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| Supreme Court to Hear Arguments In Case |
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Posted by FoM on March 15, 2002 at 14:04:43 PT Robert S. Greenberger, Staff Reporter of The WSJ Source: Wall Street Journal 
Lindsay Earls doesn't fit the profile of a drug user. At high school in tiny Tecumseh, Okla., the articulate teenager was on the school's academic team, in the choir and the marching band. Her high grades won her a spot at Dartmouth College, where she now is a freshman.But three years ago as a high school sophomore, Ms. Earls was picked randomly for a school drug test, and required to fill a cup with urine, while a teacher stood outside the bathroom stall listening to make sure she was providing her own sample. Her test was negative, but she was angry. "I felt it was an invasion of my privacy, stepping into realms where only my parents needed to go," she says. So Ms. Earls and another student sued the school, saying such testing violated their Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The Supreme Court, which hears arguments in the case on Tuesday, must decide whether a compelling policy goal -- curtailing teenage drug use -- takes priority over students' privacy rights. Although teenage drug use is down from the epidemic levels of the 1970s, use of illegal drugs, mostly marijuana , is still high, with about 54% of high school seniors reporting that they had used some illicit drug, a number that has held steady during the past five years, according to a study by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that an Oregon school district where there was heavy drug use could randomly select high school athletes for drug tests. The justices decided that the Fourth Amendment could be trumped because student athletes there were heavy drug users, were at high risk of injury if they played under the influence of drugs, and already had given up some privacy by joining teams and undressing in locker rooms. In the Oklahoma case, involving a school with less drug use, the high court will decide whether to push the legal boundaries to include students who participate in any competitive extracurricular activity -- from cheerleading to Future Farmers of America and Future Homemakers of America. "If the court says that at a school like this, drug testing is OK ... that means you can drug test 24 million kids in America," says Graham Boyd, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing Ms. Earls. He was referring to the number of students nationwide in grades six through 12. Tecumseh middle school and high school, with a total of about 1,000 students, serve a rural community dotted with small cattle farms. Many residents make the 45-minute drive each day to Oklahoma City to work at a big General Motors Corp. plant or Tinker Air Force Base. School Superintendent Tom Wilsie says crime isn't much of a problem. "I never felt unsafe in my high school," says Ms. Earls, who describes the school as "a place where everyone knows everyone else." That familiarity contributed to her embarrassment when she was told over the intercom to report to the school's alumni hall one morning in early 1999. Everybody knew that is where the drug testing took place, she says. After filling out paperwork listing her doctor's name and any prescription drugs she might be taking, Ms. Earls and two other girls were escorted to the bathroom for a urine test. "It was humiliating and uncomfortable," she recalls. "This was my English teacher and academic team coach monitoring it." In its filings to the Supreme Court, the school district said the random testing is a response to "a longstanding problem of drug use" among Tecumseh students. At a board of education meeting in February 1998, a parent discussed drug use involving her son and other students, according to the filing. In September 1998, at the beginning of the school year, the district began random drug testing of children participating in extracurricular activities. The test results showed no widespread problem. Of the 243 students tested during the 1998-99 academic year, only three tested positive. The following year, only one student of 241 tested positive. The school argued that the testing itself was "effective in deterring drug use." A U.S. district court upheld the school's program, but was reversed by the U.S. Appeals Court in Denver. Relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Oregon case, the appeals court said that "while there was clearly some drug use at the Tecumseh schools, such use among students subject to the testing policy was negligible. It was vastly different from the epidemic of drug use and discipline problems" at the Oregon school. For many educators and parents concerned about teenage drug use, that is a statistical distinction without a difference. They worry that they won't detect drug use among teens until they are confronted with a serious problem. "Drug testing has two values," says Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, which provides information to parents and others. "It serves as a very strong deterrent and it serves as an excellent detection tool." Referring to the national statistic on drug use by high school seniors, she adds: "If we had 50% of our children contracting AIDS or tuberculosis, everybody would be up in arms." Not all parents see the issue that way, according to a brief filed to the Supreme Court. A group, including 19 parents and grandparents of children who attend, or will attend, Tecumseh high school, argued that the drug