On The Front Lines
Rutherford Institute Provides Public Schools with Checklist for Assessing Need for Breathalyzer Test, Insists on Parental Consent
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.-- In an effort to protect students and parents against encroachments on their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the public schools, The Rutherford Institute has proposed a policy for the use of breathalyzer testing by government officials. The Institute's proposed policy comes in response to a recent incident at Western Albemarle High School in which a student was subjected to a police-administered breathalyzer test without her parents' consent, based largely on questionable accusations by two unidentified fellow students, and in the absence of any formal written protocol regarding the administration of such a test to students. In providing the public schools with a policy regarding the use of breathalyzer tests, Institute attorneys point out that such tests should only be administered with a parent/guardian's consent when a student exhibits certain symptoms of alcohol use.
"If the schools are determined to use such intrusive measures as breathalyzer tests on students, at the very least, administrators should adopt a protocol to govern when and how the testing is done," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Parents do not relinquish their rights when they send their children to school, nor should young people be treated as wards of the state just because they attend a public school."
A copy of the proposed breathalyzer testing policy is available here.
The Rutherford Institute was prompted to weigh in on the need for constitutionally-sound guidelines regarding the administration of breathalyzer testing in the public schools after a recent incident in Albemarle County. According to the parents of a Western Albemarle sophomore, police administered a breathalyzer test to their daughter on March 10, 2011, based on an unsubstantiated accusation by two fellow students that she had used alcohol. The student's accusers, who remain unidentified, told a teacher that the sophomore had been drinking lemonade mixed with alcohol at school. The teacher allegedly reported the accusation to Associate Principal Greg Domecq without making any apparent efforts to corroborate it. Dr. Domecq observed the student during lunch but saw no indications that she was drinking alcohol. In fact, Dr. Domecq later told the student's father that the girl's behavior at lunchtime was not unusual and that she "seemed fine."
Despite the lack of any independent evidence or suspicion of alcohol use by a school official, Dr. Domecq allegedly took the young girl out of her next class and escorted her to his office, where a policeman--a county law enforcement officer--was waiting to administer a breathalyzer test. The test proved the accusations to be false: the young girl had no alcohol in her system.
Rutherford Institute attorneys called on school officials to cease their practice of subjecting students to police-administered breathalyzer tests without their parents' knowledge or consent and based on nothing more than an accusation of alcohol use by another student, regardless of the credibility of the accusation. The proposed breathalyzer policy sets forth the conditions under which testing can occur and includes an "observation checklist" to assist administrators in determining if testing is needed based on an objective analysis of the student's behavior rather than relying on unsubstantiated accusations.
