News that the Indiana Court of Appeals struck down a school's policy of performing random drug tests on kids in athletics and other extracurriculars rippled through the state's school systems this past week.

School corporations around the state suspended their drug-testing programs following the ruling.

The problem with the policy of Northwestern School Corp. in Kokomo was that it 'does not propose a direct correlation between drug use and its need to randomly test the majority of students for drugs," the appellate judges ruled.

The policy also applied to students who drive to school. The school put it into effect after a couple students died of overdoses and another was killed in a car wreck after a huffing session.

'This is an unmistakable move toward randomly testing all students,' the 3-0 ruling stated.

The case started last year when a couple students - through their parents - sued the school corporation.

The students lost at the trial court level and they appealed. On appeal, the students were represented by the Indiana Criminal Lovers Union, uh, I mean the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.

It pains me to say it, but I think I agree with the ICLU on this one.

The ICLU argued that suspicionless drug-testing policies in Indiana schools violate the Indiana Constitution.

ICLU attorney Ken Falk said nothing prevents schools from testing students they suspect of using drugs, such as 'someone who comes in and appears to be stoned.'

But testing someone just because they want to join French Club is wrong.

I guess I don't like the idea of random anything when it comes to government.

Now if a kid walks into school glassy-eyed and reeking of the smell of burned dope, by all means, give him the whiz quiz.

But I think there are privacy issues involved here, too.

It seems a bit intrusive to me to force a kid to pee in a cup because he or she wants to be in the science club.

And the whole thing always made me a little uneasy because it seems too much like unreasonable search and seizure.

I know, I know. If you don't have anything to hide, why worry about being searched? Only guilty people get caught.

That is true and seems perfectly logical but is flawed in a couple ways.

First, it presumes guilt until innocence is proven. That runs counter to our criminal justice system.

But more importantly, it makes a very dangerous assumption, the assumption being that those searching and seizing would always be fair and judicious.

The founding fathers knew better. They knew the propensity for government tyranny. They lived through it. They wanted no part of it. That's why the constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

Of course, I don't think cops and school administrators are tyrants. But I am pretty confident that without those constitutional protections, life over these last 224 years in America would have been vastly different.

The reason the issue came up in the first place was because schools wanted to drug-test student athletes.

That probably was an outgrowth of the drug testing programs in place in professional sports.

But then schools had to jump through the discrimination hoops. Why test only athletes?

Schools responded by crafting policies to test all students involved in extracurricular activities. For me, that always begged the question, why only test those kids and not the whole student body?

Besides, that always seemed a little convoluted to me, The kids in extracurricular activities are probably some of those least likely to be doing dope.

The policies also seem to assume that kids are a bunch of dopers to begin with. I'll bet of all the random tests taken in this state, only a tiny percentage came up positive.

I understand why schools like the policies. They want a safe, drug-free environment. But I think they can achieve that with a little less personally intrusive policy.

Bring in the dope-sniffing dogs a couple times a semester if you have to.

Similar policies have been upheld in federal appeals courts and by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Indiana court ruled that the state's constitution provides greater protections against invasions of privacy than the U.S. Constitution.

Based on that, I would say there is a fair chance that the appellate ruling would be overturned at the Indiana Supreme Court level, but time will tell.

Another thing that struck me about this ruling is the weight it carried with the Indiana School Boards Association.

The ruling came on Monday. On Tuesday, the ISBA told its member schools - there are 290 of them - to stop any random drug testing of students immediately.

"Otherwise these schools would be in deliberate defiance of the Court of Appeals," said David Emmert, general counsel for the association, in an Associated Press story. "That's indefensible."

This was an Appeals Court ruling based on an issue of constitutionality.

Back in May there was another Appeals Court ruling based on constitutionality. The court ruled that police chiefs have to live in the cities they serve.

There are cities and towns all over Indiana in "deliberate defiance of the Court of Appeals" but nobody seems to care. [[In-content Ad]]