Court OKs Random Drug Tests in Schools

By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer

June 27, 2002

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court put public high school students on notice Thursday: Drug tests may be required for playing chess or joining the pompom team.

Justices ruled 5-4 that schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs students' right to privacy, allowing the broadest drug testing yet of young people whom authorities have no particular reason to suspect of wrongdoing.

The decision gives school leaders a free hand to test students who participate in competitive after-school activities or teams — more than half the estimated 14 million American high school students.

Drug tests had been allowed previously just for student athletes.

"We find that testing students who participate in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for himself, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer.

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