Supreme Court Debates Drug Tests for Students

Re “Drug Tests at Schools Argued at High Court,” March 20:

Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday that school officials make the rules at school, and he derided the notion that students have privacy rights. “You are dealing with minors here. You can keep them in prison in effect, and say, ‘You have to stay after school because you haven’t done your homework,’ ” he said. “There’s a world of difference between minors and adults.”

Hey, why not strip-search them for drugs and weapons, too? After all, they are just prisoners with no rights. Geeze. Is it any wonder that we have a massive drug problem?

Terrence T. Downes

South Pasadena

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The Supreme Court clearly agreed to hear a case against mandatory drug testing of high school students not to objectively judge the merits of the case but so that its conservative members could make their own opinions heard.

Comparing drug tests to metal detectors is incorrect. Millions of adults happily submit to metal detector searches every day on their way into airports and courthouses. Should they have no objection to being drug-tested?

I will have a hard time explaining to my daughter when she becomes a teenager that she’s not born with her constitutional rights but is given them when she turns 18. I also find the condescending tone of Justices William Rehnquist, Scalia and Anthony Kennedy unacceptable. The justices have been known to be combative when discussing the legal merits of a case, especially when the case presented has failed to rise to certain legal standards. But some of the comments to the attorney and his client in this case, especially those of Kennedy, reveal a personal tone that has nothing to do with law. We must expect more from someone sitting in the highest court of our country, discussing a case that is far from open and shut.

John Wolfenden

Los Angeles