ABSTRACT
Vernonia school officials began drug testing after observing a significant increase in disciplinary problems, including drug use, in the high school. An investigation concluded that high school athletes participated in illicit drug use and that such drug use increased the risk of sports-related injury. James Acton, a student, challenged the policy after he was barred from his school's football program when he refused to be tested. Justice Antonin Scalia noted that the privacy interest of students was diminished by the fact that schoolchildren are committed to the temporary custody of the state, which was expected to exercise more supervision and control than it exercised over free adults. School students already submitted to physical examinations and vaccinations and thus had a lesser privacy expectation with regard to medical procedures than the general population. Schools with much less evidence of drug problems relied on Vernonia as a basis for testing all students participating in extracurricular activities.
