State Technical College of Missouri can require all students to take drug tests, a federal appeals court ruled Monday on a 2-1 vote.
More than two years after U.S. District Court Judge Nanette Laughrey ruled the Linn-based, state technical college could use drug tests only in five specific programs, the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Laughrey's decision was too narrow.
"At bottom, on these facts and given the nature and inherent risks involved with the majority of Linn State's offerings," Judge C. Arlen Beam wrote for the court's two-judge majority, "we need not go past the stated safety risks obviously at play in Linn State's programs and become curriculum and student-management experts."
Later in the court's 20-page ruling, Beam wrote: "Linn State's student population comprised of roughly 1,200 students are primarily engaged in safety-sensitive and potentially dangerous curriculum due to the unique nature of this particular vocational and technical college and its limited focus."
The judge found testing the entire student population entering the school was reasonable and constitutional.
The ACLU of Missouri filed the federal lawsuit in 2011 - before Linn State changed its name to State Technical College - challenging a mandatory drug-testing policy the school's Board of Regents approved in June 2011, to be effective with the fall classes.
The lawsuit argued the policy violated the students' Fourth Amendment right "to be secure ... against unreasonable searches and seizures."
At the time it started the program, the school said the testing policy was intended "to provide a safe, healthy and productive environment for everyone who learns and works at Linn State Technical College by detecting, preventing and deterring drug use and abuse among students."
Students had to pay a $50 fee for the drug test and could be blocked from attending if they refused to be tested.
Laughrey initially issued a preliminary injunction, but the appeals court reversed her ruling "because we were unable to hold that the drug-testing policy is unconstitutional on its face in every conceivable circumstance," as the ACLU had argued.
After hearing more arguments, Laughrey issued the Sept. 13, 2013, ruling that limited the drug testing to five Linn State programs.
The ACLU didn't respond to a request for a comment for this story.
However, federal Judge Kermit E. Bye didn't agree with the majority opinion, and said in an eight-page dissent he would have upheld Laughrey's permanent injunction against the drug testing "for all but five of Linn State's academic programs, because the district court's program-by-program analysis is correct."
Bye also wrote Linn State "failed to present sufficient evidence demonstrating a special need for drug testing."
State Tech's lawyer, Kent Brown, said in a news release: "For colleges and universities the opinion recognizes for the first time that an "educational purpose' can constitute a "special need' of constitutional import.
"Previously the only "special need' recognized in this context to justify a departure from general Fourth Amendment analysis was "safety.' This opinion holds that in this context the college's "educational purpose' was an additional "special need' tipping the balance in favor of the reasonableness of the policy."
While he expects the ACLU to appeal, Brown said he expects the 8th Circuit's decision "will be the last word on the State Technical College of Missouri's drug testing policy."
State Tech President Don Claycomb said, in the news release: "From day one, our motivation was to do what was best for our students."