“Archie Manning Wants to Play Football” - Does the Pearl River policy violate the Fourth Amendment?

The Pearl River Student Athlete Drug Policy was instituted in 1989 in response to an Oregon school’s administrators’ fears that student athletes were using drugs. The Policy makes submitting to randomized drug testing through urinalysis tests mandatory for all students who want to participate in interscholastic sports. However, the Pearl River Student Athlete Drug Policy constitutes an unreasonable search, and therefore, violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures” because the school’s administration created this test in order to target one group of students (the athletes) based on hearsay evidence rather than probable cause. The Fourth Amendment guarantees, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In addition, the method of the testing, which stated that “once each week of the season the names of the athletes are placed in a ‘pool’ from which a student, with the supervision of two adults, blindly draws the names of 10% of the athletes for random testing,” cannot meet the burden of probable cause because these tests are randomized. Therefore, there is no reasonable suspicion for a single student to be doing drugs that exists in order for the subsequent search to be considered reasonable. In contrast, the search conducted in Townsend v California does not violate the Fourth Amendment because the teacher had probable cause to look in the girl’s purse for cigarettes after having caught her in the act of smoking on school grounds. In Townsend, “the court concluded that the Fourth Amendment did apply to searches carried out by school officials, it held that a school official may properly conduct a search of a student's person if the official has a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is in the process of being committed.” There was reasonable suspicion and probable cause to open the girl’s purse to look for cigarettes, which she had been caught in the act of committing a crime (smoking). Once the school official saw rolling papers in plain view, he then had probable cause to further search the purse, as rolling papers provided reasonable suspicion that the student was engaged in other drug use. This is when the school official uncovered the further physical evidence of marijuana dealing. 

However, in the Manning case, Archie Manning just wants to play football for his school and has no prior drug issues or disciplinary problems, and therefore, there is no reasonable suspicion or probable cause for him to have to undergo this invasive drug test or face punitive measures for refusing to submit to this unconstitutional test. In addition, the Drug Policy is unconstitutional because the scope of the search is too broad for it to be considered a “reasonable” search and instead, could only be considered a fishing expedition. There was no evidence of specific drugs that the athletes were taking, and therefore no way for the school to have any idea of what they should be testing for in the urinalysis tests. This violates the Fourth Amendment because a search that is not searching for something specific cannot be considered a reasonable search. In addition, urinalysis tests are unable to show alcohol use, which contradicts the Policy’s stated purpose of administering these tests in order to protect students from the deleterious effects of drug and alcohol use.

The Drug Policy was instituted based on the school administrators’ uncorroborated testimony and the “staff's direct observations of students using drugs or glamorizing drug and alcohol use” which then “led the administration to the inescapable conclusion that the rebellion was being fueled by alcohol and drug abuse.” Yet, none of these staff members testified to which students in particular were using which drugs, which eliminates any reasonable suspicion as well as contradicts the stated purpose of the Student Athlete Drug Policy “to prevent student athletes from using drugs, to protect their health and safety, and to provide drug users with assistance programs.” Dealing with a drug fueled “rebellion” was not included in the stated purpose of the Policy, which makes the tests administered under false pretenses. Also, the implementation of this Policy was too broad and punitive. Most concerningly, student athletes were denied due process, which is a direct violation of the Fifth Amendment, which states that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Since the students are unable to view their own test results or given a chance for rebuttal before being subject to punitive measures (not being able to play sports), the Drug Policy is unfairly weighted in the school administration’s favor.

The Pearl River Student Athlete Drug Policy violates the Fourth Amendment because it does not constitute a “reasonable search and seizure” due to the randomized nature of the testing which eliminates the possibility of probable cause, the broad scope of the testing which does not “particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” and the procedure of the testing and follow up steps which strip students of due process by denying them the opportunity for rebuttal in the face of accusations and punitive measures. Thus, Archie Manning should be able to play football because these drug tests violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and his refusal to consent to these drug tests is merely him exercising his constitutional rights.