BOARD OF EDUCATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY et al. v. EARLS et al.

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Syllabus
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL
DISTRICT NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE
COUNTY et al. v. EARLS et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the tenth circuit
No. 01–332. Argued March 19, 2002—Decided June 27, 2002
The Student Activities Drug Testing Policy (Policy) adopted by the Te-
cumseh, Oklahoma, School District (School District) requires all middle
and high school students to consent to urinalysis testing for drugs in
order to participate in any extracurricular activity. In practice, the
Policy has been applied only to competitive extracurricular activities
sanctioned by the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association
(OSSAA). Respondent high school students and their parents brought
this 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action for equitable relief, alleging that the Policy
violates the Fourth Amendment. Applying Vernonia School Dist. 47J
v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, in which this Court upheld the suspicionless
drug testing of school athletes, the District Court granted the School
District summary judgment. The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that
the Policy violated the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that before
imposing a suspicionless drug testing program a school must demon-
strate some identifiable drug abuse problem among a sufficient number
of those tested, such that testing that group will actually redress its
drug problem. The court then held that the School District had failed
to demonstrate such a problem among Tecumseh students participating
in competitive extracurricular activities.
Held: Tecumseh’s Policy is a reasonable means of furthering the School
District’s important interest in preventing and deterring drug use
among its schoolchildren and does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
Pp. 828–838.
(a) Because searches by public school officials implicate Fourth
Amendment interests, see, e. g., Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 652, the Court
must review the Policy for “reasonableness,” the touchstone of constitu-
tionality. In contrast to the criminal context, a probable-cause finding
is unnecessary in the public school context because it would unduly in-
terfere with maintenance of the swift and informal disciplinary proce-
dures that are needed. In the public school context, a search may be
reasonable when supported by “special needs” beyond the normal need
for law enforcement. Because the “reasonableness” inquiry cannot dis-

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regard the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for children, id.,
at 656, a finding of individualized suspicion may not be necessary. In
upholding the suspicionless drug testing of athletes, the Vernonia Court
conducted a fact-specific balancing of the intrusion on the children’s
Fourth Amendment rights against the promotion of legitimate govern-
mental interests. Applying Vernonia’s principles to the somewhat dif-
ferent facts of this case demonstrates that Tecumseh’s Policy is also
constitutional. Pp. 828–830.
(b) Considering first the nature of the privacy interest allegedly com-
promised by the drug testing, see Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 654, the Court
concludes that the students affected by this Policy have a limited expec-
tation of privacy. Respondents argue that because children participat-
ing in nonathletic extracurricular activities are not subject to regular
physicals and communal undress they have a stronger expectation of
privacy than the Vernonia athletes. This distinction, however, was not
essential in Vernonia, which depended primarily upon the school’s cus-
todial responsibility and authority. See, e. g., id., at 665. In any event,
students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities volun-
tarily subject themselves to many of the same intrusions on their pri-
vacy as do athletes. Some of these clubs and activities require occa-
sional off-campus travel and communal undress, and all of them have
their own rules and requirements that do not apply to the student body
as a whole. Each of them must abide by OSSAA rules, and a faculty
sponsor monitors students for compliance with the various rules dic-
tated by the clubs and activities. Such regulation further diminishes
the schoolchildren’s expectation of privacy. Pp. 830–832.
(c) Considering next the character of the intrusion imposed by the
Policy, see Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 658, the Court concludes that the
invasion of students’ privacy is not significant, given the minimally
intrusive nature of the sample collection and the limited uses to which
the test results are put. The degree of intrusion caused by collecting
a urine sample depends upon the manner in which production of the
sample is monitored. Under the Policy, a faculty monitor waits outside
the closed restroom stall for the student to produce a sample and must
listen for the normal sounds of urination to guard against tampered
specimens and ensure an accurate chain of custody. This procedure is
virtually identical to the “negligible” intrusion approved in Vernonia,
ibid. The Policy clearly requires that test results be kept in confiden-
tial files separate from a student’s other records and released to school
personnel only on a “need to know” basis. Moreover, the test results
are not turned over to any law enforcement authority. Nor do the test

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824 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS
Syllabus
results lead to the imposition of discipline or have any academic conse-
quences. Rather, the only consequence of a failed drug test is to limit
the student’s privilege of participating in extracurricular activities.
Pp. 832–834.
(d) Finally, considering the nature and immediacy of the govern-
ment’s concerns and the efficacy of the Policy in meeting them, see Ver-
nonia, 515 U. S., at 660, the Court concludes that the Policy effectively
serves the School District’s interest in protecting its students’ safety
and health. Preventing drug use by schoolchildren is an important gov-
ernmental concern. See id., at 661–662. The health and safety risks
identified in Vernonia apply with equal force to Tecumseh’s children.
The School District has also presented specific evidence of drug use
at Tecumseh schools. Teachers testified that they saw students who
appeared to be under the influence of drugs and heard students speaking
openly about using drugs. A drug dog found marijuana near the school
parking lot. Police found drugs or drug paraphernalia in a car driven
by an extracurricular club member. And the school board president
reported that people in the community were calling the board to discuss
the “drug situation.” Respondents consider the proffered evidence in-
sufficient and argue that there is no real and immediate interest to jus-
tify a policy of drug testing nonathletes. But a demonstrated drug
abuse problem is not always necessary to the validity of a testing re-
gime, even though some showing of a problem does shore up an asser-
tion of a special need for a suspicionless general search program.
Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 319. The School District has pro-
vided sufficient evidence to shore up its program. Furthermore, this
Court has not required a particularized or pervasive drug problem be-
fore allowing the government to conduct suspicionless drug testing.
See, e. g., Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656, 673–674.
The need to prevent and deter the substantial harm of childhood drug
use provides the necessary immediacy for a school testing policy. Given
the nationwide epidemic of drug use, and the evidence of increased drug
use in Tecumseh schools, it was entirely reasonable for the School Dis-
trict to enact this particular drug testing policy. Pp. 834–838.
242 F. 3d 1264, reversed.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed
a concurring opinion, post, p. 838. O’Connor, J., filed a dissenting opin-
ion, in which Souter, J., joined, post, p. 842. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissent-

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Opinion of the Court
ing opinion, in which Stevens, O’Connor, and Souter, JJ., joined, post,
p. 842.
Linda Maria Meoli argued the cause for petitioners.
With her on the briefs were Stephanie J. Mather and Wil-
liam P. Bleakley.
Deputy Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for
the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With
him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant
Attorney General McCallum, Gregory G. Garre, Leonard
Schaitman, and Lowell V. Sturgill, Jr.
Graham A. Boyd argued the cause for respondents. With
him on the brief was Steven R. Shapiro.*
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Student Activities Drug Testing Policy implemented
by the Board of Education of Independent School District
No. 92 of Pottawatomie County (School District) requires all
students who participate in competitive extracurricular ac-
tivities to submit to drug testing. Because this Policy rea-
sonably serves the School District’s important interest in de-
tecting and preventing drug use among its students, we hold
that it is constitutional.
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the Washington
Legal Foundation et al. by Richard Willard, Daniel J. Popeo, and Richard
A. Samp.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American
Academy of Pediatrics et al. by David T. Goldberg and Daniel N. Abra-
hamson; for Jean Burkett et al. by Craig Goldblatt; for the Juvenile Law
Center et al. by Marsha L. Levick; for the National Association of Crimi-
nal Defense Lawyers et al. by John Wesley Hall, Jr., Lisa B. Kemler,
Timothy Lynch, and Kevin B. Zeese; and for the Rutherford Institute by
John W. Whitehead, Steven H. Aden, and Jamin B. Raskin.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Drug-Free Schools Coalition
et al. by David G. Evans; for the National School Boards Association et al.
by Julie K. Underwood, Christopher B. Gilbert, and Thomas E. Wheeler;
and for Professor Akhil Reed Amar et al. by Julia M. Carpenter.

