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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995                   TAG: 9503290064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOL DRUG TESTS DIVIDE COURT

A lively debate about students' privacy rights and the war on drugs seemed to leave the Supreme Court deeply divided Tuesday over mandatory drug tests in public schools.

In a case closely watched by educators nationwide, an Oregon school district and the Clinton administration urged the justices to allow such tests for all student athletes in schools where drug use is deemed a problem.

But a teen-ager's lawyer said his client wrongly was barred from his junior high football team for refusing to undergo urinalysis because such tests amount to unreasonable searches.

``This is being compelled by the government. They're watching you do it. They're taking your urine. They're testing it to see what secrets are therein,'' Portland lawyer Thomas Christ contended.

The court's decision, expected by late June, could deal with student athletes only. But, depending on how broadly the justices rule, the decision conceivably could affect all schoolchildren.

Justice Department lawyer Richard Seamon, when pressed on the scope of his argument, said, ``It is not our position that drug-testing of all students would be invalid under all circumstances.''

Many of the justices' questions and comments Tuesday focused on whether drug tests for some of a school's student athletes would be more intrusive than randomly testing all of them.

From the courtroom audience, 15-year-old James Acton watched silently. James was a star seventh-grader at Washington Grade School in the small logging town of Vernonia in 1991 when he was confronted by the drug-test requirement. Vernonia officials since 1989 had used drug tests for all student athletes because they suspected some of being leaders in an ``out-of-control'' drug culture.

The Actons sued, and eventually the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the drug-testing policy.

Past high court rulings have established that schoolchildren have privacy rights, but also have upheld warrantless searches by teachers and school administrators who have a ``reasonable suspicion'' a student has violated school rules.

by CNB