Judge Delays Drug Consents at Stanford : Temporary Restraining Order Granted to Students, University

Stanford University won a temporary restraining order Wednesday against the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s mandatory drug testing program.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Conrad Rushing granted the order, temporarily preventing the NCAA from requiring that Stanford obtain written consents to drug testing from its athletes as a condition for participating in intercollegiate sports.

“I am very pleased,” said Jennifer Hill, captain of Stanford’s women’s soccer team, who last spring joined the suit originally filed in January by diver Simone LeVant. “It means that we can play without giving up our constitutional rights.”

Stanford attorney Debra Zumwalt told the judge the university and its athletes would be “irreparably harmed” if the temporary restraining order were not granted. She said if athletes were forced to sign consent forms, they would be giving up a constitutional right.

Attorneys for the NCAA argued that the requirements for court relief had not been met by Stanford and that only three of the school’s 600 athletes had objected to the testing.

Rushing, who set Sept. 29 and 30 for a preliminary hearing on the case, asked both sides to present evidence on false positive results in the drug test. He also asked for testimony on whether there is a difference in testing athletes in different sports.

Stanford joined the suit by the students, arguing that it did not want to enforce an unlawful program and that it was caught in the crossfire between students challenging the drug testing and the NCAA, which insists the university enforce the program.

The judge last month denied the NCAA’s request to dismiss the suit. On March 13, Judge Peter Stone granted a preliminary restraining order permitting LeVant, then captain of the women’s diving team, to compete without submitting to drug testing.