Klarinet Archive - Posting 001063.txt from 2002/06

From: "Gary Smith" <asemsi@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Music vs. drug testing
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 19:43:41 -0400

It's not necessarily profiling, and it's not necessarily that the choir is
considered a higher-than-average risk by the authorities. What it *is* is
that the authorities would like to test everyone they can, and anyone who
has opted in to any extra curricular activity from Prep Bowl to the Golf
team can be coerced (I'm sure that wouldn't be their term) into agreeing
that they might be tested in consideration of their being allowed to
participate.

In my state, and probably many others, there is the theory that when you get
a driver's license (perhaps because of some fine print in the
application/renewal form), you have granted "implied consent" (their phrase,
and their name for the ENTIRE DIVISION of the Dept. of Public Safety that
handles this quagmire) that any cop who feels like pulling you over can take
your vehicle apart looking for drugs if he or she feels like it. I'm not
sure they win this one in the courts every time, but this probably works
along similar lines.

In other words, in the relentless effort to chip away at that quaint old
concept of freedom from unreasonable search, they *will* take half a loaf.

Now, to tout for the other side, I think you could make a case ethically, if
not legally, that if the schools assume the legal responsibility for keeping
the inmates, excuse me, the kids safe from each other vis-a-vis guns,
knives, etc., i.e. acting en loco parentis or whatever the latin is, they
could be argued to have the right to search anyone at anytime anyway.

Which leads to a whole other discussion about whether the government should
have schools that you have to send your kids to and have to pay for whether
you use them or not, unless you're rich enough to pay for both. But I
decline to debate that one...

So-o-- what does everyone here think about Richard Stoltzman?

>From: w7wright@-----.net (William Wright)
>Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>To: klarinet@-----.org
>Subject: [kl] Music vs. drug testing
>Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 16:45:37 -0700 (PDT)
>
>If the list asks me to do so, I'll shut up about this.
>
>But the court system (a state Supreme Court? Federal? I'm not sure) has
>ruled that it's OK to do random testing of choir students while the
>entire student body of the same school is not tested.
>
>This is broader than just music, of course, because (I believe) the
>ruling applies to any school activity, not just to music. I can
>understand athletics, where the relationship between dugs and injury is
>obvious. ....and I'm *NOT* discussing the concept of random testing of
>an entire school district, nor of random locker searches. It's the
>thought of selecting a particular group such as music students, perhaps
>because it's easier to take on a small group than it is to take on an
>entire student population, or perhaps because it costs less money to do
>only the choir....
>
>probably this topic doesn't belong here.... sorry. But I'm pissed.
>
>
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