Drug Testing in Schools

                The two court cases we have recently studied, Vernonia School District v. Acton and Board of Education v. Earls, argued over the approval of drug testing in schools. In Vernonia v. Acton, the court held that a drug policy should be established because of the growing drug problem in their school. The parents of the students at the school approved of the policy Vernonia wanted to put in place, and the school felt it was acting in a way “to protect their health and safety.” In my opinion, the implementation of this drug policy was acceptable, because the school was directly reacting to a problem that was becoming worse in their own school. Vernonia was applying its rule only to students participating in athletics, which I think is acceptable, because drugs can have a very negative and harmful effect when doing athletics. All students participating in athletics know they will be drug tested before the start of the season, and will possibly be randomly tested throughout. The drug policy in which Vernonia has adopted is completely understandable, because they are applying it to the students who can be directly affected by drugs physically, and their whole team will notice when a player is not performing to their full ability. Also, Vernonia is doing the right thing by applying the policy to athletes because they are students who peers look up to. If they are not doing drugs because of the tests, other students may follow.

                In Board of Education v. Earls, the court held that their drug policy was constitutional and could apply to all students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities. I do not necessarily disagree with the policy being applied to all competitive activities and not just athletics, but I do disagree with the board’s reasoning. Their justification for the policy is that “’drug abuse is one of the most serious problems confronting our society today.’” Basically, the school board is saying that because there are drug problems in other places, they exist in their school. This is a false assumption that cannot be accepted, considering that in Vernonia, their drug policy applied because they had problems within their own school building. Part of the argument for the policy was that “the Fourth Amendment does not require a finding of individualized suspicion.” Basically, this statement is supporting the board’s idea that because drugs are a problem in society, it is a problem in their school. Another way the board of education tries to justify their stance, is by making the urine test ‘more private.’ They are having the boys now sit in an enclosed stall when taking the test instead of in a urinal that’s not enclosed. To me, that means nothing and they might as well just stand at the urinal. They cannot justify putting this policy in place by letting the boys be enclosed instead of stand at a urinal.

                I agree with the ruling in the court case Safford Unified School District v. Redding. During this case, a 13-year-old girl was strip-searched when a classmate claimed the prescription-level ibuprofen she possessed was given to her by her classmate, Redding. During the case, the strip search was found unconstitutional when appealed to the Supreme Court, but the officials were found “immune from liability.” I agree with this ruling, because it was completely unnecessary to strip search a girl to her underwear and then even check under those all because another student claimed it was hers after that student had gotten in trouble. The student did not suggest that Redding currently possessed any more ibuprofen, so there was no reason for the search.  

                Another article talked about dogs sniffing through school lockers to try and find drugs. To be honest, that is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. There was only marijuana found originally in one locker a month at the most. That is not reason to need a dog to sniff through an entire school building to find drugs. According to the school, there have been no further findings of drugs since the few incidents. I do not believe that there were no more findings because of the dog. It was because students got more smart and figured out ways for the dog not to find the drugs either by not bringing them to school or storing them in a way that eliminates their smell. While superintendents claim that the ‘drug dog’ isn’t used to get students arrested; just for the elimination of drugs in schools, I do not agree with the practice of having a dog sniff out the school. Also, the sniffing dogs have led to several false accusations against students when there were no drugs present. In one incident, fifteen students’ classes and education were disrupted when they were pulled out to be interrogated. Only one of them was in possession of marijuana.