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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 94-590
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VERNONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT 47J, PETITIONER
v. WAYNE ACTON, et ux., etc.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the ninth circuit
[June 26, 1995]

  Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The Student Athlete Drug Policy adopted by School
District 47J in the town of Vernonia, Oregon, authorizes
random urinalysis drug testing of students who partici-
pate in the District's school athletics programs.  We
granted certiorari to decide whether this violates the
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United
States Constitution.

                            I
                            A
  Petitioner Vernonia School District 47J (District)
operates one high school and three grade schools in the
logging community of Vernonia, Oregon.  As elsewhere
in small-town America, school sports play a prominent
role in the town's life, and student athletes are admired
in their schools and in the community.
  Drugs had not been a major problem in Vernonia
schools.  In the mid-to-late 1980's, however, teachers and
administrators observed a sharp increase in drug use.
Students began to speak out about their attraction to
the drug culture, and to boast that there was nothing
the school could do about it.  Along with more drugs
came more disciplinary problems.  Between 1988 and
1989 the number of disciplinary referrals in Vernonia
schools rose to more than twice the number reported in
the early 1980's, and several students were suspended.
Students became increasingly rude during class; out-
bursts of profane language became common.
  Not only were student athletes included among the
drug users but, as the District Court found, athletes
were the leaders of the drug culture.  796 F. Supp.
1354, 1357 (D. Ore. 1992).  This caused the District's
administrators particular concern, since drug use
increases the risk of sports-related injury.  Expert
testimony at the trial confirmed the deleterious effects
of drugs on motivation, memory, judgment, reaction,
coordination, and performance.  The high school football
and wrestling coach witnessed a severe sternum injury
suffered by a wrestler, and various omissions of safety
procedures and misexecutions by football players, all
attributable in his belief to the effects of drug use.
  Initially, the District responded to the drug problem
by offering special classes, speakers, and presentations
designed to deter drug use.  It even brought in a
specially trained dog to detect drugs, but the drug
problem persisted.  According to the District Court:
-[T]he administration was at its wits end and . . . a
large segment of the student body, particularly those
involved in interscholastic athletics, was in a state
of rebellion.  Disciplinary problems had reached
`epidemic proportions.'  The coincidence of an almost
three-fold increase in classroom disruptions and
disciplinary reports along with the staff's direct
observations of students using drugs or glamorizing
drug and alcohol use led the administration to the
inescapable conclusion that the rebellion was being
fueled by alcohol and drug abuse as well as the
student's misperceptions about the drug culture.-
Ibid.
At that point, District officials began considering a drug-
testing program.  They held a parent -input night- to
discuss the proposed Student Athlete Drug Policy
(Policy), and the parents in attendance gave their
unanimous approval.  The school board approved the
Policy for implementation in the fall of 1989.  Its
expressed purpose is to prevent student athletes from
using drugs, to protect their health and safety, and to
provide drug users with assistance programs.

                            B
  The Policy applies to all students participating in
interscholastic athletics.  Students wishing to play sports
must sign a form consenting to the testing and must
obtain the written consent of their parents.  Athletes are
tested at the beginning of the season for their sport.  In
addition, once each week of the season the names of the
athletes are placed in a -pool- from which a student,
with the supervision of two adults, blindly draws the
names of 10% of the athletes for random testing.  Those
selected are notified and tested that same day, if
possible.
  The student to be tested completes a specimen control
form which bears an assigned number.  Prescription
medications that the student is taking must be identified
by providing a copy of the prescription or a doctor's
authorization.  The student then enters an empty locker
room accompanied by an adult monitor of the same sex.
Each boy selected produces a sample at a urinal, re-
maining fully clothed with his back to the monitor, who
stands approximately 12 to 15 feet behind the student.
Monitors may (though do not always) watch the student
while he produces the sample, and they listen for nor-
mal sounds of urination.  Girls produce samples in an
enclosed bathroom stall, so that they can be heard but
not observed.  After the sample is produced, it is given
to the monitor, who checks it for temperature and tam-
pering and then transfers it to a vial.
