For their own good and that of their classmates, public school children are routinely required to submit to various physical examinations, and to be vaccinated against various diseases." Testing student athletes for drugs was necessary, said Scalia, because of health reasons, much like vaccinations. Scalia also argued that student athletes have a reduced expectation of privacy, given that they have agreed to participate in a sport. Deterring drug use amongst students, wrote Scalia, was more important than students' constitutional rights. Scalia also found that the method by which the search was conducted, namely that "process of obtaining urine samples under the Policy are negligible, since the conditions of collection are nearly identical to those typically encountered in public restrooms. In addition, the tests look only for standard drugs, not medical conditions, and the results are released to a limited group."

Justice O'Connor, however, dissented, pointing out that non-individuated searches have seldom been allowed under the Fourth Amendment. "The view that mass, suspicionless searches, however evenhanded, are generally unreasonable remains inviolate in the criminal law enforcement context… Thus, it remains the law that the police...

Earls, a school's drug testing policy that also applied to non-athletic extracurrculars and was upheld by the Court (Forensic Evidence, 2009). However, there are some signs that the Court's decision-making philosophy has shifted. In 2003, the Court found in favor of Savana Redding, an eight-grader who had been strip searched on suspicion of having ibuprofen on her person. In Safford Unified School District et al. v. Redding, the interest of the state in protecting children from relatively harmless drugs was seemed minor in relation to the egregious violation of Redding's rights, which was conducted without her parent's permission. But the intrusive nature of the search was more important in the Court's decision than the fact that Redding was not a member of extracurricular activities and had thus not given her consent by implication.
References

Do school children have Fourth Amendment rights? (2009). Forensic Evidence. Retrieved December 18, 2009 at http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/Police/school_4th.html

Safford Unified School District et al. v. Redding. (2009). U.S. Supreme Court.

Retrieved December 18, 2009 at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-479.pdf

Veronica School District 47J, Petitioner v. Wayne Action et ux., etc., (1991). Cornell

University Law School. Retrieved December 18, 2009 at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-590.ZS.html