College Insurrection often covers stories dealing with First and Second Amendment issues on campus.

Today, here is something for the Fourth Amendment files:

A federal judge on Friday barred Linn State Technical College from requiring all students to undergo drug testing, finding that the rule violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

In the two years since Linn State imposed the testing requirement, the college has been in court over the issue, trying to fend off injunctions. Friday’s ruling provided a permanent injunction against the drug testing (with a few narrow exceptions for students in certain programs).

In her 62-page ruling, Judge Nanette K. Laughry repeatedly referred to the drug testing as the equivalent of a “suspicionless search,” and noted that the government needs a compelling reason to engage in such a search. Based on other court decisions, including a federal appeals court ruling on an earlier request for an injunction, Judge Laughry distinguished between drug testing for “safety selective training programs,” where the use of large or dangerous equipment by someone on drugs could pose a threat to others, and requiring drug tests of everyone.

The college argued that its policy was needed to promote student safety. But the ruling found little evidence of a danger to justify the privacy invasion of forcing students to take a drug test.

Further, the ruling suggests that the real motivation for the policy had nothing to do with concerns about student safety. The decision reviews various goals set by the college related to the drug testing policy, and also the minutes of the meetings where college board members discussed the idea — and the judge was critical in her analysis.

…..In her ruling, Judge Laughrey ordered the college not to test any students outside of a small number of programs (such as aviation maintenance) where there are valid safety issues, and said that the college must destroy urine specimens collected previously, and refund the $50 fee collected from students who were subject to the testing. (The Eastern Missouri division of the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the college on behalf of students forced to take drug tests, estimates that 450 students had to give urine tests — and pay for them — before the first temporary injunction was in place.)