Mandatory Steroid Testing of High School Athletes: A Synthesis of State Initiatives and Federal Constitutional Rights

Abstract

In an effort to protect schoolchildren from sacrificing their health for steroid-induced athletic grandeur, some states have experimented with laws implementing suspicionless drug testing of student athletes. These laws leave open several avenues for legal challenges to be brought through the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure found in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Such drug testing laws, both current and future, should align the policy goals of the initiatives with the constitutional framework of the United States Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence as it specifically relates to suspicionless drug testing of schoolchildren. To assist those interested in such initiatives, the authors have attempted to synthesize the state initiatives with the federal constitutional restraints upon suspicionless searches conducted by public school officials.