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826 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS
Opinion of the Court
I
The city of Tecumseh, Oklahoma, is a rural community lo-
cated approximately 40 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.
The School District administers all Tecumseh public schools.
In the fall of 1998, the School District adopted the Student
Activities Drug Testing Policy (Policy), which requires all
middle and high school students to consent to drug testing
in order to participate in any extracurricular activity. In
practice, the Policy has been applied only to competitive ex-
tracurricular activities sanctioned by the Oklahoma Second-
ary Schools Activities Association, such as the Academic
Team, Future Farmers of America, Future Homemakers of
America, band, choir, pom pon, cheerleading, and athletics.
Under the Policy, students are required to take a drug test
before participating in an extracurricular activity, must sub-
mit to random drug testing while participating in that activ-
ity, and must agree to be tested at any time upon reasonable
suspicion. The urinalysis tests are designed to detect only
the use of illegal drugs, including amphetamines, marijuana,
cocaine, opiates, and barbituates, not medical conditions or
the presence of authorized prescription medications.
At the time of their suit, both respondents attended
Tecumseh High School. Respondent Lindsay Earls was a
member of the show choir, the marching band, the Academic
Team, and the National Honor Society. Respondent Daniel
James sought to participate in the Academic Team.1 To-
gether with their parents, Earls and James brought a Rev.
1 The District Court noted that the School District’s allegations concern-
ing Daniel James called his standing to sue into question because his fail-
ing grades made him ineligible to participate in any interscholastic compe-
tition. See 115 F. Supp. 2d 1281, 1282, n. 1 (WD Okla. 2000). The court
noted, however, that the dispute need not be resolved because Lindsay
Earls had standing, and therefore the court was required to address the
constitutionality of the drug testing policy. See ibid. Because we are
likewise satisfied that Earls has standing, we need not address whether
James also has standing.

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Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, action against the School Dis-
trict, challenging the Policy both on its face and as applied
to their participation in extracurricular activities.2 They al-
leged that the Policy violates the Fourth Amendment as in-
corporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and requested in-
junctive and declarative relief. They also argued that the
School District failed to identify a special need for testing
students who participate in extracurricular activities, and
that the “Drug Testing Policy neither addresses a proven
problem nor promises to bring any benefit to students or the
school.” App. 9.
Applying the principles articulated in Vernonia School
Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646 (1995), in which we upheld
the suspicionless drug testing of school athletes, the United
States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma
rejected respondents’ claim that the Policy was unconstitu-
tional and granted summary judgment to the School District.
The court noted that “special needs” exist in the public
school context and that, although the School District did “not
show a drug problem of epidemic proportions,” there was a
history of drug abuse starting in 1970 that presented “legiti-
mate cause for concern.” 115 F. Supp. 2d 1281, 1287 (2000).
The District Court also held that the Policy was effective
because “[i]t can scarcely be disputed that the drug problem
among the student body is effectively addressed by making
sure that the large number of students participating in com-
petitive, extracurricular activities do not use drugs.” Id.,
at 1295.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
reversed, holding that the Policy violated the Fourth Amend-
ment. The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court
that the Policy must be evaluated in the “unique environ-
ment of the school setting,” but reached a different conclu-
2 The respondents did not challenge the Policy either as it applies to
athletes or as it provides for drug testing upon reasonable, individualized
suspicion. See App. 28.

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sion as to the Policy’s constitutionality. 242 F. 3d 1264, 1270
(2001). Before imposing a suspicionless drug testing pro-
gram, the Court of Appeals concluded that a school “must
demonstrate that there is some identifiable drug abuse prob-
lem among a sufficient number of those subject to the testing,
such that testing that group of students will actually redress
its drug problem.” Id., at 1278. The Court of Appeals then
held that because the School District failed to demonstrate
such a problem existed among Tecumseh students partici-
pating in competitive extracurricular activities, the Policy
was unconstitutional. We granted certiorari, 534 U. S. 1015
(2001), and now reverse.
II
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures.” Searches by public school officials,
such as the collection of urine samples, implicate Fourth
Amendment interests. See Vernonia, supra, at 652; cf. New
Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 334 (1985). We must there-
fore review the School District’s Policy for “reasonableness,”
which is the touchstone of the constitutionality of a govern-
mental search.
In the criminal context, reasonableness usually requires a
showing of probable cause. See, e. g., Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 619 (1989). The
probable-cause standard, however, “is peculiarly related to
criminal investigations” and may be unsuited to determining
the reasonableness of administrative searches where the
“Government seeks to prevent the development of hazardous
conditions.” Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S.
656, 667–668 (1989) (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted) (collecting cases). The Court has also held that a
warrant and finding of probable cause are unnecessary in
the public school context because such requirements “ ‘would
unduly interfere with the maintenance of the swift and infor-

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mal disciplinary procedures [that are] needed.’ ” Vernonia,
supra, at 653 (quoting T. L. O., supra, at 340–341).
Given that the School District’s Policy is not in any way
related to the conduct of criminal investigations, see
Part II–B, infra, respondents do not contend that the School
District requires probable cause before testing students for
drug use. Respondents instead argue that drug testing
must be based at least on some level of individualized suspi-
cion. See Brief for Respondents 12–14. It is true that we
generally determine the reasonableness of a search by bal-
ancing the nature of the intrusion on the individual’s privacy
against the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.
See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979). But we
have long held that “the Fourth Amendment imposes no irre-
ducible requirement of [individualized] suspicion.” United
States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 561 (1976). “[I]n
certain limited circumstances, the Government’s need to dis-
cover such latent or hidden conditions, or to prevent their
development, is sufficiently compelling to justify the intru-
sion on privacy entailed by conducting such searches without
any measure of individualized suspicion.” Von Raab, supra,
at 668; see also Skinner, supra, at 624. Therefore, in the
context of safety and administrative regulations, a search un-
supported by probable cause may be reasonable “when ‘spe-
cial needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement,
make the warrant and probable-cause requirement imprac-
ticable.’ ” Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 873 (1987)
(quoting T. L. O., supra, at 351 (Blackmun, J., concurring
in judgment)); see also Vernonia, supra, at 653; Skinner,
supra, at 619.
Significantly, this Court has previously held that “special
needs” inhere in the public school context. See Vernonia,
supra, at 653; T. L. O., supra, at 339–340. While schoolchil-
dren do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter
the schoolhouse, see Tinker v. Des Moines Independent
Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969), “Fourth

