HIGH
COURT UPHOLDS SCHOOL DRUG TESTS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday
that public middle and high
schools can require drug tests for
students in extracurricular activities
such as choir or band without
violating their privacy rights.
The high
court by a 5-4 vote upheld a program in Oklahoma that
required students who
want to take part in after-school activities to
submit to random
urinalysis.
The tests, required without any suspicion of drug use,
covered
students in grades 7 to 12 who sign up for such activities
as
cheerleading, choir, band, the academic team and the Future Farmers
of
America club.
On the last day of their term, the justices
overturned a U.S. appeals
court ruling that struck down the policy in the
Tecumseh School
District in Pottawatomie County for violating constitutional
privacy
protections against unreasonable searches.
"Because this
policy reasonably serves the school district's important
interest in
detecting and preventing drug use among its students, we
hold that it is
constitutional," Justice Clarence Thomas said for the
majority.
A
student who refuses to take the test or who tests positive more than
twice
cannot take part in competition for the rest of the school year.
Students are
tested at the start of the school year and then randomly
throughout the year,
with names drawn every month.
Ruling Could Boost School Drug
Tests
The ruling could boost school drug testing. Over the past three
years,
about 5 percent of schools nationwide have required drug tests
for
student athletes while about 2 percent have tested students in
other
extracurricular activities.
The Supreme Court adopted the
position urged by the Bush
administration in upholding the drug tests. At
arguments, a Bush
administration lawyer said a school could even test all of
its
students without violating their privacy rights.
The Supreme Court
last addressed the issue in 1995, when it ruled that
public high schools and
middle schools may force student athletes to
submit to drug tests. The
Oklahoma case covered extracurricular
activities other than
athletics.
In Tecumseh, a rural town about 40 miles (64 km) from Oklahoma
City,
two students challenged the policy after its adoption in
1998,
claiming the school failed to show it had a problem with illegal
drugs.
The school board defended the program and its authority to adopt
tests
to deter and combat drug use.
Of the more than 500 students
tested while the program was in effect
during part of two school years, only
three students, all athletes,
tested positive. Two of the athletes also
participated in other
extracurricular activities.
Justices John Paul
Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter and Ruth
Bader Ginsburg
dissented.
Ginsburg said the program was unreasonable, capricious and
even
"perverse" because it targets for testing a student population
least
likely to be at risk for illicit drugs and their damaging
effects.