  The samples are sent to an independent laboratory,
which routinely tests them for amphetamines, cocaine,
and marijuana. Other drugs, such as LSD, may be
screened at the request of the District, but the identity
of a particular student does not determine which drugs
will be tested.  The laboratory's procedures are 99.94%
accurate.  The District follows strict procedures regard-
ing the chain of custody and access to test results.  The
laboratory does not know the identity of the students
whose samples it tests.  It is authorized to mail written
test reports only to the superintendent and to provide
test results to District personnel by telephone only after
the requesting official recites a code confirming his
authority.  Only the superintendent, principals, vice-prin-
cipals, and athletic directors have access to test results,
and the results are not kept for more than one year.
  If a sample tests positive, a second test is adminis-
tered as soon as possible to confirm the result.  If the
second test is negative, no further action is taken.  If
the second test is positive, the athlete's parents are
notified, and the school principal convenes a meeting
with the student and his parents, at which the student
is given the option of (1) participating for six weeks in
an assistance program that includes weekly urinalysis,
or (2) suffering suspension from athletics for the remain-
der of the current season and the next athletic season.
The student is then retested prior to the start of the
next athletic season for which he or she is eligible.  The
Policy states that a second offense results in automatic
imposition of option (2); a third offense in suspension for
the remainder of the current season and the next two
athletic seasons.

                            C
  In the fall of 1991, respondent James Acton, then a
seventh-grader, signed up to play football at one of the
District's grade schools.  He was denied participation,
however, because he and his parents refused to sign the
testing consent forms.  The Actons filed suit, seeking
declaratory and injunctive relief from enforcement of the
Policy on the grounds that it violated the Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitu-
tion and Article I, 9, of the Oregon Constitution.  After
a bench trial, the District Court entered an order deny-
ing the claims on the merits and dismissing the action.
796 F. Supp., at 1355.  The United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the
Policy violated both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amend-
ments and Article I, 9, of the Oregon Constitution.  23
F. 3d 1514 (1994).  We granted certiorari.  513 U. S. ___
(1994).

                           II
  The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitu-
tion provides that the Federal Government shall not
violate -[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreason-
able searches and seizures, . . . .-   We have held that
the Fourteenth Amendment extends this constitutional
guarantee to searches and seizures by state officers,
Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 213 (1960),
including public school officials, New Jersey v. T. L. O.,
469 U. S. 325, 336-337 (1985).  In Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 617 (1989), we
held that state-compelled collection and testing of urine,
such as that required by the Student Athlete Drug
Policy, constitutes a -search- subject to the demands of
the Fourth Amendment.  See also Treasury Employees
v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656, 665 (1989).
  As the text of the Fourth Amendment indicates, the
ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a govern-
mental search is -reasonableness.-  At least in a case
such as this, where there was no clear practice, either
approving or disapproving the type of search at issue, at
the time the constitutional provision was enacted,
whether a particular search meets the reasonableness
standard -`is judged by balancing its intrusion on the
individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its
promotion of legitimate governmental interests.'- Skin-
ner, supra, at 619  (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440
U. S. 648, 654 (1979)).  Where a search is undertaken
by law enforcement officials to discover evidence of
criminal wrongdoing, this Court has said that reason-
ableness generally requires the obtaining of a judicial
warrant, Skinner, supra, at 619.  Warrants cannot be
issued, of course, without the showing of probable cause
required by the Warrant Clause.  But a warrant is not
required to establish the reasonableness of all govern-
ment searches; and when a warrant is not required (and
the Warrant Clause therefore not applicable), probable
cause is not invariably required either.  A search
unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional, we
have said, -when special needs, beyond the normal need
for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-
cause requirement impracticable.-  Griffin v. Wisconsin,
483 U. S. 868, 873 (1987) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
  We have found such -special needs- to exist in the
public-school context.  There, the warrant requirement
-would unduly interfere with the maintenance of the
swift and informal disciplinary procedures [that are]
needed,- and -strict adherence to the requirement that
searches be based upon probable cause- would undercut
-the substantial need of teachers and administrators for
freedom to maintain order in the schools.- T. L. O.,
supra, at 340, 341.  The school search we approved in
T. L. O., while not based on probable cause, was based
on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.  As we explic-
itly acknowledged, however, -`the Fourth Amendment
imposes no irreducible requirement of such suspicion,'-
id., at 342, n. 8 (quoting United States v. Martinez-
Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 560-561 (1976)).  We have upheld
suspicionless searches and seizures to conduct drug
testing of railroad personnel involved in train accidents,
see Skinner, supra; to conduct random drug testing of
federal customs officers who carry arms or are involved
in drug interdiction, see Von Raab, supra; and to
maintain automobile checkpoints looking for illegal
immigrants and contraband, Martinez-Fuerte, supra, and
drunk drivers, Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444 (1990).

