroad, were surprised with the Supreme Court ruling in June of 2002 approving random drug tests for many public high school students, ruling that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.

The 5-4 decision would allow the broadest drug testing the court has yet permitted for young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing. It applies to students who join competitive after-school activities or teams, a category that includes many if not most middle-school and high-school students. Previously, these tests had been allowed only for student athletes.

"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 any student, whether or not involved in extracurricular activities, but several justices have indicated they are interested in answering that question at some point.

Specifically, the court ruled against a former Oklahoma high school honor student who competed on an academic quiz team and sang in the choir. Lindsay Earls, a self-described "goodie two-shoes," tested negative but sued over what she called a humiliating and accusatory policy.

The Pottawatomie County school system had considered testing all students. Instead, it settled for testing only those involved in extracurricular activities on the theory that by voluntarily representing the school, those students had a lower expectation of privacy than did students at large.

The ruling can be read at the Cornell Law School website.

The ruling will have a variety of consequences:

• Local Authority. How will local school boards react to this new power to detect and prevent drug use among its students?
• Enforcement. If schools so choose, what methods will they employ to achieve the random tests now permitted?
• Punishment and/or remdiation. If students are found to test positively for drugs, what will be the response of the school administrators?

Educators from the US and well as abroad will be watching carefully as the fall term begins and schools try to hammer out their policies for randomly testing students.

Having the right tools to help students understand "right from wrong" is obviously important. But students make mistakes. As educators, our job is to help those students learn from those mistakes and become better citizens in the process. Our discipline learning packets serve that role. In addition, we have packets designed to address the needs of school administrators dealing with student involvement with illegal drugs.