Vernonia+School+District+v.+Acton

= BACKGROUND OF THE COURT CASE AND SITUATION = The Vernonia School District Case vs. Acton was took place from March 26 - June 28, 1995. This situation took place in Vernonia, Oregon. The problem was that there was a sudden rise in drug use in High School Students. The suppose "leaders" in this problem was high school athletes. This led to officials wanting to test student athletes for possible drug use. During these times the schools offered speakers and classes. As for the student athletes, they would test both male and female, and would take urinary test samples. They would only choose 10% of these people to get samples from every week. The consequences for getting caught using drugs were a six week urine sample period, undergo counseling for the drug problem or sitting out for the remainder of the season. James Acton was told he couldn't play football because he refused to do the urinalysis. The outcome of the court case favored in opinion of the Vernonia School District 6-3. The Majority opinion was written by Antonin Scalia. MAJORITY OPINION The majority opinion was favored for the school district and that it doesn't go against the 4th amendment. They chose this because they felt as if they do everything else in a public, but private environment. They shower in packs. They suit before practice and game time in locker rooms. And they also subject themselves to voluntary medical exams in order to play the sport. They compare it to it as an adult working in a highly supervised industry. They should, "e xpect intrusions upon normal rights and privileges, including privacy." The urinalysis test was intrudes the fourth amendment in two ways. They both found these as negligible reasons to go along with breaking the fourth amendment.

DISSENTING OPINION Justice O'Conner chose the dissenting side because he felt that individual suspision was needed in order to invade the privacy of the student athletes. They felt this case was invading the privacy in the 4th amendment. Also since that they had no evidence that the drugs were done on school grounds that the school shouldnt be involved as much as they are.