State Supreme Court to Rule on Drug Testing

At the urging of the NCAA, the State Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether mandatory drug testing of California college athletes violates the right to privacy.

A four-member majority of the court voted to grant a hearing on the NCAA’s appeal of a lower-court ruling, the first by any appellate court in the nation to declare the athletic drug-testing program invalid.

The court’s action removes the lower-court decision from the books and reserves the issue for the high court to decide at a later date. Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas and justices Edward Panelli, Armand Arabian and David Eagleson voted to review the case.

It is also the first private drug-testing case accepted for hearing by the court and could set standards for on-the-job drug testing as well. Trial courts in the state are currently governed by appellate rulings, left intact by the high court, that allowed drug testing of all job applicants but barred random testing of employees in non-safety jobs.

In a suit by Stanford University athletes, the 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose ruled Sept. 25 that the program violated the right to privacy under the California Constitution.