By Mark David Blum, Esq.

This morning the Syracuse Newspapers editorial board took the courageous and obvious position questioning the random mandatory drug testing policy about to be implemented in Oneida schools. Like other enlightened folks, the newspaper recognizes such a policy is wrong, ineffective, expensive, and violates the most basic of our rights – the right to privacy of the self.

The issue is not about drugs nor is it about whether drugs should be legal. Drugs are bad. Don’t do drugs. If you are going to use drugs, that is your business. Government has no role in that decision making process.

Instead, the issue here is about children and education. The question becomes ‘what is it that we are teaching our children?’ It would appear that in Oneida Schools, education is no longer the priority and instead policing private lives has become the priority.

Educators and managers of the school district are the ones I insist on being sober. Children are children and are going through the growing and exploring life stage as they mature into adulthood. We are not raising children, we are raising adults. I expect children to do stupid things; that is how we gather life experience. But the teachers, coaches, principles, counselors, bus drivers, and other adults who supervise my children … are they drug free?

What is wrong with this policy is the random nature of its implementation. School District officials have reserved for themselves the right to demand a student take drug test ‘whenever’. It is nice they made the test process so simple; just test the spit. But, because this policy is “random”, a teacher with a chip on their shoulder (whom among hasn’t met one of them?), could demand any student stop what they are doing, leave class, and march on down to the nurse’s office for a spit test.

As an attorney and one with a great deal of civil rights litigation experience, I am personally offended by ‘random’ being the standard for government action. “Random” government behavior opens the door to so much abuse, that our Nation’s Founders and every court and legislature since has insisted on an objective set of standards for all government action. That is how we assure equality and prevent abusive government.

The answer, of course, is to test everybody. Do it everyday. That is the only way you are going to assure your student body is drug free upon entering the building. Test all of them after lunch to assure nobody snuck out behind the bleachers and hit a bowl. Test the teachers and administrators to make sure nobody had that 2 martini lunch. My child has a right to a drug free environment. Can Oneida Schools assure us their employees are all sober … before they start testing our children?

Every day, every student entering the school should be required to undergo the spit test. They already search student bags. Student lockers are routinely searched without warrant. All athletes, band members, and extra curricular participants are drug tested. So what is the difficulty of having every student do a spit test every day?

The theory of law being misapplied is how the School District opines it can invade privacy on the whim of any body at any time. There is no set of established objective criteria. This offends me. It should offend you. Obviously, it did not offend the overpaid downtown lawyers who suggested the School District could behave so arbitrarily in its invasion of the most cherished of constitutional protections.

If Oneida Schools is going to insist on drug testing students, they should immediately adopt an objective set of standards by which a student can be tested. Murderers and rapists are entitled to an objective set of standards before the government can invade their bodies. Why should high school students be treated with less respect than we give the garbage of society?

Aside from the randomness of the policy and the dangers it poses, what also makes this policy ineffective is the school’s response to a test demand. If a student tests positive or refuses to test, the student is suspended ten days. No protection is in place for a false positive. There are always false positives. It seems to me the last thing we would want for a student in trouble is to throw them out of school and leave them to wander the streets and watch MTV all day. A student needing to be intoxicated to get through the school day has issues that need to be addressed. The best place to monitor their activities and to assure they are in a productive and healthy environment is to keep the student in school. That is, unless school officials are of the opinion that their school is so unsafe and unstable, that kids in trouble are safer at home.

A student identified as being intoxicated needs peers and support. They do NOT need social ostracism, shunning, embarrassment, and having their permanent record branded with the scarlet letter of “drug user”. Nothing about this policy satisfies it goals. Everything about it causes serious and irreparable harm. It has been said that the most dangerous thing about drugs is getting arrested.

They implemented this same obnoxious policy at Fayetteville Manlius High School. My daughter and I had a long discussion over the issue and we have made the decision that she will refuse any demand for a drug test. Until the policy changes and it is no longer random, the school district will be on advance notice that my child is not going to be labeled as a drug user and is going to refuse a test. Her refusal is going to be on record ahead of time so nobody can say she is refusing because she has something to hide. She is going to refuse because the issues of privacy and excessive government intrusion are more harmful to her than will be any 10 day suspension. Just the fact that a teacher would walk up to her and demand her submission to a saliva test would brand her in front of her peers

Yes, students who refuse a test will be suspended. So as to ease the shame of a suspension (which should be seen as a badge of courage by her peers) … should that event ever occur, I promised my daughter a vacation for those 10 days. I will take her to the beach or Disneyworld or anywhere where she can be free to celebrate her freedom.

Every student in the Oneida Schools should refuse to submit to random drug testing. If but a few willing to accept a suspension stand up for their beliefs to protect not only their friends and peers but also future generations of alumni, this stupid expensive policy will stop.

If the School District does not immediately halt its ‘random’ testing, they are going to expose all of us district taxpayers to the costs of a civil suit. Haven’t bad district policies already cost us enough?

Schools should educate, enlighten, and challenge. Theirs is not the task of policing, punishing, monitoring, or engaging in matters beyond their identified mission. My only question is how many of those district policymakers could have, at the time, survived this same scrutiny.

Do it to everybody or do it to nobody. Whatever you do, do it for the children.