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830 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS
Opinion of the Court
Amendment rights . . . are different in public schools than
elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disregard the
schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.”
Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 656. In particular, a finding of indi-
vidualized suspicion may not be necessary when a school con-
ducts drug testing.
In Vernonia, this Court held that the suspicionless drug
testing of athletes was constitutional. The Court, however,
did not simply authorize all school drug testing, but rather
conducted a fact-specific balancing of the intrusion on the
children’s Fourth Amendment rights against the promotion
of legitimate governmental interests. See id., at 652–653.
Applying the principles of Vernonia to the somewhat differ-
ent facts of this case, we conclude that Tecumseh’s Policy is
also constitutional.
A
We first consider the nature of the privacy interest alleg-
edly compromised by the drug testing. See id., at 654. As
in Vernonia, the context of the public school environment
serves as the backdrop for the analysis of the privacy inter-
est at stake and the reasonableness of the drug testing policy
in general. See ibid. (“Central . . . is the fact that the sub-
jects of the Policy are (1) children, who (2) have been com-
mitted to the temporary custody of the State as schoolmas-
ter”); see also id., at 665 (“The most significant element in
this case is the first we discussed: that the Policy was under-
taken in furtherance of the government’s responsibilities,
under a public school system, as guardian and tutor of chil-
dren entrusted to its care”); ibid. (“[W]hen the government
acts as guardian and tutor the relevant question is whether
the search is one that a reasonable guardian and tutor
might undertake”).
A student’s privacy interest is limited in a public school
environment where the State is responsible for maintaining
discipline, health, and safety. Schoolchildren are routinely
required to submit to physical examinations and vaccinations

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against disease. See id., at 656. Securing order in the
school environment sometimes requires that students be sub-
jected to greater controls than those appropriate for adults.
See T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 350 (Powell, J., concurring) (“With-
out first establishing discipline and maintaining order, teach-
ers cannot begin to educate their students. And apart from
education, the school has the obligation to protect pupils
from mistreatment by other children, and also to protect
teachers themselves from violence by the few students
whose conduct in recent years has prompted national
concern”).
Respondents argue that because children participating in
nonathletic extracurricular activities are not subject to regu-
lar physicals and communal undress, they have a stronger
expectation of privacy than the athletes tested in Vernonia.
See Brief for Respondents 18–20. This distinction, how-
ever, was not essential to our decision in Vernonia, which
depended primarily upon the school’s custodial responsibility
and authority.3
In any event, students who participate in competitive
extracurricular activities voluntarily subject themselves to
many of the same intrusions on their privacy as do athletes.4
3 Justice Ginsburg argues that Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,
515 U. S. 646 (1995), depended on the fact that the drug testing program
applied only to student athletes. But even the passage cited by the dis-
sent manifests the supplemental nature of this factor, as the Court in
Vernonia stated that “[l]egitimate privacy expectations are even less with
regard to student athletes.” See post, at 847 (quoting Vernonia, 515
U. S., at 657) (emphasis added). In upholding the drug testing program
in Vernonia, we considered the school context “[c]entral” and “[t]he most
significant element.” Id., at 654, 665. This hefty weight on the side of
the school’s balance applies with similar force in this case even though we
undertake a separate balancing with regard to this particular program.
4 Justice Ginsburg’s observations with regard to extracurricular ac-
tivities apply with equal force to athletics. See post, at 845 (“Participa-
tion in such [extracurricular] activities is a key component of school life,
essential in reality for students applying to college, and, for all partici-
pants, a significant contributor to the breadth and quality of the educa-
tional experience”).

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832 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS
Opinion of the Court
Some of these clubs and activities require occasional off-
campus travel and communal undress. All of them have
their own rules and requirements for participating students
that do not apply to the student body as a whole. 115
F. Supp. 2d, at 1289–1290. For example, each of the compet-
itive extracurricular activities governed by the Policy must
abide by the rules of the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activ-
ities Association, and a faculty sponsor monitors the students
for compliance with the various rules dictated by the clubs
and activities. See id., at 1290. This regulation of extra-
curricular activities further diminishes the expectation of
privacy among schoolchildren. Cf. Vernonia, supra, at 657
(“Somewhat like adults who choose to participate in a closely
regulated industry, students who voluntarily participate in
school athletics have reason to expect intrusions upon nor-
mal rights and privileges, including privacy” (internal quota-
tion marks omitted)). We therefore conclude that the stu-
dents affected by this Policy have a limited expectation of
privacy.
B
Next, we consider the character of the intrusion imposed
by the Policy. See Vernonia, supra, at 658. Urination is
“an excretory function traditionally shielded by great pri-
vacy.” Skinner, 489 U. S., at 626. But the “degree of intru-
sion” on one’s privacy caused by collecting a urine sample
“depends upon the manner in which production of the urine
sample is monitored.” Vernonia, supra, at 658.
Under the Policy, a faculty monitor waits outside the
closed restroom stall for the student to produce a sample and
must “listen for the normal sounds of urination in order to
guard against tampered specimens and to insure an accurate
chain of custody.” App. 199. The monitor then pours the
sample into two bottles that are sealed and placed into a
mailing pouch along with a consent form signed by the stu-
dent. This procedure is virtually identical to that reviewed
in Vernonia, except that it additionally protects privacy by

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allowing male students to produce their samples behind a
closed stall. Given that we considered the method of collec-
tion in Vernonia a “negligible” intrusion, 515 U. S., at 658,
the method here is even less problematic.
In addition, the Policy clearly requires that the test results
be kept in confidential files separate from a student’s other
educational records and released to school personnel only on
a “need to know” basis. Respondents nonetheless contend
that the intrusion on students’ privacy is significant because
the Policy fails to protect effectively against the disclosure
of confidential information and, specifically, that the school
“has been careless in protecting that information: for exam-
ple, the Choir teacher looked at students’ prescription drug
lists and left them where other students could see them.”
Brief for Respondents 24. But the choir teacher is someone
with a “need to know,” because during off-campus trips she
needs to know what medications are taken by her students.
Even before the Policy was enacted the choir teacher had
access to this information. See App. 132. In any event,
there is no allegation that any other student did see such
information. This one example of alleged carelessness
hardly increases the character of the intrusion.
Moreover, the test results are not turned over to any law
enforcement authority. Nor do the test results here lead to
the imposition of discipline or have any academic conse-
quences. Cf. Vernonia, supra, at 658, and n. 2. Rather, the
only consequence of a failed drug test is to limit the student’s
privilege of participating in extracurricular activities. In-
deed, a student may test positive for drugs twice and still be
allowed to participate in extracurricular activities. After
the first positive test, the school contacts the student’s par-
ent or guardian for a meeting. The student may continue to
participate in the activity if within five days of the meeting
the student shows proof of receiving drug counseling and
submits to a second drug test in two weeks. For the second
positive test, the student is suspended from participation in

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834 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS
Opinion of the Court
all extracurricular activities for 14 days, must complete four
hours of substance abuse counseling, and must submit to
monthly drug tests. Only after a third positive test will the
student be suspended from participating in any extracurricu-
lar activity for the remainder of the school year, or 88 school
days, whichever is longer. See App. 201–202.
Given the minimally intrusive nature of the sample collec-
tion and the limited uses to which the test results are put,
we conclude that the invasion of students’ privacy is not
significant.
C
Finally, this Court must consider the nature and immedi-
acy of the government’s concerns and the efficacy of the Pol-
icy in meeting them. See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 660. This
Court has already articulated in detail the importance of the
governmental concern in preventing drug use by schoolchil-
dren. See id., at 661–662. The drug abuse problem among
our Nation’s youth has hardly abated since Vernonia was
decided in 1995. In fact, evidence suggests that it has only
grown worse.5 As in Vernonia, “the necessity for the State
to act is magnified by the fact that this evil is being visited
not just upon individuals at large, but upon children for
whom it has undertaken a special responsibility of care and
direction.” Id., at 662. The health and safety risks identi-
fied in Vernonia apply with equal force to Tecumseh’s chil-
dren. Indeed, the nationwide drug epidemic makes the war
against drugs a pressing concern in every school.
Additionally, the School District in this case has presented
specific evidence of drug use at Tecumseh schools. Teachers
testified that they had seen students who appeared to be
5 For instance, the number of 12th graders using any illicit drug in-
creased from 48.4 percent in 1995 to 53.9 percent in 2001. The number of
12th graders reporting they had used marijuana jumped from 41.7 percent
to 49.0 percent during that same period. See Department of Health and
Human Services, Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent
Drug Use, Overview of Key Findings (2001) (Table 1).

