With this being Fourth of July time, one might have missed the real fireworks being delivered at the national level last week by our Supreme Court. In a 5-4 vote the court is allowing for drug testing of all high school students involved in extracurricular activities without first having any evidence of that student engaging in illegal drug use. Let that one sink in a bit. The highest court in the land, guardian and interpreter of our living Constitution, has in one fell swoop declared our nation’s 14 million high school students unworthy of the most basic of protections. If this doesn’t scare the hell out of you, it should.
The degree of irony in the court’s decision is almost beyond comprehension. Fourteen million students, learning among other things the concepts and implications of American freedom, having to be subjected to random drug testing without provocation. Such an action is no different than the police searching your home without a warrant, or pulling you over for no reason other than the color of your skin. What kind of citizens are we creating if we subject them to this kind of institutionalized tyranny? How are young adults to respect the concept of personal freedom without having the opportunity to also experience it first hand?
Make no mistake, I am a strong opponent against the uses and abuses of illegal drugs, particularly when it comes to our youth, but it does no good to combat a perceived problem by creating an even greater one. Do we have students abusing drugs? Yes. Is it a problem we must continue to combat? Certainly. Should potentially all students in America be forced to submit to an assault upon their freedoms in order to “help” those students engaging in illicit drug use? Absolutely not. Such reasoning is preposterous, dangerous, and, as Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg stated in her dissenting opinion, perverse.
Random drug testing of my students without evidence of wrong doing? Just try it.
Teacher, Sultan High School
Member, Sultan City Council
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