                           III
  The first factor to be considered is the nature of the
privacy interest upon which the search here at issue
intrudes.  The Fourth Amendment does not protect all
subjective expectations of privacy, but only those that
society recognizes as -legitimate.-  T. L. O., 469 U. S.,
at 338.  What expectations are legitimate varies, of
course, with context, id., at 337, depending, for example,
upon whether the individual asserting the privacy
interest is at home, at work, in a car, or in a public
park.  In addition, the legitimacy of certain privacy
expectations vis---vis the State may depend upon the
individual's legal relationship with the State.  For
example, in Griffin, supra, we held that, although a
-probationer's home, like anyone else's, is protected by
the Fourth Amendmen[t],- the supervisory relationship
between probationer and State justifies -a degree of
impingement upon [a probationer's] privacy that would
not be constitutional if applied to the public at large.-
483 U. S., at 873, 875.  Central, in our view, to the
present case is the fact that the subjects of the Policy
are (1) children, who (2) have been committed to the
temporary custody of the State as schoolmaster.
  Traditionally at common law, and still today, uneman-
cipated minors lack some of the most fundamental rights
of self-determination-including even the right of liberty
in its narrow sense, i.e., the right to come and go at
will.  They are subject, even as to their physical free-
dom, to the control of their parents or guardians.  See
59 Am. Jur. 2d 10 (1987). When parents place minor
children in private schools for their education, the
teachers and administrators of those schools stand in
loco parentis over the children entrusted to them.  In
fact, the tutor or schoolmaster is the very prototype of
that status.  As Blackstone describes it, a parent -may
. . . delegate part of his parental authority, during his
life, to the tutor or schoolmaster of his child; who is
then in loco parentis, and has such a portion of the
power of the parent committed to his charge, viz. that
of restraint and correction, as may be necessary to
answer the purposes for which he is employed.-  1 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 441
(1769).
  In T. L. O. we rejected the notion that public schools,
like private schools, exercise only parental power over
their students, which of course is not subject to constitu-
tional constraints.  T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 336.  Such a
view of things, we said, -is not entirely `consonant with
compulsory education laws,'- ibid. (quoting Ingraham v.
Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 662 (1977)), and is inconsistent
with our prior decisions treating school officials as state
actors for purposes of the Due Process and Free Speech
Clauses, T. L. O., supra, at 336.  But while denying that
the State's power over schoolchildren is formally no more
than the delegated power of their parents, T. L. O. did
not deny, but indeed emphasized, that the nature of that
power is custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of
supervision and control that could not be exercised over
free adults.  -[A] proper educational environment re-
quires close supervision of schoolchildren, as well as the
enforcement of rules against conduct that would be per-
fectly permissible if undertaken by an adult.-  469 U. S.,
at 339.  While we do not, of course, suggest that public
schools as a general matter have such a degree of con-
trol over children as to give rise to a constitutional
-duty to protect,- see DeShaney v. Winnebago County
Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U. S. 189, 200 (1989), we
have acknowledged that for many purposes -school au-
thorities ac[t] in loco parentis,- Bethel School Dist.
No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 684 (1986), with the
power and indeed the duty to -inculcate the habits and
manners of civility,- id., at 681 (internal quotation
marks omitted).  Thus, while children assuredly do not
-shed their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse
gate,- Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community
School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969), the nature of
those rights is what is appropriate for children in school.