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Opinion of the Court
under the influence of drugs and that they had heard stu-
dents speaking openly about using drugs. See, e. g., App. 72
(deposition of Dean Rogers); id., at 115 (deposition of Sheila
Evans). A drug dog found marijuana cigarettes near the
school parking lot. Police officers once found drugs or drug
paraphernalia in a car driven by a Future Farmers of
America member. And the school board president reported
that people in the community were calling the board to dis-
cuss the “drug situation.” See 115 F. Supp. 2d, at 1285–
1286. We decline to second-guess the finding of the District
Court that “[v]iewing the evidence as a whole, it cannot be
reasonably disputed that the [School District] was faced with
a ‘drug problem’ when it adopted the Policy.” Id., at 1287.
Respondents consider the proffered evidence insufficient
and argue that there is no “real and immediate interest” to
justify a policy of drug testing nonathletes. Brief for Re-
spondents 32. We have recognized, however, that “[a] dem-
onstrated problem of drug abuse . . . [is] not in all cases
necessary to the validity of a testing regime,” but that some
showing does “shore up an assertion of special need for a
suspicionless general search program.” Chandler v. Miller,
520 U. S. 305, 319 (1997). The School District has provided
sufficient evidence to shore up the need for its drug testing
program.
Furthermore, this Court has not required a particularized
or pervasive drug problem before allowing the government
to conduct suspicionless drug testing. For instance, in Von
Raab the Court upheld the drug testing of customs officials
on a purely preventive basis, without any documented his-
tory of drug use by such officials. See 489 U. S., at 673. In
response to the lack of evidence relating to drug use, the
Court noted generally that “drug abuse is one of the most
serious problems confronting our society today,” and that
programs to prevent and detect drug use among customs
officials could not be deemed unreasonable. Id., at 674;
cf. Skinner, 489 U. S., at 607, and n. 1 (noting nationwide

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Opinion of the Court
studies that identified on-the-job alcohol and drug use by
railroad employees). Likewise, the need to prevent and
deter the substantial harm of childhood drug use provides
the necessary immediacy for a school testing policy. Indeed,
it would make little sense to require a school district to wait
for a substantial portion of its students to begin using drugs
before it was allowed to institute a drug testing program
designed to deter drug use.
Given the nationwide epidemic of drug use, and the evi-
dence of increased drug use in Tecumseh schools, it was en-
tirely reasonable for the School District to enact this particu-
lar drug testing policy. We reject the Court of Appeals’
novel test that “any district seeking to impose a random sus-
picionless drug testing policy as a condition to participation
in a school activity must demonstrate that there is some
identifiable drug abuse problem among a sufficient number
of those subject to the testing, such that testing that group
of students will actually redress its drug problem.” 242
F. 3d, at 1278. Among other problems, it would be difficult
to administer such a test. As we cannot articulate a thresh-
old level of drug use that would suffice to justify a drug test-
ing program for schoolchildren, we refuse to fashion what
would in effect be a constitutional quantum of drug use nec-
essary to show a “drug problem.”
Respondents also argue that the testing of nonathletes
does not implicate any safety concerns, and that safety is
a “crucial factor” in applying the special needs framework.
Brief for Respondents 25–27. They contend that there must
be “surpassing safety interests,” Skinner, supra, at 634, or
“extraordinary safety and national security hazards,” Von
Raab, supra, at 674, in order to override the usual protec-
tions of the Fourth Amendment. See Brief for Respondents
25–26. Respondents are correct that safety factors into the
special needs analysis, but the safety interest furthered by
drug testing is undoubtedly substantial for all children, ath-
letes and nonathletes alike. We know all too well that drug

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Opinion of the Court
use carries a variety of health risks for children, including
death from overdose.
We also reject respondents’ argument that drug testing
must presumptively be based upon an individualized reason-
able suspicion of wrongdoing because such a testing regime
would be less intrusive. See id., at 12–16. In this context,
the Fourth Amendment does not require a finding of individ-
ualized suspicion, see supra, at 829, and we decline to impose
such a requirement on schools attempting to prevent and de-
tect drug use by students. Moreover, we question whether
testing based on individualized suspicion in fact would be
less intrusive. Such a regime would place an additional bur-
den on public school teachers who are already tasked with
the difficult job of maintaining order and discipline. A pro-
gram of individualized suspicion might unfairly target mem-
bers of unpopular groups. The fear of lawsuits resulting
from such targeted searches may chill enforcement of the
program, rendering it ineffective in combating drug use.
See Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 663–664 (offering similar reasons
for why “testing based on ‘suspicion’ of drug use would not
be better, but worse”). In any case, this Court has repeat-
edly stated that reasonableness under the Fourth Amend-
ment does not require employing the least intrusive means,
because “[t]he logic of such elaborate less-restrictive-
alternative arguments could raise insuperable barriers to
the exercise of virtually all search-and-seizure powers.”
Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 556–557, n. 12; see also Skin-
ner, supra, at 624 (“[A] showing of individualized suspicion
is not a constitutional floor, below which a search must be
presumed unreasonable”).
Finally, we find that testing students who participate in
extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of
addressing the School District’s legitimate concerns in pre-
venting, deterring, and detecting drug use. While in Ver-
nonia there might have been a closer fit between the testing
of athletes and the trial court’s finding that the drug problem

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Breyer, J., concurring
was “fueled by the ‘role model’ effect of athletes’ drug use,”
such a finding was not essential to the holding. 515 U. S., at
663; cf. id., at 684–685 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (question-
ing the extent of the drug problem, especially as applied to
athletes). Vernonia did not require the school to test the
group of students most likely to use drugs, but rather consid-
ered the constitutionality of the program in the context of
the public school’s custodial responsibilities. Evaluating the
Policy in this context, we conclude that the drug testing of
Tecumseh students who participate in extracurricular activi-
ties effectively serves the School District’s interest in pro-
tecting the safety and health of its students.
III
Within the limits of the Fourth Amendment, local school
boards must assess the desirability of drug testing school-
children. In upholding the constitutionality of the Policy,
we express no opinion as to its wisdom. Rather, we hold
only that Tecumseh’s Policy is a reasonable means of further-
ing the School District’s important interest in preventing and
deterring drug use among its schoolchildren. Accordingly,
we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Justice Breyer, concurring.
I agree with the Court that Vernonia School Dist. 47J v.
Acton, 515 U. S. 646 (1995), governs this case and requires
reversal of the Tenth Circuit’s decision. The school’s drug
testing program addresses a serious national problem by fo-
cusing upon demand, avoiding the use of criminal or discipli-
nary sanctions, and relying upon professional counseling and
treatment. See App. 201–202. In my view, this program
does not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “un-
reasonable searches and seizures.” I reach this conclusion
primarily for the reasons given by the Court, but I would

