A fair test

Alcohol and high school proms are, sadly, linked.

Joseph Malone, who’s the principal at Portland’s Grant High School, doesn’t claim that he has devised a way to sever that link.

But he’d sure like to fray it some.

Malone will require all students to be tested with a Breathalyzer device before they enter Grant High’s prom on May 14.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission will supply the Breathalyzers and monitor (but not actually administer) the tests.

Students whose breath shows any amount of alcohol won’t be able to attend the prom, since Grant High School has a zero tolerance policy for alcohol.

Policy aside, it’s also against the law for anyone younger than 21 to drink alcohol.

We like Malone’s idea. And, although surveys show most Oregon high students don’t drink alcohol, we also believe it’s an idea officials from all high schools ought to consider.

But if Malone’s edict persuades even one student who would otherwise have had a few drinks before the dance, then it will qualify as a success.

Sure some students might just wait to imbibe until after the prom.

But pointing out the obvious — that principals can’t control every aspect of their students’ lives — hardly ranks as a sound  basis for the argument that principals shouldn’t even bother with the aspects they do have authority over.

Like the prom.

That’s the sort of permissive, defeatist attitude that leads parents to saying, well, since kids are going to drink no matter what, we ought to just tap the keg right here at home. At least we’ll know where they are when they start stumbling around, right?

As for those who try to inject the Fourth Amendment into this matter, that legal ground is relatively well-trodden as regards the authority of public school officials in school-sponsored events.

Courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled for instance that schools can test students for drugs. An Oregon lawsuit, the 1995 Vernonia school case, is among the established Supreme Court precedents.

That ruling, in which a majority of the justices concluded that Vernonia’s policy was constitutional, was controversial in part because it applied to a specific group of students.

The Grant High prom testing, though, will be required of all students who want to attend the prom.

Where the test is conducted is significant, as well.

If the school sent people to students’ homes and required them to submit there to a breath test, that would be unconstitutional.

But as the Supreme Court noted in the Vernonia case: “Fourth Amendment rights, no less than First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, are different in public schools than elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disregard the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.”

We believe Principal Malone’s effort to ensure that students are sober when they attend Grant High School’s prom qualifies, to paraphrase the High Court, as a reasonable exercise of custodial responsibility.