High Court Hears Drug-Testing Case Oregon Athlete Claims Unreasonable Search

A lively debate about students’ privacy rights and the war on drugs seemed to leave the Supreme Court deeply divided Tuesday over mandatory drug tests in public schools.

In a case closely watched by educators nationwide, an Oregon school district and the Clinton administration urged the justices to allow such tests for all student athletes in schools where drug use is deemed a problem.

But a teenager’s lawyer said his client wrongly was barred from his junior high football team for refusing to undergo urinalysis because such tests amount to unreasonable searches.

“This is being compelled by the government. They’re watching you do it. They’re taking your urine. They’re testing it to see what secrets are therein,” Portland lawyer Thomas Christ contended.

The court’s decision, expected by late June, could deal with student athletes only. But, depending on how broadly the justices rule, the decision conceivably could affect all schoolchildren - even those in elementary school.

Justice Department lawyer Richard Seamon, when pressed on the scope of his argument, said, “It is not our position that drug-testing of all students would be invalid under all circumstances.”

From the courtroom, 15-year-old James Acton watched silently.

James was a star seventh-grader at Washington Grade School in the small logging town of Vernonia in 1991 when he was confronted by the drug-test requirement.

Vernonia officials since 1989 had used drug tests for all student athletes because they suspected some of being leaders in an “out-of-control” drug culture.

The Actons sued, and eventually the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the drug-testing policy. James, now a sophomore at Vernonia High School, joined his school’s basketball team after the school district was forced to make drug-testing voluntary.

Past high court rulings have established that schoolchildren have privacy rights, but also have upheld warrantless searches by teachers and school administrators who have a “reasonable suspicion” a student has violated school rules.

Many of the justices’ questions and comments Tuesday focused on whether drug tests for some of a school’s student athletes would be more intrusive than random tests.

“The accusation would alter the teacher-student relationship,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said at one point. He later voiced concern about turning teachers into police officers and about the nationwide importance of “solving the problem of drugs in the schools.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also appeared troubled about requiring individualized suspicion. “Isn’t that fraught with the risk that the teacher is going to pick out the kid he doesn’t like?” she asked.

But Ginsburg’s questions did not appear as sympathetic to the Vernonia school district as did questions and comments by Kennedy, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Students are kids. You’re dealing with children; you’re not dealing with adults,” Scalia said.

When Christ argued that drug tests are too intrusive a tool for maintaining class discipline and protecting student athletes’ health, Rehnquist suggested that ferreting out drug use might be a compelling reason in itself.

Christ said the same could be said of adult drug use, but Rehnquist replied, “The government is not the tutor of its citizens generally.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, who often joins Scalia and Rehnquist to form the court’s politically conservative bloc, was the only court member not to ask a question during the 60-minute argument session.