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emphasize several underlying considerations, which I under-
stand to be consistent with the Court’s opinion.
I
In respect to the school’s need for the drug testing pro-
gram, I would emphasize the following: First, the drug prob-
lem in our Nation’s schools is serious in terms of size, the
kinds of drugs being used, and the consequences of that use
both for our children and the rest of us. See, e. g., White
House Nat. Drug Control Strategy 25 (Feb. 2002) (drug
abuse leads annually to about 20,000 deaths, $160 billion in
economic costs); Department of Health and Human Services,
L. Johnston et al., Monitoring the Future: National Results
on Adolescent Drug Use, Overview of Key Findings 5 (2001)
(Monitoring the Future) (more than one-third of all students
have used illegal drugs before completing the eighth grade;
more than half before completing high school); ibid. (about
30% of all students use drugs other than marijuana prior to
completing high school (emphasis added)); National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Malignant Neglect: Sub-
stance Abuse and America’s Schools 15 (Sept. 2001) (Malig-
nant Neglect) (early use leads to later drug dependence);
Nat. Drug Control Strategy, supra, at 1 (same).
Second, the government’s emphasis upon supply side inter-
diction apparently has not reduced teenage use in recent
years. Compare R. Perl, CRS Issue Brief for Congress,
Drug Control: International Policy and Options CRS–1 (Dec.
12, 2001) (supply side programs account for 66% of the fed-
eral drug control budget), with Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, 2001 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study: Key
Findings 1 (showing increase in teenage drug use in early
1990’s, peak in 1997, holding steady thereafter); 2000–2001
PRIDE National Summary: Alcohol, Tobacco, Illicit Drugs,
Violence and Related Behaviors, Grades 6 thru 12 (Jul.
16, 2002), http://www.pridesurveys.com/main/supportfiles/
natsum00.pdf, p. 15 (slight rise in high school drug use in

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Breyer, J., concurring
2000–2001); Monitoring the Future, Table 1 (lifetime preva-
lence of drug use increasing over last 10 years).
Third, public school systems must find effective ways to
deal with this problem. Today’s public expects its schools
not simply to teach the fundamentals, but “to shoulder the
burden of feeding students breakfast and lunch, offering be-
fore and after school child care services, and providing medi-
cal and psychological services,” all in a school environment
that is safe and encourages learning. Brief for National
School Boards Association et al. as Amici Curiae 3–4. See
also Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 681
(1986) (Schools “ ‘prepare pupils for citizenship in the Repub-
lic [and] inculcate the habits and manners of civility as values
in themselves conductive to happiness and as indispensable
to the practice of self-government in the community and the
nation’ ”) (quoting C. Beard & M. Beard, New Basic History
of the United States 228 (1968)). The law itself recognizes
these responsibilities with the phrase in loco parentis—a
phrase that draws its legal force primarily from the needs of
younger students (who here are necessarily grouped to-
gether with older high school students) and which reflects,
not that a child or adolescent lacks an interest in privacy, but
that a child’s or adolescent’s school-related privacy interest,
when compared to the privacy interests of an adult, has dif-
ferent dimensions. Cf. Vernonia, supra, at 654–655. A
public school system that fails adequately to carry out its
responsibilities may well see parents send their children to
private or parochial school instead—with help from the
State. See Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, ante, p. 639.
Fourth, the program at issue here seeks to discourage de-
mand for drugs by changing the school’s environment in
order to combat the single most important factor leading
schoolchildren to take drugs, namely, peer pressure. Malig-
nant Neglect 4 (students “whose friends use illicit drugs are
more than 10 times likelier to use illicit drugs than those
whose friends do not”). It offers the adolescent a nonthreat-

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ening reason to decline his friend’s drug-use invitations,
namely, that he intends to play baseball, participate in de-
bate, join the band, or engage in any one of half a dozen
useful, interesting, and important activities.
II
In respect to the privacy-related burden that the drug
testing program imposes upon students, I would emphasize
the following: First, not everyone would agree with this
Court’s characterization of the privacy-related significance
of urine sampling as “ ‘negligible.’ ” Ante, at 833 (quoting
Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 658). Some find the procedure no
more intrusive than a routine medical examination, but oth-
ers are seriously embarrassed by the need to provide a urine
sample with someone listening “outside the closed restroom
stall,” ante, at 832. When trying to resolve this kind of
close question involving the interpretation of constitutional
values, I believe it important that the school board provided
an opportunity for the airing of these differences at public
meetings designed to give the entire community “the oppor-
tunity to be able to participate” in developing the drug pol-
icy. App. 87. The board used this democratic, participa-
tory process to uncover and to resolve differences, giving
weight to the fact that the process, in this instance, revealed
little, if any, objection to the proposed testing program.
Second, the testing program avoids subjecting the entire
school to testing. And it preserves an option for a conscien-
tious objector. He can refuse testing while paying a price
(nonparticipation) that is serious, but less severe than expul-
sion from the school.
Third, a contrary reading of the Constitution, as requiring
“individualized suspicion” in this public school context, could
well lead schools to push the boundaries of “individualized
suspicion” to its outer limits, using subjective criteria that
may “unfairly target members of unpopular groups,” ante,
at 837, or leave those whose behavior is slightly abnormal

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Ginsburg, J., dissenting
stigmatized in the minds of others. See Belsky, Random vs.
Suspicion-Based Drug Testing in the Public Schools—A Sur-
prising Civil Liberties Dilemma, 27 Okla. City U. L. Rev.
1, 20–21 (forthcoming 2002) (listing court-approved factors
justifying suspicion-based drug testing, including tiredness,
overactivity, quietness, boisterousness, sloppiness, excessive
meticulousness, and tardiness). If so, direct application of
the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable
searches and seizures” will further that Amendment’s
liberty-protecting objectives at least to the same extent as
application of the mediating “individualized suspicion” test,
where, as here, the testing program is neither criminal nor
disciplinary in nature.
* * *
I cannot know whether the school’s drug testing program
will work. But, in my view, the Constitution does not
prohibit the effort. Emphasizing the considerations I have
mentioned, along with others to which the Court refers,
I conclude that the school’s drug testing program, constitu-
tionally speaking, is not “unreasonable.” And I join the
Court’s opinion.
Justice O’Connor, with whom Justice Souter joins,
dissenting.
I dissented in Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515
U. S. 646 (1995), and continue to believe that case was
wrongly decided. Because Vernonia is now this Court’s
precedent, and because I agree that petitioners’ program
fails even under the balancing approach adopted in that case,
I join Justice Ginsburg’s dissent.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Jus-
tice O’Connor, and Justice Souter join, dissenting.
Seven years ago, in Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,
515 U. S. 646 (1995), this Court determined that a school

