Did you know you could be drug tested at school randomly if you’re an athlete? Although it doesn’t seem fair, it is legal to drug test student athletes.

Most people would agree that that is an invasion of privacy, because technically it is. What we do outside of school on our own time should not matter to the school, or affect weather or not you can play a sport. But, due to certain rules and policies schools are allowed to do it.

In the case, Vernonia School District v. Acton (1995): A 12-year-old seventh-grader, James Acton, who went to Washington GRAde school, in Vernonia, Oregon, wanted to try out for the schools football team. The school required students athletes to take a drug test at the beginning of the season and random times throughout the school year. HIs parents refused James being tested because they said there was no evidence that he used drugs or alcohol. The school then suspended James from sports that season, and his parents, arguing that drug testing students without a suspicion of illegal activity, “constituted an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. This was brought to the Supreme Court, and the court ruled in favor of the school district, with reasoning that schools have the ability to balance students rights of privacy in order to keep school campuses safe and. The drug testing policy required a urine sample which was only a limited invasion of privacy, according to the court. The court also pointed out that all students surrender some privacy rights while at school. Recently, with these types of cases the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the school, reasoning that schools have a right to invade students privacy in order to protect them and the school.

In another case, where the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school district, Board of Education v. Earls, 122 S.Ct. 2559 (2002): Oklahoma had a school policy of randomly drug testing students who participate in competitive, non-athletic extracurricular activities. In a federal court ruling, the 5-4 Court stated in its opinion that it found a policy of, “a reasonably effective means of addressing the school district’s legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and detecting drug use.” In her dissent, Justice Ginsberg wrote that “the particular testing program upheld…is not reasonable, it is capricious, even perverse.”

Here at Triton, student athletes are not drug tested, but the school does have the ability to do it if needed. Many students probably don’t think it can actually happen, or would happen, because it has never been a policy. If it were to become one though, I don’t think the students wouldn’t be too happy because what we do outside of school should be apart of our privacy.

Although I believe we should have the rights that give us to ability to not have to do that, it is understandable why schools and athletic departments might want to drug test their student athletes. Some schools have big sports programs, and could be training their athletes to be the best. Many private schools are known for their sports teams because of how good they are. That would make it more understandable to drug test student athletes, if they’re apart of a big sports team, that is known to be good because the coaches want the best players they can get.

In those cases, the coaches could have strong opinions on weather or not their students do drugs. It could be a concern because it could affect them or their playing, which could bring the rest of the ream down also. The coaches want their players to be the best they can be. They want their athletes to be dedicated to the team, and not have any distractions. If drugs are getting in the way of that, they might drug test them so that doesn’t happen.

However, it also isn’t fair that we don’t have a right that protects our privacy and gives us the choice of being drug tested at our schools.