FREE ESSAY ON DRUG TESTING OF STUDENT ATHLETES

DRUG TESTING OF STUDENT ATHLETES

Drug Testing of Student Athletes
Mandatory and random drug testing of student athletes violates their right to privacy.
The right to privacy is guaranteed under the fourth amendment.
Schools are violating athletes' rights to privacy by searching them without probable
cause. They are already assuming that these athletes are violating policies without any
information to confirm this. Athletes should not be singled out for drug testing. It has
been proven that student athletes are less likely to drugs than the general student
population. 
Drug testing may not even bet he most effective way to curb drug use among students.
There have been many successful programs to educate students about the effects of drugs.
These programs target all students and don't have punishment as part of their curriculum.

Drug testing can be very costly. Depending on which drugs are included in the test, the
price can range from $5 per student to $50 or more. Most schools only have a few students
test positive and they see this as stopping the drug problem, but this seems to me that
they are only helping those students who test positive and allowing those who don't to
start using drugs again after the season is over. The cost of mandatory and random drug
testing raises the price of participating in sports. This, along with the invasion of
privacy, leads marginal players not to participate in sports. These students are then
very likely to increase their drug use or to start using drugs. These students balance
out the benefits of deterring some athletes whom decide to stop using drugs.
In 1991, James Acton and his parents sued the Vernonia School District. James was barred
from playing on his seventh-grade football team after he and his parents refused to sign
a paper consenting to the mandatory drug test. His parents argued that James would have
been subjected to an unreasonable search, because their son was not a known drug user. A
federal appeals court ruled the Vernonia School District's policy of testing student
athletes for illegal drugs violated their rights under the U.S. and state constitutions
to be free from unreasonable searches. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit unanimously decided that the drug policy violated these rights. The
court concluded that the drug- testing program was in violation of the Constitution
because student athletes' privacy rights outweighed the government interest in reducing
the dangers of drug use.
The case directly conflicted with another ruling so the case was taken to the Supreme
Court. The High Court ruled 6-3 on June 25, 1995 to uphold the Oregon school's program of
mandatory urinalysis. This may seem that the court encouraged the urinalysis of student
athletes in all circumstances, but that was not the case. The Vernonia School District
had a serious drug problem, and that the athletes were thought to be ringleaders of the
drug problem. The judges, in my opinion, had ridiculous reasons for allowing these tests.
For example, school sports are not for the bashful and students are children, who lack
the fundamental rights of adults, said Justice Scalia. I'd be interested to learn what
Justice Scalia would have to say to those students who are 18 and considered adults.
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor strongly disagrees with the decision handed
down, and was the main advocate against the drug testing on the court. She questioned the
decision by saying, It cannot be too often said that the greatest threats to our
constitutional freedoms come in times of crisis. Justice O'Connor believes these tests
target the wrong students. She wrote, By the reasoning of today's decision, the millions
of these students who participate in interscholastic sports, an overwhelming majority of
who have given school officials no reason whatsoever to suspect they use drugs at school,
are open to intrusive bodily harm. She also questioned the district's choice of student
athletes as the lone group to subject suspicionless testing. It seems to me that the far
more reasonable choice would have been to focus on the class of students found to have
violated published school rules against severe disruption in class and around campus, she
said.
It is clear to me that this kind of drug testing violates students' rights and the only
reason that this testing is allowed is because some feel student's rights aren't being
violated because districts are trying to help students.
Violating their rights is not he only concern about mandatory drug testing. Drug testing
is not 100% fool proof. There have been mistakes in this kind of testing and people
wrongly accused of using drugs. There have been other substances that show up on these
drug tests than the actual drugs. Some of these results may be a consequence of the food
the student had eaten the day before. Even if only one student's athletic career were
ruined because of a mistake in testing that would be tragic.
The benefit of mandatory drug testing has not proved to outweigh the right to privacy for
student athletes. It has also been proven that athletes are not the most common students
to use drugs and that these tests target and punish the wrong students. Finally there is
the chance that there could be an error in a test and effect a student's life. Misguided
attempts to deal with the drug problems of school students, no matter how good intended,
should not violate the intent of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.