See, e.g., Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 581-582 (1975)
(due process for a student challenging disciplinary
suspension requires only that the teacher -informally
discuss the alleged misconduct with the student minutes
after it has occurred-); Fraser, supra, at 683 (-[I]t is a
highly appropriate function of public school education to
prohibit the use of vulgar and offensive terms in public
discourse-); Hazlewood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484
U. S. 260, 273 (1988) (public school authorities may
censor school-sponsored publications, so long as the
censorship is -reasonably related to legitimate pedagogi-
cal concerns-); Ingraham, supra, at 682 (-[I]mposing
additional administrative safeguards [upon corporal
punishment] . . . would . . . entail a significant intrusion
into an area of primary educational responsibility-).
  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.  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.  According to
the American Academy of Pediatrics, most public schools
-provide vision and hearing screening and dental and
dermatological checks. . . . Others also mandate scoliosis
screening at appropriate grade levels.-  Committee on
School Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, School
Health: A Guide for Health Professionals 2 (1987).  In
the 1991-1992 school year, all 50 States required public-
school students to be vaccinated against diphtheria,
measles, rubella, and polio.  U. S. Dept. of Health &
Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for
Disease Control, State Immunization Requirements
1991-1992, p. 1.  Particularly with regard to medical
examinations and procedures, therefore, -students within
the school environment have a lesser expectation of
privacy than members of the population generally.-
T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 348 (Powell, J., concurring).
  Legitimate privacy expectations are even less with
regard to student athletes.  School sports are not for the
bashful.  They require -suiting up- before each practice
or event, and showering and changing afterwards.
Public school locker rooms, the usual sites for these
activities, are not notable for the privacy they afford.
The locker rooms in Vernonia are typical: no individual
dressing rooms are provided; shower heads are lined up
along a wall, unseparated by any sort of partition or
curtain; not even all the toilet stalls have doors.  As the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
has noted, there is -an element of `communal undress'
inherent in athletic participation,- Schaill by Kross v.
Tippecanoe County School Corp., 864 F. 2d 1309, 1318
(1988).
  There is an additional respect in which school athletes
have a reduced expectation of privacy.  By choosing to
-go out for the team,- they voluntarily subject them-
selves to a degree of regulation even higher than that
imposed on students generally. In Vernonia's public
schools, they must submit to a preseason physical exam
(James testified that his included the giving of a urine
sample, App. 17), they must acquire adequate insurance
coverage or sign an insurance waiver, maintain a
minimum grade point average, and comply with any
-rules of conduct, dress, training hours and related
matters as may be established for each sport by the
head coach and athletic director with the principal's
approval.-  Record, Exh. 2, p. 30, -8.  Somewhat like
adults who choose to participate in a -closely regulated
industry,- students who voluntarily participate in school
athletics have reason to expect intrusions upon normal
rights and privileges, including privacy.  See Skinner,
489 U. S., at 627; United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S.
311, 316 (1972).

                           IV
  Having considered the scope of the legitimate expecta-
tion of privacy at issue here, we turn next to the
character of the intrusion that is complained of.  We
recognized in Skinner that collecting the samples for
urinalysis intrudes upon -an excretory function tradition-
ally shielded by great privacy.-  Skinner, 489 U. S., at
626.  We noted, however, that the degree of intrusion
depends upon the manner in which production of the
urine sample is monitored. Ibid.  Under the District's
Policy, male students produce samples at a urinal along
a wall.  They remain fully clothed and are only observed
from behind, if at all.  Female students produce samples
in an enclosed stall, with a female monitor standing
outside listening only for sounds of tampering.  These
conditions are nearly identical to those typically encoun-
tered in public restrooms, which men, women, and
especially school children use daily.  Under such condi-
tions, the privacy interests compromised by the process
of obtaining the urine sample are in our view negligible.
  The other privacy-invasive aspect of urinalysis is, of
course, the information it discloses concerning the state
of the subject's body, and the materials he has ingested.
In this regard it is significant that the tests at issue
here look only for drugs, and not for whether the
student is, for example, epileptic, pregnant, or diabetic.
See Skinner, supra, at 617.  Moreover, the drugs for
which the samples are screened are standard, and do
not vary according to the identity of the student.  And
finally, the results of the tests are disclosed only to a
limited class of school personnel who have a need to
know; and they are not turned over to law enforcement
authorities or used for any internal disciplinary function.
