By Byron Smith
Staff Writer
The right to privacy of all young adults came under attack when Supreme Court justices hinted last week that they are in favor of mandatory drug testing for high school students. The issue debated during oral arguments was the constitutionality of mandatory testing for students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities.
After hearing the case of a sophomore at a rural Oklahoma high school who refused the test the school required for participation in the choir, several conservative justices implied that they want drug users completely out of public schools. And though to some parents this seems a long stride toward curbing a nationwide epidemic of teenage drug use, this solution is unconstitutional and may actually do more harm than help.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any “unreasonable search and seizure” by the government. One liberal justice apparently agreed with Oklahoma’s policy. Justice Stephen G. Breyer compared drug testing to metal detectors at school doors, asserting both as a new but necessary means of keeping schools safe.
Perhaps, but metal detectors allow you to pass freely as long as there are no firearms or knives in your pockets, leaving a safer feeling in everyone’s bosom. Drug testing, which examines the substances that flow from your body, is obviously more imposing. And because the policy would require all students in extracurricular activities to test, without any sort of evidence or reason for suspicion, it undoubtedly violates the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of probable cause. It makes fun of the civil liberties of minors, and leads one to wonder how far the government is willing to go to obtain safety and stability in schools.
During the oral arguments, some justice’s defended testing by claiming that it has the support of many parents, but this is weak reasoning. By placing electric collars that discharge an excruciating shock to the neck of any student who tried to exit the campus premises during school hours would eliminate the problem of truancy, but that wouldn’t make it right. It appears some of our justices have the attitude that, “They’re only high school students, they’re too ignorant to have protected personal liberties.” This kind of thinking is dead wrong.
In 1995, the Supreme Court upheld an Oregon school board’s policy of testing all of its athletes for drugs. In alluding to this case, Breyer suggested that the requirement of “individualized suspicion,” as is usually required to perform a search, is something of the past, especially when the police are not involved. Sounds as if the government thinks it can dodge its constitutional restrictions merely by shifting authority from the police to the school board. Just because the police are left out doesn’t mean fundamental rights no longer apply.
Safety and well-being are powerful arguments that have proven to be top priorities when disentangling present-day conflict. But safety and well-being also manage to quite frequently collide with personal freedom, and the happy medium that has balanced these two desires seems to be shifting. The fact that a Supreme Court justice considered one of the court’s liberal members declared that individualized suspicion has been blown away with yesterday’s breeze is a frightening indication of these changing times.
During the Vietnam War the court upheld students’ right to wear armbands in protest of the war, confirming that high school students “do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door,” an often quoted line. Apparently, the Supreme Court has since changed its outlook.
During the oral arguments in this case, Justice Antonin Scalia derided the notion that high school students have privacy rights, saying school officials make the rules. “You are dealing with minors here. You can keep them in prison in effect, and say, ‘You have to stay after school because you haven’t done your homework,’” Scalia said. “There is a world of difference between minors and adults.”
Yes, this did come from the mouth of a Supreme Court justice.
The question not only is the Supreme Court’s motivation to allow mandatory drug testing for high school students, but also its foresight. Students who are engaging in these activities typically are not the ones who need to be examined for drug use.
High schools do not need to instill fear in their students, nor should they divide schools through drug testing policies. They should eagerly be inviting students to participate in school-funded activities, not examining them more thoroughly if they do. High school students who have drug problems need to be supported and encouraged to focus on something positive, something like an after-school activity.
Drug testing will scare these kids away rather than encourage them, which begs the question, what are they going to do now?
March 28, 2002