Student Drug Testing: Constitutional Issues (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
July 15, 2002 |
| Report Number |
RS21082 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Charles V. Dale, American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Issues of personal privacy and application of Fourth Amendment safeguards against
"unreasonable"
governmental searches and seizures are the focus of judicial rulings on the constitutionality of
"suspicionless" random drug testing of public school students. Generally speaking, governmental
actors are required by the Fourth Amendment to obtain warrants based on probable cause in order
to effectuate constitutional searches and seizure. An exception to ordinary warrant requirements has
gradually evolved, however, for cases where a "special need" of the government, not related to
criminal law enforcement, is found by the courts to outweigh any "diminished expectation" of
privacy invaded by the search. The special needs analysis, first applied to administrative searches
to enforce municipal health and safety regulations, has been extended by the Supreme Court to
uphold suspicionless drug testing of employees in federally regulated industries, and random testing
of high school student athletes. Revisiting the issue last term, in Board of Education of
Independent
School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls , the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a
drug
testing program of students participating in non-athletic extracurricular activities, even though
negligible evidence of a drug use problem among such students was shown.