testing "takes parenting away from the parents ... unfairly targets children who are unlikely to use drugs ... stamps a badge of shame onto children whose parents might wish to approach the issue of drug use without imposing mandatory urinalysis on their children." During the past three years, only about an average of 5% of schools give random drug tests to student athletes, according to a limited survey conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. But that number could grow rapidly, says Lloyd Johnston, of the institute, if the Supreme Court broadens the category of people who may be tested. "That certainly would make school administrators feel more free to test other students," he says. Complete Title: Supreme Court to Hear Arguments In Case Pitting Policy Against Privacy Newshawk: chip Related Articles & Web Site: Court To Clarify Student Drug Test Rules Supreme Court To Rule on Drug Tests Cannabis News Drug Testing Archives Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #6 posted by DdC on March 16, 2002 at 10:49:51 PT |
| Bushit I ran the National debt to 5 trillion with his private Gulf and Panama war. Taxpayers are paying $1 billion a day back in interest, now W has risen the debt to $6 trillion and is asking for a raise in the Military while cutting the seniors and poor benefits. About a billion a month for terrorism and a billion every three weeks for WoD and like the social security IOU's the money is borrowed at interest or profit if you have interest in the banks. What if 8 countries top korpses and banks merged into a New Weird Odor fending for themselves? Would we learn of it in the korpses Press? Or be taught in the pubic schools? How many were taught of hemps role in history or ganja medicine or that Nukes are too costly to insure? Or the damage from Chernoble hit central Europe or that hempseed can clean it up. But not off the market eliminating competition by prohibition. Driving the elections out of the hands of normalcy into a high cost mud slinging battle ending with the same banksters and korpses in Congressional seats legislating for their own interest Maintaining Dysfunction.
Escalate Colombia for the oil and selling Monsanto and Dyncorps to shoot down more babies. While the Bushit smirks and jerks into the monitor as the village idiot obeys his CIA daddy we all get screwed paying for it. Peace, Love and Liberty or D.E.A.th! DdC Maintaining Dysfunction: Walters the Psycho Chemist Philanthrapist sells WoD and it's parephernalia like pisstest, for profit regardless of the outcome to Americans. Clarence the Cross Tongue Liar National Missile Defense: Blowing The Whistle On Bad Science Cannabis Less Risky Than Alcohol/Tobacco, Says Report [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by qqqq on March 16, 2002 at 05:37:48 PT |
| Get ready to marvel at the way the pompous and peculiar Supreme court handles this one!.....I predict that they will make some kind of contorted decision that will say that the Fourth amendment is not applicable to such institutions as schools,,,,they may even dare to mention concerns about terrorism,and in their grotesque "interpretations" of "the Law"..........I seriously doubt they will decide in favor of the students,,imagine the flood of lawsuits if they did...not to mention the crippling blow to the drug testing and busting industry....... .get ready to be pissed when you see the decision [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by Patrick on March 16, 2002 at 05:26:59 PT |
| I should never use never. oops oh well. Perhaps ole Abe is rolling in his grave or maybe he signed some secret presidential order that has never seen the light of day except to another prez? We will never know! er I mean will we ever know? [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by freedom fighter on March 16, 2002 at 01:07:36 PT |
| I knew a friend who is alot older than me.. He once said to me,"Never say never." Ever since then, I have learned to say never. We just never know when.. Dang, I just said, "Never!" Better yet, "Never again!" ff [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Patrick on March 15, 2002 at 18:44:16 PT |
| "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."
--Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861 Oh Abe you lived in a much simpler time. Today the government is so big and powerful that it now runs a back-up government in secret bunkers. Simply to perpetuate its existence just in case someone, some group, or even its own citizens grow weary of its mundane and overly intrusive unconstitutional laws should decide to exercise that revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it. Abe you can bet that will never happen now. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by DdC on March 15, 2002 at 15:06:47 PT |
| If I instituted drug testing at Cypress, I would get a brick through my windshield, and I would deserve it. T.J. Rogers, President, Cypress Semiconductor FIT 2000 non-invasive 30-second impairment test. "FIT 2000 is directly relevant to employers interested in high quality, exacting, detail work, as well as general safety and quality, without violating the privacy of the employee' "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it." Putting The Pee In Protest "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." Biblical Piss Tasters Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty. Pissing away the 5th Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. DOJ/D.E.A.th of Justice [ Post Comment ] |
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