Justice Dept. Drug Testing of New Employees Upheld

The Justice Department’s testing of new employees for illegal drug use was upheld Friday in an appellate court ruling that the dissenting judge said could allow checks of all federal job-seekers.

The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a program under which people tentatively hired by the Justice Department must provide a urine sample, which is then tested for illegal drugs.

The split panel held that the Justice Department’s interest in screening out users of illegal drugs from the people it hires outweighed the job applicants’ constitutional rights to privacy.

“Drug use among its employees would undermine the department’s credibility as the nation’s leading law enforcement agency,” Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote in the opinion joined by Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman.

“To the Justice Department, like any other employer, an applicant is a stranger,” the court said. Drug testing is just another tool, like interviews or background checks, to gather information about an applicant’s “suitability for employment,” the ruling said.

The opinion by Randolph, appointed to the court last year by President Bush, drew a sharp dissent from another recent Bush appointee, Circuit Judge Karen Henderson.

“Simply applying for federal employment is too slim a reed to support mandatory drug testing,” Henderson wrote.

Previous court decisions have allowed testing of federal employees based on a “reasonable suspicion” of illegal drug use.

Other rulings allow random testing of employees whose impairment by drug use might endanger public safety or national security.

But Henderson said the other judges were ignoring a requirement of those rulings that “the testing be reasonably calculated to avert some harm that a drug-impaired employee is likely to cause.”

“Taken to its logical end, the majority’s reasoning sanctions a blanket requirement for all federal job applicants,” she said.