Bennett Vows to Fire Offenders : Drug Inquiry Asked at Education Dept.

Education Secretary William J. Bennett, declaring himself soft on testing but hard on drug offenders, Tuesday disclosed that he has asked local police to investigate the possibility of illegal drug activity in his department and vowed to fire any lawbreakers.

Bennett’s contact with District of Columbia police stemmed partly from concern about an incident in Boston, where a federal Education Department employee recently was charged in a drug case, aides said.

Education Department officials here said that Bennett was incensed and frustrated at his inability to fire the employee, who was suspended with pay under current federal policy. “If my boss had had his way, he would have been fired,” one official said.

At a breakfast with reporters, Bennett said: “We got all this elaborate stuff--the bureaucracy that leads to this procedure and that procedure. I’ve already been at work on this.”

He directed an aide, John Walters, to contact the police to find out whether authorities had any record of drug abuse by Education Department employees. Later, pursuing rumors of drug use in the department building, Bennett called for an internal investigation. Neither inquiry found any violations.

William White III, public information officer for District of Columbia police, said the request was made to the force two months ago.

In July, Bennett fired off a memorandum to all employees, reminding them that drug use is illegal and urging them to turn in offenders. At the breakfast session Tuesday, Bennett said he “will do everything in my power” to “have them removed” if employees are caught using drugs.

Moreover, going against the tide of support for mandatory drug testing, Bennett said he sees no point in “lining up 2.6-million teachers with bottles.”

When asked if he had followed the lead of President Reagan in submitting a urine sample for drug testing, Bennett said that he agreed to be tested but that no one has mentioned it again.

The education secretary, making his remarks amid increasing efforts by the White House and Congress to stem drug abuse across the nation, noted that educators are no exception to this movement. If he were in a position to dismiss an educator, Bennett said, his policy would be clear: Whenever “the occasional teacher who uses drugs is discovered, I’d fire that person--the same way I plan to do in my department.”

When asked if he supported counseling for offenders, he said: “Counseling after they’re fired.”

Spokesmen at the National Education Assn. and the American Federation of Teachers attacked Bennett’s approach as simplistic.

Howard Carroll, of the 1.8-million-member NEA, said that alcoholism and some drug use are forms of a “sickness,” adding that firing people afflicted with it would be “very un-American” and “harsh.”

At the 625,000-member AFT, Ruth Whitman said that drugs are “bad and evil” but that it would be wrong to “abrogate every right a person has” by firing him for using drugs.

In a related issue, Bennett complained about the disappointing response from college presidents who he had implored to outline policies against illegal narcotics use in letters to students.

Since the request was made in a July 8 speech, Bennett has heard from only about two dozen college presidents, he said, and only about half of those favored the letter. Some, he said, even told him to “mind your own business.”

Obviously angry, Bennett said: “You’re talking about $15,000 (tuition), and you can’t even get a university to say: ‘We’ll do everything in our power to keep your kid from being preyed upon by drug pushers?’ ”