Urineschool: A study of the impact of the Earls decision on high school random drug testing policies

Journal of Law and Education, Jul 2003 by Conlon, Cynthia Kelly

In 1985 in New Jersey v. T.L.O.,10 the Supreme Court held that the school setting presented a "special needs" situation. T.L.O. concerned a female student who was caught smoking in the bathroom by a teacher. The teacher brought her to the vice-principal's office where the student not only denied smoking that day but denied that she had ever smoked. The vice-principal opened her purse and saw that it contained cigarettes. Upon removing the cigarettes, he found rolling paper which is typically used to make marijuana cigarettes as well as other evidence which implicated her as a drug dealer.

The Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment applied to protect public school students but found that the search in this situation was reasonable. Although the Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant issued upon probable cause, the Court found that searches by public school officials should be judged by the looser Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness. Writing for the majority, Justice White explained that school officials had special needs that justified this exception: the need to maintain order and the need to foster a proper educational environment. Expressing confidence that educators would behave according to the dictates of reason, Justice White said that reasonableness should be determined through a two-fold inquiry: first, the action must be justified at its inception, and second, the scope of the search as actually conducted must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.11 Applying this standard the Court ruled that the search was reasonable.12

Ten years later the Court was asked to decide how the Fourth Amendment applied in a case where school officials were conducting suspicionless searches of student athletes. Vernonia School District v. Acton13 involved a policy passed by School District 47J in the town of Vernonia, Oregon, that applied to all students participating in interscholastic athletics. These students were required to sign a form in which they consented to urinalysis testing at the beginning of their season and to random testing each week during their athletic season. Under this policy, the student to be tested would enter an empty locker room accompanied by an adult monitor of the same sex. Each boy selected would produce a sample at a urinal while the monitor remained about 15 feet behind him. Girls would produce samples in an enclosed bathroom stall while the monitor waited outside. After listening for the normal sounds of urination, monitors would check the samples for tampering and then transfer the samples to a vial.14

Samples were then sent to an independent laboratory which checked for the presence of illegal drugs. The school district kept the results confidential, with only the superintendent, principals, vice-principals, and athletic directors given access to the results.15

If a student tested positive, a second test was administered and, if it was negative, no further action was taken. If the second test was positive, however, the school principal convened a meeting with the student and his parents. The student was then given the option of participating in an assistance program or receiving a suspension from athletics for the remainder of the season and the next athletic season.