Alex Trueman

03-04-2010

Board of Education v. Earls

Random drug searches or preventions have become popular in many schools and some of us may have been subject to them; whether it was applying for a job or entering a school dance there may be a chance that there will be a drug search. In the city of Tecumseh, Oklahoma, the Board of Education implemented the Student Activities Drug Testing Policy which required all students playing a sport to be subject to a drug test. This case was centered on the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects ““[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”¹

Located in this city is the School District which overlooked all schools in the Tecumseh area. The School District implemented the Student Activities Drug Testing Policy which required all students who were playing sports to take a drug test. This idea created a movement to create drug-free students who excelled both at school and extracurricular activities. This policy not only applied when students joined a team, but if a student was suspected of taking illegal drugs, they must agree to take a drug test or proper punishments would be implemented. In order to detect only illegal substances and not anything else, the students took a urinalysis test that would only detect illegal drugs. Two students brought suit to the Student Activities Drug Testing ²Policy claiming that “Drug Testing Policy neither addresses a proven problem nor promises to bring any benefit to students or the school.” The two students, Lindsay Earls’ and Daniel James’ were rejected from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma because they thought the Policy was Constitutional. They argued that the Fourth Amendment was violated by this Policy and that the school did not show special interests when they chose who to drug test. Earl and James thought that the school was violating their Fourth Amendment. The District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma argued that even though the School District did not have a substantial history of drug use, they recognized that in 1970, drug use in students rose and it created a concern. After this court ruled in favor of the School District, the United States Court of Appeals heard the case.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed this decision. They believed that the Policy violated the student’s right as described in the Fourth Amendment. They justified this decision by stating, “must demonstrate that there is some identifiable drug abuse problem among a sufficient number of those subject to the testing, such that testing that group of students will actually redress its drug problem.”³The School District failed to provide evidence of a substantial drug use with students, so this court ruled in the favor of the students.

The main topic discussed in this case was the privacy involved in drug testing. While on public school property, the State has to monitor and maintain proper discipline, health, and safety for the students. An example of this would be how students have to get physical exams and the proper vaccinations against various diseases. This privacy appeared to be intruded upon not only with drug tests, but within the extracurricular activities themselves. The degree of intrusion came into play. To what extent does the Fourth Amendment protect against unreasonable searches and seizures as portrayed in the case? The Policy implemented by the School District created a secure way of procuring the drug test. The tests were taken behind closed doors and then documents recording the results were stored. The respondents commented on the condition about how these files were stored stating that “the intrusion on students’ privacy is significant because the Policy fails to protect effectively against the disclosure of confidential information.”⁴An example of this as described within the text would be, “the Choir teacher looked at students’ prescription drug lists and left them where other students could see them.”⁵This led to the discussion of what would happen to the students if they failed the drug test. The tests were not turned into any law enforcement agency. The punishments for testing positive for illegal drugs appeared very lean. The first time a student was caught with drugs they can continue participating in the extracurricular activity but must meet with a drug counselor and be tested. If they are discovered for a second time, the student would be only suspended for fourteen days. If discovered another time, the student will either be suspended for the school year or eighty-eight days (whichever was longer). Drugs remain a constant factor in schools. In the Tecumseh schools, teachers have seen students under the influence and police have found various illegal substances. “The need to prevent and deter the substantial harm of childhood drug use provides the necessary immediacy for a school testing policy.”⁶Schools need to implement a drug prevention and awareness to keep students from trying drugs.

The Supreme Court found, in the case of Board of Education v. Earls, that it was acceptable for the schools to test their students for drugs. The Supreme Court thought that it would be beneficial to schools to keep the drug testing program. They found that the Policy is “reasonable means of furthering the School District’s important interest in preventing and deterring drug use among its schoolchildren.”⁷Justice Breyer discussed three topics concerning drugs. Recognizing that the drug use in schools was a growing concern, governments banning of drugs has not helped reduce teen use, the public school systems must find a way to deal with the growing drug problem, and discouraging drugs by creating the actual program. The program created a reason to decline drugs or else he would not be able to perform in extracurricular activities. This program allowed the student’s to get multiple chances to redeem themselves. If they were caught with drugs, or failed the drug test, then they would not get expelled and their education forfeited.

Unfortunately, drug use in schools still persists and on some occasions gotten severely worse. I believe that if the schools should be able to “teach by example” as Ginsburg stated. Educating the students should be the first action in preventing drug use.  “That [schools] are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.”⁸The need to prevent drug use from schools should be one of the top priorities.