Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls, 536 U. S. 822 (2002)

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854 BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.

NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. v. EARLS Ginsburg, J., dissenting

susceptibility to drug-related injury, and their heavy involvement with drug use. The Tecumseh district seeks to test a much larger population associated with none of these factors. It does so, moreover, without carefully safeguarding student confidentiality and without regard to the program's untoward effects. A program so sweeping is not sheltered by Vernonia; its unreasonable reach renders it impermissible under the Fourth Amendment.

II

In Chandler, this Court inspected "Georgia's requirement that candidates for state office pass a drug test"; we held that the requirement "d[id] not fit within the closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches." 520 U. S., at 309. Georgia's testing prescription, the record showed, responded to no "concrete danger," id., at 319, was supported by no evidence of a particular problem, and targeted a group not involved in "high-risk, safety-sensitive tasks," id., at 321-322. We concluded:

"What is left, after close review of Georgia's scheme, is the image the State seeks to project. By requiring candidates for public office to submit to drug testing, Georgia displays its commitment to the struggle against drug abuse. . . . The need revealed, in short, is symbolic, not 'special,' as that term draws meaning from our case law." Ibid.

Close review of Tecumseh's policy compels a similar conclusion. That policy was not shown to advance the " 'special needs' [existing] in the public school context [to maintain] . . . swift and informal disciplinary procedures . . . [and] order in the schools," Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 653 (internal quotation marks omitted). See supra, at 846-848, 849- 853. What is left is the School District's undoubted purpose to heighten awareness of its abhorrence of, and strong stand against, drug abuse. But the desire to augment communica-

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