Court Limits Drug Testing of Students

The Supreme Court, limiting drug testing of students, refused Monday to allow a school district to test all those who violate its disciplinary rules.

Although individuals who appear to be under the influence of drugs can be tested at school, officials may not routinely test groups of students, under the ruling that the high court let stand.

The Constitution’s 4th Amendment protects students, as well as adults, from unreasonable searches by public officials, the ruling stressed.

“This decision says that just because you are a student, you don’t lose all your rights to privacy,” said Kenneth J. Falk, a lawyer for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. Falk represented a freshman student who successfully challenged the school drug-testing policy in Anderson, Ind.

Mandatory drug testing in schools, once considered a likely next step in the “war on drugs,” now appears to be fading as an option--a victim of privacy concerns, high costs and adverse court rulings--experts said.

Not Common in Large, Urban School Districts

Most large urban school districts, including Los Angeles, have not adopted widespread or routine drug testing.

At roughly $50 per student, such testing is expensive for a large system, officials said. Moreover, it would be seen as a highly intrusive invasion of privacy for officials to insist that presumably innocent students undergo drug tests, said Howard Friedman, an assistant general counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Instead, the lead cases in school drug testing have come from small towns in Oregon, Indiana and Colorado.

“They have the feeling they don’t want to become like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. In these [small town] communities, there is minimal opposition” to mandatory drug testing, Falk said.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court opened the door to routine testing at schools when it upheld a urine-testing program for school athletes in rural Vernonia, Ore.

Because students playing sports while under the influence of drugs could be injured, it is reasonable to force them to undergo regular urine testing, the high court concluded.

A year later, a school district in rural Rushville, Ind., went one step further and adopted regular testing for all students who participated in extracurricular activities.

Since then, however, the trend toward more testing has been halted. No court has condoned testing all students and several courts have struck down policies that permit testing of students who have violated certain disciplinary rules. In Colorado, the state Supreme Court recently struck down a drug-testing policy that included members of the marching band.

The school board in Anderson, which is north of Indianapolis, adopted a policy requiring students who were caught fighting or had otherwise violated significant school rules to submit to a test for drugs and alcohol.

“We figured those are the kids who are likely to abuse drugs and alcohol,” said Robert M. Baker, an attorney for the school district. In one of the town’s high schools, drug testing of students after they had been fighting showed evidence of an illegal substance in 46% of them.

But a freshman named James R. Willis, who had been involved in a fight, refused to take the test and was suspended.

When his challenge came before the U.S. court of appeals in Chicago, the judges struck down the school policy as a type of unreasonable search prohibited by the 4th Amendment. The judges stressed, however, that a school official who had a specific reason to believe a student was under the influence of drugs could order him to be tested.

In January, the school district appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that “its responsibilities as guardian and tutor of children entrusted to its care outweigh Willis’ expectation of privacy.” But on Monday, the justices without comment turned down the appeal in the case (Anderson Community Schools vs. Willis, 98-1183).

“This means we need to go back to the basics and test only when we have a reasonable suspicion” that an individual is impaired, Baker said.

Officials at the Los Angeles County Office of Education said that none of its campuses regularly tests for drugs. The few drug-testing programs implemented in area schools have been limited and short-lived.

In 1986, officials at Banning High School in Wilmington implemented a drug-testing program for athletes after two football players died of cocaine overdoses.

A few months later, the policy was dropped. “There was no way to keep financing it,” said Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Shel Erlich.

In the San Fernando Valley, Henry David Thoreau High School, a special continuation school mostly for students in drug-abuse recovery, maintains what it calls a voluntary testing program.

“Our students and parents sign an agreement that states they will be subject to random drug testing,” said Principal Carole Johnson Tash. “If they don’t [agree], they are not allowed to enroll.”

Court to Hear Discrimination Claim

Meanwhile, in other actions, the court:

* Agreed to decide whether Hawaii can bar white persons from voting to elect the trustees who oversee a fund for the benefit of native Hawaiians (Rice vs. Cayetano, 98-818). The lower courts have upheld the restriction but the court will hear the appeal of Harold Rice, a rancher who maintains that the rule is an example of unconstitutional race discrimination.

* Let stand a $1.9-million verdict by a Seattle jury against an anti-cult group whose members were accused of helping to abduct an 18-year-old from a Pentecostal Christian church to “deprogram” him (Cult Awareness Network vs. Scott, 98-878).

* Upheld an Ohio law that required state university professors to spend more time in the classroom. The state Supreme Court had struck it down as unconstitutional, citing the principle of equal protection under the law. In an unsigned opinion, the justices reversed that ruling in the case (Central State University vs. America Assn. of University Professors, 98-1071).

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun in Los Angeles contributed to this story.