<< Back 8/14/02 Court’s drug testing ruling could lead to heavy-handedness SMN When we started asking Western North Carolina school systems how they were going to handle a new drug testing policy recently upheld by the Supreme Court, their answers revealed a refreshingly mature attitude toward students. It doesn’t appear that cheerleaders, chess team members and marching band musicians are in for random drug testing any time soon. This summer, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that an Oklahoma school system could maintain a broad drug testing policy for students who participate in any activity where competitive pressure could drive students to use drugs. Legal interpretations of the ruling suggested that students participating in a broad list of extracurricular activities could therefore be randomly asked to provide a urine sample and have it tested for steroids or narcotics. Schools have been put in the unenviable position of being surrogate parents, and over the years courts have ruled that teachers and administrators have many broad rights to regulate student activity. Many of those somewhat heavy-handed rights — regarding matters such as discipline and even some First Amendment protections — are absolutely necessary when trying to manage, say, a middle school with 1,000 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. These are children, after all, and maintaining certain guidelines is how we raise them. The drug testing issue, though, is one that should be handled with extreme discretion. Not only is the actual act of drug testing invasive, but we should take care that it has a clear purpose. Letting athletes know that performance-enhancing drugs will not be tolerated is one thing, but trying to find out if the star athlete is using cocaine over the weekend is another. The first instance is a problem the school must deal with; the second is more private and one better handled by parents and other family members. When a test for steroids reveals cocaine use, the school system is faced with two entirely different problems with different causes and solutions. An important component in educating young people is focusing on what is good and unique about them and pushing them to accentuate those traits. The bad apples will surface, and those need to be dealt with. This new drug testing policy, unfortunately, affords administrators the right to treat nearly all students as potential criminals by stripping them of their dignity and causing irreparable harm to what may already be a fragile self-confidence. Fortunately, school administrators in WNC seem to take the positive approach, that students are to be treated with respect until they prove otherwise. Macon County Superintendent Rodney Shotwell’s balanced perspective on the new rights afforded schools was shared by the other administrators we spoke with: “I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that the Supreme Court made this decision, but I inherently believe students do good things by nature, but are influenced to do bad things. I’m not sure where it’s going to end — the band, the chorus? Do you test the chess club? But we’re not going to abuse this new judicial right given us.” Keeping students in line is important, but helping them succeed after school is the ultimate goal. We mustn’t let expediency in dealing with problems allow us to lose sight of that goal.