ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 29, 1994                   TAG: 9411290118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HIGH COURT TO RULE ON DRUG TESTS

The Supreme Court announced Monday it would decide whether middle and high schools can randomly test student athletes for drug use. The case, the first of its kind at the court, involves an Oregon seventh-grader who was kept off the football team after his parents refused to sign a urinalysis consent form.

There was no evidence that the boy, James Acton, had used drugs, and his parents, Wayne and Judy Acton, claimed that requiring students to submit urine samples violated their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable government searches. A trial court ruled for the school district, but an appeals court reversed, saying that students should not have to surrender their right to privacy as a condition of athletic participation.

While many colleges use random drug testing to deter substance abuse among athletes and promote drug-free competition, it is rare to find a middle or high school that requires a student to submit to testing when no reason exists to suspect he has used drugs.

August Steinhilber, general counsel of the National School Boards Association, said his group had discouraged schools from testing youngsters who participate in extracurricular sports. ``We were taking a conservative viewpoint, that you're liable to be sued. (Lower) courts have not been taking a favorable view of testing,'' he said.

Steinhilber said he was surprised the Supreme Court agreed to hear the issue. But while the justices may, indeed, be open to allowing drug testing in lower grades, they also could have voted to take the case to clear up conflicts on the legality of drug testing.

In 1988, a federal appeals court based in Chicago upheld a Tippecanoe County, Ind., policy of urinalysis for high school athletes. Further, while some college-level programs have been approved, others have been struck down.

The Vernonia School District, whose policy is at the core of the new case to be heard early next year, said it adopted the policy in 1989 because drug and alcohol use had ``invaded'' the district's sports programs. Vernonia, a logging community of 3,000 people, is northwest of Portland. It said its attempts at drug education and use of a drug-sniffing dog had failed.

``The administration determined that the leading student athletes were also the leaders of the drug activity, thus endangering the very center of activity of the school and the community,'' the school district's petition to the court said.

``The school administrators feared that the corruption of the school's leading athletes would have a significant poisoning impact on the broader student population, including the younger and more impressionable elementary school students who emulated the older athletes.'' 


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