Ignoring expert advice, Supreme Court expands school drug testing of students
June 28, 2002
Yesterday, a deeply U.S. Supreme Court upheld a student activities drug testing policy that requires all students in grades 7-12 who participate in competitive extracurricular activities to submit to drug testing. The decision is disappointing both because it erodes students’ right to privacy and because it endorses a drug-testing program that actually hinders, rather than helps, the effort to stop student drug use.
In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote: “The particular testing program upheld today is not reasonable; it is capricious, even perverse: [the program] targets for testing a student population least likely to be at risk from illicit drugs and their damaging effects.”
The decision is the broadest drug-testing policy the court has yet permitted for young people who are not under any suspicion 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.
“I am in college now, but I’m really sad that every other school kid in America might have to go through a humiliating urine test like I did just to join the choir or the debate team,” Lindsey Earls, a lead plaintiff in the case, said yesterday. “I also worry that as a result of this decision more employers are going to start drug testing, and that I’ll always be under suspicion for something I’ve never done and never intend to do.”
In general, students who participate in extracurricular activities are significantly less likely to do drugs. But requiring students to take drug tests in exchange for the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities may deter student participation. Doctors, social workers and education professionals agree that random drug testing of students who participate is not an effective way to deter student drug use. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association and the National Association of Social Workers all submitted briefs in opposition to the school drug-testing program.
Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s ruling, school districts around the country have rejected drug testing. On the night before the ruling was handed down, a school district in Dublin, Ohio, repealed its two-year drug-testing program for student athletes, citing mixed reviews about its effectiveness.
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