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district’s policy of randomly testing the urine of its student
athletes for illicit drugs did not violate the Fourth Amend-
ment. In so ruling, the Court emphasized that drug use
“increase[d] the risk of sports-related injury” and that Ver-
nonia’s athletes were the “leaders” of an aggressive local
“drug culture” that had reached “ ‘epidemic proportions.’ ”
Id., at 649. Today, the Court relies upon Vernonia to permit
a school district with a drug problem its superintendent
repeatedly described as “not . . . major,” see App. 180, 186,
191, to test the urine of an academic team member solely
by reason of her participation in a nonathletic, competitive
extracurricular activity—participation associated with nei-
ther special dangers from, nor particular predilections for,
drug use.
“[T]he legality of a search of a student,” this Court has
instructed, “should depend simply on the reasonableness,
under all the circumstances, of the search.” New Jersey v.
T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 341 (1985). Although “ ‘special needs’
inhere in the public school context,” see ante, at 829 (quoting
Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 653), those needs are not so expansive
or malleable as to render reasonable any program of student
drug testing a school district elects to install. The particu-
lar testing program upheld today is not reasonable; it is
capricious, even perverse: Petitioners’ policy targets for test-
ing a student population least likely to be at risk from illicit
drugs and their damaging effects. I therefore dissent.
I
A
A search unsupported by probable cause nevertheless may
be consistent with the Fourth Amendment “when special
needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make
the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.”
Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quo-
tation marks omitted). In Vernonia, this Court made clear
that “such ‘special needs’ . . . exist in the public school con-

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text.” 515 U. S., at 653 (quoting Griffin, 483 U. S., at 873).
The Court observed:
“[W]hile children assuredly do not ‘shed their constitu-
tional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate,’ Tinker v. Des
Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S.
503, 506 (1969), the nature of those rights is what is ap-
propriate for children in school. . . . Fourth Amendment
rights, no less than First and Fourteenth Amendment
rights, are different in public schools than elsewhere; the
‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disregard the schools’
custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.” 515
U. S., at 655–656 (other citations omitted).
The Vernonia Court concluded that a public school district
facing a disruptive and explosive drug abuse problem
sparked by members of its athletic teams had “special needs”
that justified suspicionless testing of district athletes as a
condition of their athletic participation.
This case presents circumstances dispositively different
from those of Vernonia. True, as the Court stresses, Te-
cumseh students participating in competitive extracurricular
activities other than athletics share two relevant characteris-
tics with the athletes of Vernonia. First, both groups
attend public schools. “[O]ur decision in Vernonia,” the
Court states, “depended primarily upon the school’s custodial
responsibility and authority.” Ante, at 831; see also ante,
at 840 (Breyer, J., concurring) (school districts act in loco
parentis). Concern for student health and safety is basic to
the school’s caretaking, and it is undeniable that “drug use
carries a variety of health risks for children, including death
from overdose.” Ante, at 836–837 (majority opinion).
Those risks, however, are present for all schoolchildren.
Vernonia cannot be read to endorse invasive and suspicion-
less drug testing of all students upon any evidence of drug
use, solely because drugs jeopardize the life and health of
those who use them. Many children, like many adults, en-

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gage in dangerous activities on their own time; that the chil-
dren are enrolled in school scarcely allows government to
monitor all such activities. If a student has a reasonable
subjective expectation of privacy in the personal items she
brings to school, see T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 338–339, surely
she has a similar expectation regarding the chemical compo-
sition of her urine. Had the Vernonia Court agreed that
public school attendance, in and of itself, permitted the State
to test each student’s blood or urine for drugs, the opinion
in Vernonia could have saved many words. See, e. g., 515
U. S., at 662 (“[I]t must not be lost sight of that [the Vernonia
School District] program is directed . . . to drug use by school
athletes, where the risk of immediate physical harm to the
drug user or those with whom he is playing his sport is par-
ticularly high.”).
The second commonality to which the Court points is the
voluntary character of both interscholastic athletics and
other competitive extracurricular activities. “By choosing
to ‘go out for the team,’ [school athletes] voluntarily subject
themselves to a degree of regulation even higher than that
imposed on students generally.” Id., at 657. Comparably,
the Court today observes, “students who participate in com-
petitive extracurricular activities voluntarily subject them-
selves to” additional rules not applicable to other students.
Ante, at 831.
The comparison is enlightening. While extracurricular
activities are “voluntary” in the sense that they are not re-
quired for graduation, they are part of the school’s educa-
tional program; for that reason, the petitioner (hereinafter
School District) is justified in expending public resources to
make them available. Participation in such activities is a
key component of school life, essential in reality for students
applying to college, and, for all participants, a significant con-
tributor to the breadth and quality of the educational experi-
ence. See Brief for Respondents 6; Brief for American
Academy of Pediatrics et al. as Amici Curiae 8–9. Students

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“volunteer” for extracurricular pursuits in the same way
they might volunteer for honors classes: They subject them-
selves to additional requirements, but they do so in order to
take full advantage of the education offered them. Cf. Lee
v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 595 (1992) (“Attendance may not
be required by official decree, yet it is apparent that a stu-
dent is not free to absent herself from the graduation exer-
cise in any real sense of the term ‘voluntary,’ for absence
would require forfeiture of those intangible benefits which
have motivated the student through youth and all her high
school years.”).
Voluntary participation in athletics has a distinctly differ-
ent dimension: Schools regulate student athletes discretely
because competitive school sports by their nature require
communal undress and, more important, expose students to
physical risks that schools have a duty to mitigate. For the
very reason that schools cannot offer a program of competi-
tive athletics without intimately affecting the privacy of stu-
dents, Vernonia reasonably analogized school athletes to
“adults who choose to participate in a closely regulated in-
dustry.” 515 U. S., at 657 (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). Industries fall within the closely regulated category
when the nature of their activities requires substantial gov-
ernment oversight. See, e. g., United States v. Biswell, 406
U. S. 311, 315–316 (1972). Interscholastic athletics similarly
require close safety and health regulation; a school’s choir,
band, and academic team do not.
In short, Vernonia applied, it did not repudiate, the princi-
ple that “the legality of a search of a student should depend
simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances,
of the search.” T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 341 (emphasis added).
Enrollment in a public school, and election to participate in
school activities beyond the bare minimum that the curricu-
lum requires, are indeed factors relevant to reasonableness,
but they do not on their own justify intrusive, suspicionless
searches. Vernonia, accordingly, did not rest upon these

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factors; instead, the Court performed what today’s majority
aptly describes as a “fact-specific balancing,” ante, at 830.
Balancing of that order, applied to the facts now before the
Court, should yield a result other than the one the Court
announces today.
B
Vernonia initially considered “the nature of the privacy
interest upon which the search [there] at issue intrude[d].”
515 U. S., at 654. The Court emphasized that student
athletes’ expectations of privacy are necessarily attenuated:
“Legitimate privacy expectations are even less with re-
gard to student athletes. School sports are not for the
bashful. They require ‘suiting up’ before each practice
or event, and showering and changing afterwards.
Public school locker rooms, the usual sites for these
activities, are not notable for the privacy they afford.
The locker rooms in Vernonia are typical: No individual
dressing rooms are provided; shower heads are lined up
along a wall, unseparated by any sort of partition or
curtain; not even all the toilet stalls have doors. . . .
[T]here is an element of communal undress inherent in
athletic participation.” Id., at 657 (internal quotation
marks omitted).
Competitive extracurricular activities other than athletics,
however, serve students of all manner: the modest and shy
along with the bold and uninhibited. Activities of the kind
plaintiff-respondent Lindsay Earls pursued—choir, show
choir, marching band, and academic team—afford opportuni-
ties to gain self-assurance, to “come to know faculty mem-
bers in a less formal setting than the typical classroom,” and
to acquire “positive social supports and networks [that] play
a critical role in periods of heightened stress.” Brief for
American Academy of Pediatrics et al. as Amici Curiae 13.
On “occasional out-of-town trips,” students like Lindsay
Earls “must sleep together in communal settings and use

