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Drug Testing Student Athletes by Jann Carson The ACLU Foundation of Oregon has filed a legal challenge to a new drug testing requirement of all student athletes in the Lincoln County School District. In order to participate in a sport, the student athletes must agree to submit to random, suspicionless drug testing. |
No law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure; and no warrant shall be issued but upon probable cause, supported by oath, or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized. --Article I, Section 9 of the Oregon Constitution |
Lincoln County School District is one of several public school districts in Oregon to decide to participate in an experiment to be conducted by medical researchers from Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU).
The experiment, also known as the Student Athlete Testing Using Random Notification (SATURN) Program, requires participating school districts to adopt policies that require all student athletes to give their consent to random, suspicionless drug testing as a condition of playing a sport. The SATURN Program argues that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Vernonia v. Acton gave schools the green light to using random, suspicionless drug testing programs.
However, the ACLU of Oregon disagrees with this assumption. In 1995, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Vernonia School Dist.(Oregon) v. Acton, that some suspicionless searches were permitted under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court did not - and could not - address whether this type of search is permitted under the Oregon Constitution.
The ACLU Foundation of Oregon represented the Acton family throughout their legal challenge to that policy and we were terribly disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. Ever since that decision, the Oregon ACLU has been looking for an opportunity to bring the question of suspicionless drug testing up in the Oregon courts and under the Oregon Constitution.
In this new challenge to drug-testing, we are directly representing two student athletes and their families. Megan Kriz is a junior at Toledo High School in the Lincoln County School District and plays volleyball and other sports. Jordan Morlok is a sophomore and plays football at Toledo High School.
In our complaint for declaratory relief filed in Lincoln County Circuit Court, we assert that the school district "does not suspect that either Megan or Jordan takes drugs, and yet it requires that they submit to drug testing pursuant to the drug-testing policy and the drug testing rule as a condition for eligibility to participate in the athletic programs."
Furthermore, we contend that the drug testing requirement "violate[s] Megan's and Jordan's right to be free from unreasonable government searches, as guaranteed by Article I, Section 9, of the Oregon Constitution."