IT SHOULD be simple enough, right? Your band director or debate team coach hands you a little plastic cup, you fill it, a few minutes later you're back to practice, and a few days later, everyone knows you're clean. Nothing wrong here, is there? Well, yes, there is something wrong here.
The Tecumseh, Oklahoma public school district has begun requiring mandatory drug testing in all extracurricular activities, not just sports. You don't pee, you don't play - or act, or debate or sing. One band member and choir songstress took objection to the mandatory testing and the case is now with the Supreme Court.
Drug tests for high school athletes are nothing new; they've been around for years. And there is a logical, if not entirely substantive rationalization for such testing. The drugs most commonly tested for in high school athletes - although it is certainly mentioned if others are found - are those of the performance-enhancing variety. The tests are conducted partially to protect student athletes. It isn't ever safe to use illegal drugs, but it is a particularly bad idea to do so if one then plans to run around in the 90-degree pre-season heat or sweat it out - literally - in the wrestling room.
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Testing athletes also protects the integrity of high school sports. In the grand scheme of things, it may not seem important if City Prep beat County High because Johnny Quarterback was on steroids. But in the world these tests seek to regulate, fairness is paramount.
Until there is consistent, demonstrable reason to believe that high school thespians are doping up in order to memorize Shakespeare, or that the marching band is using in order to master difficult formations, testing students before allowing them to participate in extra-curricular activities is not only unnecessary, it is unnecessarily invasive.
Two very pointed arguments have been made in favor of testing any and all involved students. The first is that it is unfair to assume that student athletes are the only ones with a potential drug problem, and that testing only athletes furthers this assumption.
Athletes are by no means the only ones using drugs but, again, they are the ones whose drug use immediately and adversely affects not only themselves, but also the system in which they compete.
Additionally, if testing athletes places them under undue suspicion, the solution is not to do the same to other groups. It's a cliche, but it's true: Two wrongs don't make a right. If testing one group is unfair, testing two isn't any better.
The other popular argument in favor of testing all extra-curricular participants is that if these students aren't using, which they shouldn't be, then they have nothing to hide, and if they are, they should be caught anyhow.
There's no denying that there is a drug problem in American high schools, but there are appropriate ways to address the problem, and mandatory testing is not one of them.
There are plenty of illegal activities of which we all are innocent. That does not mean that it is appropriate to subject us to random checks. It is certainly not legal, according to the Fourth Amendment.
I don't smuggle drugs, but that doesn't mean I think a full body cavity search each time I cross the border is OK. I don't steal television sets, but I don't want the police randomly banging down my door just to make sure. Most high school musicians, actors and debaters are not using drugs. That doesn't mean schools should have the authority to check.
Testing 15-year-olds for illegal substances is a relatively small drop in the bucket of illegal search, but it is one drop in a bucket ever in danger of being filled. In an also-pending case in Harris County, Texas, a judge will decide whether to allow evidence found based on police dogs sniffing around the front and garage doors of a private home without a warrant.
Again, if there is no legal reason to suspect criminal activity, then there is no legal search to conduct. Ultimately, guilt or innocence is not relevant because such searches are illegal.
Dogged pursuit of criminals, or students on drugs, is admirable. Violating reasonable expectations of privacy is not. As concerns about safety - be they from terrorists or any other source - mount, so will attempts to infringe on privacy in the name of public protection. So, too, must our vigilance against such infringement.
(Megan Moyer's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mmoyer@cavalierdaily.com.)
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