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communal bathrooms.” 242 F. 3d 1264, 1275 (CA10 2001).
But those situations are hardly equivalent to the routine
communal undress associated with athletics; the School Dis-
trict itself admits that when such trips occur, “public-like
restroom facilities,” which presumably include enclosed
stalls, are ordinarily available for changing, and that “more
modest students” find other ways to maintain their privacy.
Brief for Petitioners 34.1
After describing school athletes’ reduced expectation of
privacy, the Vernonia Court turned to “the character of the
intrusion . . . complained of.” 515 U. S., at 658. Observing
that students produce urine samples in a bathroom stall with
a coach or teacher outside, Vernonia typed the privacy inter-
ests compromised by the process of obtaining samples “negli-
gible.” Ibid. As to the required pretest disclosure of pre-
scription medications taken, the Court assumed that “the
School District would have permitted [a student] to provide
the requested information in a confidential manner—for ex-
ample, in a sealed envelope delivered to the testing lab.”
Id., at 660. On that assumption, the Court concluded that
Vernonia’s athletes faced no significant invasion of privacy.
In this case, however, Lindsay Earls and her parents al-
lege that the School District handled personal information
collected under the policy carelessly, with little regard for
its confidentiality. Information about students’ prescription
drug use, they assert, was routinely viewed by Lindsay’s
choir teacher, who left files containing the information un-
locked and unsealed, where others, including students, could
see them; and test results were given out to all activity spon-
sors whether or not they had a clear “need to know.” See
1 According to Tecumseh’s choir teacher, choir participants who chose
not to wear their choir uniforms to school on the days of competitions
could change either in “a rest room in a building” or on the bus, where
“[m]any of them have figured out how to [change] without having
[anyone] . . . see anything.” 2 Appellants’ App. in No. 00–6128 (CA10),
p. 296.

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Brief for Respondents 6, 24; App. 105–106, 131. But see id.,
at 199 (policy requires that “[t]he medication list shall be
submitted to the lab in a sealed and confidential envelope
and shall not be viewed by district employees”).
In granting summary judgment to the School District, the
District Court observed that the District’s “[p]olicy ex-
pressly provides for confidentiality of test results, and the
Court must assume that the confidentiality provisions will
be honored.” 115 F. Supp. 2d 1281, 1293 (WD Okla. 2000).
The assumption is unwarranted. Unlike Vernonia, where
the District Court held a bench trial before ruling in the
School District’s favor, this case was decided by the District
Court on summary judgment. At that stage, doubtful mat-
ters should not have been resolved in favor of the judgment
seeker. See United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654,
655 (1962) (per curiam) (“On summary judgment the infer-
ences to be drawn from the underlying facts contained in
[affidavits, attached exhibits, and depositions] must be
viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the
motion.”); see also 10A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Fed-
eral Practice and Procedure § 2716, pp. 274–277 (3d ed. 1998).
Finally, the “nature and immediacy of the governmental
concern,” Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 660, faced by the Vernonia
School District dwarfed that confronting Tecumseh adminis-
trators. Vernonia initiated its drug testing policy in re-
sponse to an alarming situation: “[A] large segment of the
student body, particularly those involved in interscholastic
athletics, was in a state of rebellion . . . fueled by alcohol and
drug abuse as well as the student[s’] misperceptions about
the drug culture.” Id., at 649 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Tecumseh, by contrast, repeatedly reported to
the Federal Government during the period leading up to the
adoption of the policy that “types of drugs [other than alco-
hol and tobacco] including controlled dangerous substances,
are present [in the schools] but have not identified them-
selves as major problems at this time.” 1998–1999 Tecum-

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Ginsburg, J., dissenting
seh School’s Application for Funds under the Safe and Drug-
Free Schools and Communities Program, reprinted at App.
191; accord, 1996–1997 Application, reprinted at App. 186;
1995–1996 Application, reprinted at App. 180.2 As the
Tenth Circuit observed, “without a demonstrated drug abuse
problem among the group being tested, the efficacy of the
District’s solution to its perceived problem is . . . greatly
diminished.” 242 F. 3d, at 1277.
The School District cites Treasury Employees v. Von
Raab, 489 U. S. 656, 673–674 (1989), in which this Court per-
mitted random drug testing of customs agents absent “any
perceived drug problem among Customs employees,” given
that “drug abuse is one of the most serious problems con-
fronting our society today.” See also Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 607, and n. 1 (1989)
(upholding random drug and alcohol testing of railway em-
ployees based upon industry-wide, rather than railway-
specific, evidence of drug and alcohol problems). The tests
in Von Raab and Railway Labor Executives, however, were
installed to avoid enormous risks to the lives and limbs of
others, not dominantly in response to the health risks to
users invariably present in any case of drug use. See Von
Raab, 489 U. S., at 674 (drug use by customs agents involved
in drug interdiction creates “extraordinary safety and na-
tional security hazards”); Railway Labor Executives, 489
U. S., at 628 (railway operators “discharge duties fraught
with such risks of injury to others that even a momentary
lapse of attention can have disastrous consequences”); see
2 The Court finds it sufficient that there be evidence of some drug use
in Tecumseh’s schools: “As we cannot articulate a threshold level of drug
use that would suffice to justify a drug testing program for schoolchildren,
we refuse to fashion what would in effect be a constitutional quantum of
drug use necessary to show a ‘drug problem.’ ” Ante, at 836. One need
not establish a bright-line “constitutional quantum of drug use” to recog-
nize the relevance of the superintendent’s reports characterizing drug use
among Tecumseh’s students as “not . . . [a] major proble[m],” App. 180,
186, 191.

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also Chandler v. Miller, 520 U. S. 305, 321 (1997) (“Von Raab
must be read in its unique context”).
Not only did the Vernonia and Tecumseh districts confront
drug problems of distinctly different magnitudes, they also
chose different solutions: Vernonia limited its policy to ath-
letes; Tecumseh indiscriminately subjected to testing all par-
ticipants in competitive extracurricular activities. Urging
that “the safety interest furthered by drug testing is un-
doubtedly substantial for all children, athletes and nonath-
letes alike,” ante, at 836, the Court cuts out an element es-
sential to the Vernonia judgment. Citing medical literature
on the effects of combining illicit drug use with physical ex-
ertion, the Vernonia Court emphasized that “the particular
drugs screened by [Vernonia’s] Policy have been demon-
strated to pose substantial physical risks to athletes.” 515
U. S., at 662; see also id., at 666 (Ginsburg, J., concurring)
(Vernonia limited to “those seeking to engage with others
in team sports”). We have since confirmed that these spe-
cial risks were necessary to our decision in Vernonia. See
Chandler, 520 U. S., at 317 (Vernonia “emphasized the im-
portance of deterring drug use by schoolchildren and the risk
of injury a drug-using student athlete cast on himself and
those engaged with him on the playing field”); see also Fer-
guson v. Charleston, 532 U. S. 67, 87 (2001) (Kennedy, J.,
concurring) (Vernonia’s policy had goal of “ ‘[d]eterring drug
use by our Nation’s schoolchildren,’ and particularly by
student-athletes, because ‘the risk of immediate physical
harm to the drug user or those with whom he is playing
his sport is particularly high’ ”) (quoting Vernonia, 515 U. S.,
at 661–662).
At the margins, of course, no policy of random drug test-
ing is perfectly tailored to the harms it seeks to address.
The School District cites the dangers faced by members of
the band, who must “perform extremely precise routines
with heavy equipment and instruments in close proximity to
other students,” and by Future Farmers of America, who

