''Board of Education v. Earls'', 536 U.S. 822 (2002), was a case by the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in which the Court held, 5–4, that it does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

for public schools to conduct mandatory

drug testing A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of dr ...

on students participating in

extracurricular activities An extracurricular activity (ECA) or extra academic activity (EAA) or cultural activities is an activity, performed by students, that falls outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school, college or university education. Such activities a ...

. The case centered around a policy adopted by the school district of

Tecumseh, Oklahoma Tecumseh ( sac, Takamithîheki) is a city in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 6,457 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, a 5.9 percent increase from the figure of 6,098 in 20 ...

requiring all students involved in extracurricular activities, including the school's sports teams, to consent to

urinalysis Urinalysis, a portmanteau of the words ''urine'' and ''analysis'', is a panel of medical tests that includes physical (macroscopic) examination of the urine, chemical evaluation using urine test strips, and microscopic examination. Macroscopic e ...

testing for drugs. Two students, Lindsay Earls and Daniel James, brought a lawsuit against the school board, alleging that the policy violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable

search and seizure Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscat ...

Background

The Student Activities Drug Testing Policy adopted by the Tecumseh, Oklahoma School District requires all middle and high school students to consent to urinalysis testing for drugs in order to participate in any

extracurricular activity An extracurricular activity (ECA) or extra academic activity (EAA) or cultural activities is an activity, performed by students, that falls outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school, college or university education. Such activities a ...

. Two Tecumseh High School students and their parents brought suit, alleging that the policy violates the Fourth Amendment. The District Court granted the School District summary judgment. In reversing, the Court of Appeals held that the policy violated the Fourth Amendment. The appellate court concluded that before imposing a suspicionless drug-testing program, a school should demonstrate some identifiable drug abuse problem among a sufficient number of those tested, such that testing that group will actually redress its drug problem, which the School District failed to demonstrate.

Opinion of the Court

In a majority opinion delivered by Justice

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...

, the Court held that students in extracurricular activities had a diminished expectation of privacy, and that the policy furthered an important interest of the school in preventing drug use among students. This rationale was based on the precedent '' Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton'' (1995), which allowed drug testing for athletes. Justice

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...

filed an opinion

concurring In law, a concurring opinion is in certain legal systems a written opinion by one or more judges of a court which agrees with the decision made by the majority of the court, but states different (or additional) reasons as the basis for their deci ...

in the Court's judgment.

References

External links

* United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court United States Fourth Amendment case law United States education case law United States controlled substances case law 2002 in United States case law 2002 in education Education in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Student rights case law in the United States Drug testing {{SCOTUS-case-stub