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In yet another misguided attempt to turn the tide of the United States’ mostly ineffectual war on drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that high school students participating in extracurricular activities could be singled out for random drug testing. However, in an illogical distinction, their non-involved counterparts would not be subjected to any such tests.
The case, which made its way to the Supreme Court after an honor roll student singing in the Tecumseh High School choir felt her rights were violated when forced to take a urine test (which she passed), significantly expands the drug-testing criteria to include not only student athletes but students participating in any kind of school-related activity. Already dealing with a tenuous link between recreational drug use and sports-related injury, the Supreme Court’s decision in Board of Education v. Earls effectively stretched the standard of applicability to potentially include an additional 24 million students involved in extra-scholastic activities.
Heralded by some anti-drug crusaders as a stinging blow against substance abuse, Americans are left to sleep easy knowing the array of drug problems accompanying chess and math team members will be eradicated via the random urine test.
This, of course, is a false sense of security less apt than the phrase “Just Say No.” Drug testing as a price for participation in extracurriculars flunks the logic test because students involved in these activities are the least likely group to use drugs. In the Tecumseh High case, over 500 students were tested for drugs with only three students testing positive for illegal drug use. In a broader study cited by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent, 10th-graders participating in extracurricular activities are 50 percent less likely to do drugs.
At a far greater risk for potential drug use are students not participating in school activities. But under the current Supreme Court-sanctioned practice, these high-risk students are excluded from testing, leaving yearbook staffs and homemaker clubs to be unfairly subjected to intrusive testing. Perhaps the next step is to randomly search the lockers of students taking part in extracurricular activities (and bypass the lockers of non-participants).
It is a glaring double standard that will ultimately hinder the anti-drug effort. The selective-testing movement threatens the privacy of students least likely to do drugs, while at the same time driving high-risk students away from extracurricular activities, which may be the key to ameliorating drug problems.
Proponents of this brand of testing argue students “can refuse the test by not participating in these extra-scholastic activities.” But with studies repeatedly indicating involvement in a team or club is one of the best combatants against substance abuse, students should not be forced to make such a decision. The goal should be to attract drug users to extracurriculars, not send them running the other direction.
Like so many previous efforts in America’s war on drugs, extracurricular drug testing falls far from the target. By subjecting students least prone to substance abuse, the only thing this new campaign will curb is student privacy. And for students confronting these tests, just saying no is not an option.