NORML Press Release
Federal Court Halts School Board Policy Mandating Urine Tests For
Teachers
June 4, 1998, New Orleans, LA:
Teachers and other public school employees may not be urine
tested for drugs following an accident on the job, ruled the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals last week.
NORML Legal Committee member William Rittenberg, Esq., who argued the case, praised the
decision. "Had the Circuit Court ruled differently, millions of Americans would have
lost this privacy right," he said.
Finding an "insufficient nexus between suffering an injury at work and drug
impairment," the Court determined that the drug testing policies of two Louisiana
school boards ran contrary to the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that protects
citizens against unreasonable searches by the state. The Court further ruled that the
policies failed to fit within a "special needs exception" to the amendment
previously determined by the Supreme Court to allow for school boards to drug test student
athletes and public employers to test workers in safety sensitive positions.
"Defendants are to be enjoined from requiring teachers, teacher’s aids, and
clerical workers to submit urine specimens for testing in post-injury screening, absent
individualized suspicion of wrongful drug use," wrote Circuit Judge Higginbotham for
the Court. "It cannot be the case that a state’s
preference for means of detection is enough to waive off the protections of privacy
afforded by insisting on individualized suspicion. ... As destructive as drugs are
and as precious are the charges of our teachers, special needs must rest on demonstrated
realities. Failure to do so leaves the effort to justify this testing as responsive to
drugs in public schools as a ‘kind of immolation of privacy and human dignity in
symbolic opposition to drug use.’"
The Court also determined that the school board’s drug testing policy primarily
supported the state’s interest in "not paying compensation claims of employees
whose injury was caused by drug use," and failed to serve their "general
interest in a drug free school environment." The state’s true interest was
insufficient to bypass constitutional protections, the Court said.
Rittenberg speculated that the Fifth Circuit ruling calls into
question the constitutionality of a 1997 Louisiana state law requiring all residents
receiving state funds to pass a urine test. If this sort of testing is unconstitutional
for teachers, how is it justified for every person who receives a paycheck from the state,
he asked. So far, the Legislature has been unable to pay for the widespread drug testing
proposal.
The federal case is cited as No. 97-30885. For more
information, please contact attorney William Rittenberg @ (504) 524-5555 or R. Keith
Stroup, Esq. of NORML @ (202) 483-5500.
Supported