846 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.
NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS Ginsburg, J., dissenting
"volunteer" for extracurricular pursuits in the same way they might volunteer for honors classes: They subject themselves to additional requirements, but they do so in order to take full advantage of the education offered them. Cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 595 (1992) ("Attendance may not be required by official decree, yet it is apparent that a student is not free to absent herself from the graduation exercise in any real sense of the term 'voluntary,' for absence would require forfeiture of those intangible benefits which have motivated the student through youth and all her high school years.").
Voluntary participation in athletics has a distinctly different dimension: Schools regulate student athletes discretely because competitive school sports by their nature require communal undress and, more important, expose students to physical risks that schools have a duty to mitigate. For the very reason that schools cannot offer a program of competitive athletics without intimately affecting the privacy of students, Vernonia reasonably analogized school athletes to "adults who choose to participate in a closely regulated industry." 515 U. S., at 657 (internal quotation marks omitted). Industries fall within the closely regulated category when the nature of their activities requires substantial government oversight. See, e. g., United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311, 315-316 (1972). Interscholastic athletics similarly require close safety and health regulation; a school's choir, band, and academic team do not.
In short, Vernonia applied, it did not repudiate, the principle that "the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search." T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 341 (emphasis added). Enrollment in a public school, and election to participate in school activities beyond the bare minimum that the curriculum requires, are indeed factors relevant to reasonableness, but they do not on their own justify intrusive, suspicionless searches. Vernonia, accordingly, did not rest upon these
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