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“are required to individually control and restrain animals as
large as 1500 pounds.” Brief for Petitioners 43. For its
part, the United States acknowledges that “the linebacker
faces a greater risk of serious injury if he takes the field
under the influence of drugs than the drummer in the half-
time band,” but parries that “the risk of injury to a student
who is under the influence of drugs while playing golf, cross
country, or volleyball (sports covered by the policy in Ver-
nonia) is scarcely any greater than the risk of injury to a
student . . . handling a 1500-pound steer (as [Future Farmers
of America] members do) or working with cutlery or other
sharp instruments (as [Future Homemakers of America]
members do).” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae
18. One can demur to the Government’s view of the risks
drug use poses to golfers, cf. PGA TOUR, Inc. v. Martin,
532 U. S. 661, 687 (2001) (“golf is a low intensity activity”),
for golfers were surely as marginal among the linebackers,
sprinters, and basketball players targeted for testing in Ver-
nonia as steer-handlers are among the choristers, musicians,
and academic-team members subject to urinalysis in Tecum-
seh.3 Notwithstanding nightmarish images of out-of-control
flatware, livestock run amok, and colliding tubas disturbing
the peace and quiet of Tecumseh, the great majority of stu-
dents the School District seeks to test in truth are engaged
in activities that are not safety sensitive to an unusual de-
gree. There is a difference between imperfect tailoring and
no tailoring at all.
The Vernonia district, in sum, had two good reasons for
testing athletes: Sports team members faced special health
risks and they “were the leaders of the drug culture.” Ver-
nonia, 515 U. S., at 649. No similar reason, and no other
tenable justification, explains Tecumseh’s decision to target
3 Cross-country runners and volleyball players, by contrast, engage in
substantial physical exertion. See Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,
515 U. S. 646, 663 (1995) (describing special dangers of combining drug use
with athletics generally).

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for testing all participants in every competitive extracurricu-
lar activity. See Chandler, 520 U. S., at 319 (drug testing
candidates for office held incompatible with Fourth Amend-
ment because program was “not well designed to identify
candidates who violate antidrug laws”).
Nationwide, students who participate in extracurricular
activities are significantly less likely to develop substance
abuse problems than are their less-involved peers. See, e. g.,
N. Zill, C. Nord, & L. Loomis, Adolescent Time Use, Risky
Behavior, and Outcomes 52 (1995) (tenth graders “who
reported spending no time in school-sponsored activities
were . . . 49 percent more likely to have used drugs” than
those who spent 1–4 hours per week in such activities).
Even if students might be deterred from drug use in order
to preserve their extracurricular eligibility, it is at least as
likely that other students might forgo their extracurricular
involvement in order to avoid detection of their drug use.
Tecumseh’s policy thus falls short doubly if deterrence is its
aim: It invades the privacy of students who need deterrence
least, and risks steering students at greatest risk for sub-
stance abuse away from extracurricular involvement that po-
tentially may palliate drug problems.4
To summarize, this case resembles Vernonia only in that
the School Districts in both cases conditioned engagement in
activities outside the obligatory curriculum on random sub-
jection to urinalysis. The defining characteristics of the two
programs, however, are entirely dissimilar. The Vernonia
district sought to test a subpopulation of students distin-
guished by their reduced expectation of privacy, their special
4 The Court notes that programs of individualized suspicion, unlike those
using random testing, “might unfairly target members of unpopular
groups.” Ante, at 837; see also ante, at 841–842 (Breyer, J., concurring).
Assuming, arguendo, that this is so, the School District here has not ex-
changed individualized suspicion for random testing. It has installed
random testing in addition to, rather than in lieu of, testing “at any time
when there is reasonable suspicion.” App. 197.

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susceptibility to drug-related injury, and their heavy involve-
ment with drug use. The Tecumseh district seeks to test a
much larger population associated with none of these factors.
It does so, moreover, without carefully safeguarding student
confidentiality and without regard to the program’s unto-
ward effects. A program so sweeping is not sheltered by
Vernonia; its unreasonable reach renders it impermissible
under the Fourth Amendment.
II
In Chandler, this Court inspected “Georgia’s require-
ment that candidates for state office pass a drug test”; we
held that the requirement “d[id] not fit within the closely
guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicion-
less searches.” 520 U. S., at 309. Georgia’s testing pre-
scription, the record showed, responded to no “concrete dan-
ger,” id., at 319, was supported by no evidence of a particular
problem, and targeted a group not involved in “high-risk,
safety-sensitive tasks,” id., at 321–322. We concluded:
“What is left, after close review of Georgia’s scheme,
is the image the State seeks to project. By requiring
candidates for public office to submit to drug testing,
Georgia displays its commitment to the struggle against
drug abuse. . . . The need revealed, in short, is symbolic,
not ‘special,’ as that term draws meaning from our case
law.” Ibid.
Close review of Tecumseh’s policy compels a similar
conclusion. That policy was not shown to advance the
“ ‘special needs’ [existing] in the public school context [to
maintain] . . . swift and informal disciplinary procedures . . .
[and] order in the schools,” Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 653 (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted). See supra, at 846–848, 849–
853. What is left is the School District’s undoubted purpose
to heighten awareness of its abhorrence of, and strong stand
against, drug abuse. But the desire to augment communica-

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tion of this message does not trump the right of persons—
even of children within the schoolhouse gate—to be “secure
in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and sei-
zures.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 4.
In Chandler, the Court referred to a pathmarking dissent-
ing opinion in which “Justice Brandeis recognized the impor-
tance of teaching by example: ‘Our Government is the po-
tent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches
the whole people by its example.’ ” 520 U. S., at 322 (quoting
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 485 (1928)). That
wisdom should guide decisionmakers in the instant case: The
government is nowhere more a teacher than when it runs a
public school.
It is a sad irony that the petitioning School District seeks
to justify its edict here by trumpeting “the schools’ custodial
and tutelary responsibility for children.” Vernonia, 515
U. S., at 656. In regulating an athletic program or endeav-
oring to combat an exploding drug epidemic, a school’s custo-
dial obligations may permit searches that would otherwise
unacceptably abridge students’ rights. When custodial du-
ties are not ascendant, however, schools’ tutelary obligations
to their students require them to “teach by example” by
avoiding symbolic measures that diminish constitutional pro-
tections. “That [schools] are educating the young for citi-
zenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional
freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free
mind at its source and teach youth to discount important
principles of our government as mere platitudes.” West
Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 637 (1943).
* * *
For the reasons stated, I would affirm the judgment of
the Tenth Circuit declaring the testing policy at issue
unconstitutional.