ACLU to sue Hawaii over teacher drug testing

[Dos Equis]

The ACLU on the wrong side of another issue.     We've had a slew of teachers involved with drug use and sales the past several years. 

Posted at 8:24 a.m., Friday, November 16, 2007

ACLU to sue Hawaii over teacher drug testing

By DAVID BRISCOE
Associated Press

HONOLULU — The American Civil Liberties Union has announced plans to sue the Lingle administration in federal court to halt what it said would be the nation's first program of random drug testing of public school teachers.
After Gov. Linda Lingle rebuffed a formal letter from ACLU Hawaii demanding the testing be scrapped, the group's executive director, Vanessa Chong, said the ACLU would seek a court order against the testing as an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights.

"The governor's willingness to sacrifice the fundamental rights of public employees is deplorable. It is incomprehensible that she advocates violating both the U.S. and state constitutions and wasting precious taxpayer dollars for this ineffective drug testing scheme," Chong said in a news release Thursday.

She said the policy would affect up to 13,500 teachers, librarians, administrative workers and other school employees.

The state developed the drug testing plan after police arrested a half dozen Department of Education employees, including at least four teachers, on drug-related offenses over six months last year.

The group, in an Oct. 4 demand letter to the governor, had given Lingle until Thursday to cancel the program. Her response came in an Oct. 22 note declaring nothing in the ACLU's letter convinces the administration the program should not go ahead.

The ACLU said it would be acting on behalf of 200 educators who had complained about the drug-testing policy.

A majority of teachers, however, approved the drug testing as part of a contract between the state and the Hawai'i State Teachers Association in May that also gave them two annual 4 percent salary hikes. More than 60 percent of union members voted "yes" on the contract.

The union says the governor had indicated she would refuse to sign a contract that did not include the drug testing. Some teachers said the plan treats them like prison parolees but they felt forced to vote for it to get the pay raise.

"The men and women who teach in the classrooms of Hawai'i's public schools are demoralized by the governor's decision to spend hundreds of dollars to drug test one teacher while they barely have enough money to provide students with textbooks and school supplies," said Carlie Ware, an ACLU Drug Law Reform Project attorney.

The ACLU also announced it is seeking more plaintiffs for the suit.

Last year, a Leilehua High School teacher was arrested for dealing crystal methamphetamine; two Mililani Middle School teachers were arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana before school, and a Windward O'ahu teacher was charged with conspiring to distribute more than two pounds of cocaine and 990 tablets of the illegal drug Ecstasy.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Nov/16/br/br9562803174.html

[Dos Equis]

The ACLU just doesn't get it.   

Teachers and ACLU warn the governor
Educators dispute that pay raises are tied to drug testing
By Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.com
A group of public school teachers called on Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday to retract her statement that implied that there will be no teacher pay raises if mandatory drug testing is not implemented.

American Civil Liberty Union officials joined teachers in delivering a letter to the Governor's Office that said Lingle was "legally inaccurate" in a statement after a Jan. 24 Board of Education vote against funding the drug testing. The testing was included in the contract signed last year.

"One side cannot breach a contract, then make the other side pay for it," said Richard Miller, retired professor and former dean of the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law. "There is no basis for taking away their raises simply because there is an argument between the Board of Education and the administration."

Lingle was not in her office when the letter was delivered. "She never made a statement that the pay raise would be withheld," said her spokesman Russell Pang. "What she said was the drug-testing provision is part of the contract and needs to be implemented."

Lingle told reporters at a Jan. 25 press conference, "We cannot effectuate this contract unless the conditions are carried out," referring to the drug program that state negotiators added as a non-negotiable item in bargaining talks.

A majority of teachers ratified the contract that provided 4 percent in pay increases during two years.

The ACLU is representing some teachers who challenge the constitutionality of random mandatory drug tests.

"The Constitution protects us from unreasonable searches of our person," said Tony Turbeville, a seventh-grade teacher at Kawananakoa Middle School. "Random testing is an assault on our fundamental constitutional rights. Open this door and we may never be able to shut it."

For teachers to be targeted for drug testing "is humiliating and degrading and extremely disrespectful," said Debbie Shirai, a sixth-grade teacher at Keonepoko Elementary School on the Big Island.

The letter to the governor said: "You are legally forbidden from claiming that a disputed portion of the agreement renders it entirely invalid.

"If the Board of Education or any other state entity blocks funding for teacher drug testing, the rest of the contract, including your promise to pay teachers' salaries, remains in full force."

ACLU Executive Director Vanessa Chong said more than 200 teachers have contacted the agency about challenging the drug-testing requirement in court.

The Board of Education unanimously rejected a Department of Education supplemental budget request to seek $523,723 from the Legislature to hire five workers and buy computer equipment for the drug program. Officials have said the cost of conducting tests will be at least double that amount.

"The ACLU continues to say it is a poor use of taxpayers' dollars when we are crying out to improve our classrooms, buy supplies, and scratching our heads to where the next generation of teachers will come from," Chong said.

Pang said, "We are waiting for the Thursday BOE meeting, when they said they will revisit the issue."

http://starbulletin.com/2008/02/02/news/story05.html

[Colossus_500]

Ridiculous!!!!!   I guess the ACLU values the rights of "druggy" teachers than they do the rights of students to be free of that type of influence.   

The ACLU is a joke!

[Dos Equis]

Ridiculous!!!!!   I guess the ACLU values the rights of "druggy" teachers than they do the rights of students to be free of that type of influence.   

The ACLU is a joke!

Absolutely ridiculous.  Drug use/sales by teachers has been a very serious problem here. 

[Colossus_500]

Absolutely ridiculous.  Drug use/sales by teachers has been a very serious problem here. 

That's a tragedy, man!!!