High Court OKs Routine Testing of Students for Drugs : Education: Ruling involves high school athletes but has potential for exams of all pupils. Children don’t have the same Fourth Amendment rights as adults, justices say.

In a ruling that could make drug testing commonplace in high schools, the Supreme Court said Monday that students may be forced to undergo routine, random urine tests to see if they are using illegal drugs.

The 6-3 ruling upholds a drug-testing program for school athletes in a small Oregon logging town, but it has the potential to clear the way for the routine testing of millions of students--including non-athletes--in the nation’s junior and senior high schools.

Normally, the Fourth Amendment bars government officials from searching someone without some “individualized suspicion” that the person is violating the law. But schoolchildren do not have the same rights, said Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The state’s power over schoolchildren . . . permit[s] a degree of supervision and control that could not be exercised over free adults,” he wrote. “And of course, the effects of a drug-infested school are visited not just upon the users but upon the entire student body and faculty, as the educational process is disrupted.”

Lee P. Brown, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, hailed the decision as a “major victory” and said it “gives school districts around the country another weapon in their arsenal to combat drug use.”

But the American Civil Liberties Union condemned the ruling, saying “it sends a strong message to all young people that they are merely second-class citizens.”

Last year, the California Supreme Court upheld a drug-testing program for athletes at Stanford University and said the state constitution allows compelled testing of college students.

Drug testing is rare in the public schools and the Oregon case has been seen as the key test of its legality. Education leaders said that they expect many school districts now will consider the idea for some or all of their students.

“As a matter of law, I think school districts could do it but I think they will be careful about moving too fast,” said Gwendolyn Gregory, an attorney for the National School Boards Assn. in Alexandria, Va.

A program of urine testing is costly and fraught with practical problems, she said, including trying to decide what to do with students who refuse to submit to the testing.

“The ‘what happens then?’ problem is a real one,” she said, because a school board could be sued for violating a child’s right to an education if it bars a student from school simply for refusing to take a drug test.

The Vernonia School District in Oregon limits its drug testing to athletes from grades 7 to 12. Those who refuse to take the test are barred from participating in extracurricular activities.

Until about five years ago, federal drug officials thought they were winning the war against drugs among young people. Cocaine and marijuana had gone out of fashion as the many warnings about their harmful impact had an effect. But since 1991, the University of Michigan’s annual survey has found that use of marijuana, hallucinogens and other drugs is again increasing among teen-agers.

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At first glance, an Oregon town of 3,000 people would hardly figure to be at the center of the drug culture. Indeed, teachers there said that they saw little evidence of a drug problem during the 1970s and early 1980s.

However, since about 1986, they said, they had noticed “a startling and progressive increase in students’ use of drugs and alcohol.” Students openly boasted about using drugs. Drug paraphernalia was found on school grounds and teen-agers were seen smoking marijuana on city streets. Even school athletes, who were seen as role models, bragged about using drugs.

After consulting with parents in a community meeting, the school board in 1989 adopted a policy requiring athletes to be tested for cocaine, amphetamines and marijuana. In addition to a screening test at the beginning of each sports season, a percentage of athletes are tested at random each week.

The program is not punitive and the results are kept confidential, officials said. Students who test positive for drugs are counseled at first but they are suspended from their teams if they test positive again. Once the new policy took effect, according to school officials, they saw an immediate decline in discipline problems linked to drug abuse.

But not everyone was satisfied. The parents of James Acton, a seventh grader who wanted to play basketball, objected to the required drug test. With the aid of the ACLU, the family filed a lawsuit challenging the test as unconstitutional.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed, ruling that students have a constitutional “right to privacy” that is violated by “suspicionless drug testing.”

Reversing that decision in the case before the court (Vernonia School District vs. Acton, 94-590), Scalia scoffed at the notion that a required urine test has more than a negligible impact on students’ privacy.

“For their own good and that of their classmates, public schoolchildren are routinely required to submit to various physical examinations,” that have never been deemed to violate a person’s privacy, he said. “There is an element of communal undress inherent in athletic participation,” he added.

While only athletes are tested in Vernonia, Scalia’s broad opinion stressed that all students have limited rights under the Fourth Amendment. “The most significant element in this case,” he said at one point, is that it concerns “children who have been committed to the temporary custody of the state as schoolmaster.”

This marks a clear change in the law. In 1984, the court said principals and teachers could search the lockers or purses of students who were suspected of violating the rules. Because a young woman was seen smoking, the principal could inspect her purse for cigarettes, the court said.

But in Monday’s ruling, Scalia dismissed the idea that school officials need an “individualized suspicion” before testing a student for drugs.

Joining his opinion were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven G. Breyer. In a separate, concurring statement, Ginsburg said she agreed with the ruling, but only as it applied to student athletes.

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In dissent, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor faulted the court for ignoring the prevailing constitutional standards and clearing the way for millions of innocent students to be subjected “to an intrusive bodily search.”

“For most of our constitutional history, mass, suspicionless searches have been generally considered per se unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,” she wrote. School officials could have focused their attention on students who showed signs of drug use, she said in the dissent, which was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter.

In addition, in a move considered unusual, the court dismissed a case that was seen as forcing it to rule on the constitutionality of student-led graduation prayers.

Three years ago, the justices, on a 5-4 vote, said school officials may not sponsor a prayer led by a cleric. A year later, however, a federal appeals court in Texas said a graduation prayer led by a student is permitted.

But the California-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with that conclusion and struck down a student-led graduation prayer in an Idaho case.

Early this year, the Idaho school district appealed to the high court, setting the stage for a ruling to resolve the dispute.

But after waiting for months, with the student who brought the original case having graduated, the justices issued a two-line order Monday throwing out the 9th Circuit ruling and declared moot the case (Joint School District 241 vs. Harris, 94-1268).

This action resolves nothing because the court has not ruled on the issue. In one sense, the court’s action clears the way for school districts in California and other West Coast states to authorize a graduation prayer led by students. However, those districts can expect another ruling from the 9th Circuit declaring their action unconstitutional, prompting a return trip to the Supreme Court.