796 F. Supp., at 1364; see also 23 F. 3d, at 1521.
  Respondents argue, however, that the District's Policy
is in fact more intrusive than this suggests, because it
requires the students, if they are to avoid sanctions for
a falsely positive test, to identify in advance prescription
medications they are taking.  We agree that this raises
some cause for concern.  In Von Raab, we flagged as one
of the salutary features of the Customs Service drug-
testing program the fact that employees were not
required to disclose medical information unless they
tested positive, and, even then, the information was
supplied to a licensed physician rather than to the
Government employer.  See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at
672-673, n. 2.  On the other hand, we have never
indicated that requiring advance disclosure of medica-
tions is per se unreasonable.  Indeed, in Skinner we held
that it was not -a significant invasion of privacy.-
Skinner, 489 U. S., at 626, n. 7.  It can be argued that,
in Skinner, the disclosure went only to the medical
personnel taking the sample, and the Government
personnel analyzing it, see id., at 609, but see id., at 610
(railroad personnel responsible for forwarding the
sample, and presumably accompanying information, to
the Government's testing lab); and that disclosure to
teachers and coaches-to persons who personally know
the student-is a greater invasion of privacy.  Assuming
for the sake of argument that both those propositions
are true, we do not believe they establish a difference
that respondents are entitled to rely on here.
  The General Authorization Form that respondents
refused to sign, which refusal was the basis for James's
exclusion from the sports program, said only (in relevant
part): -I . . . authorize the Vernonia School District to
conduct a test on a urine specimen which I provide to
test for drugs and/or alcohol use.  I also authorize the
release of information concerning the results of such a
test to the Vernonia School District and to the parents
and/or guardians of the student.- App. 10-11.  While the
practice of the District seems to have been to have a
school official take medication information from the
student at the time of the test, see App. 29, 42, that
practice is not set forth in, or required by, the Policy,
which says simply: -Student athletes who . . . are or
have been taking prescription medication must provide
verification (either by a copy of the prescription or by
doctor's authorization) prior to being tested.-  App. 8.
It may well be that, if and when James was selected for
random testing at a time that he was taking medication,
the School District would have permitted him to provide
the requested information in a confidential manner-for
example, in a sealed envelope delivered to the testing
lab.  Nothing in the Policy contradicts that, and when
respondents choose, in effect, to challenge the Policy on
its face, we will not assume the worst.  Accordingly, we
reach the same conclusion as in Skinner: that the
invasion of privacy was not significant.

                            V
  Finally, we turn to consider the nature and immediacy
of the governmental concern at issue here, and the
efficacy of this means for meeting it.  In both Skinner
and Von Raab, we characterized the government interest
motivating the search as -compelling.-  Skinner, supra,
at 628 (interest in preventing railway accidents); Von
Raab, supra, at 670 (interest in insuring fitness of
customs officials to interdict drugs and handle firearms).
Relying on these cases, the District Court held that
because the District's program also called for drug
testing in the absence of individualized suspicion, the
District -must demonstrate a `compelling need' for the
program.-  796 F. Supp., at 1363.  The Court of Appeals
appears to have agreed with this view.  See 23 F. 3d, at
1526.  It is a mistake, however, to think that the phrase
-compelling state interest,- in the Fourth Amendment
context, describes a fixed, minimum quantum of govern-
mental concern, so that one can dispose of a case by
answering in isolation the question: Is there a compel-
ling state interest here?  Rather, the phrase describes
an interest which appears important enough to justify
the particular search at hand, in light of other factors
which show the search to be relatively intrusive upon a
genuine expectation of privacy.  Whether that relatively
high degree of government concern is necessary in this
case or not, we think it is met.
  That the nature of the concern is important-indeed,
perhaps compelling-can hardly be doubted.  Deterring
drug use by our Nation's schoolchildren is at least as
important as enhancing efficient enforcement of the
Nation's laws against the importation of drugs, which
was the governmental concern in Von Raab, supra, at
668, or deterring drug use by engineers and trainmen,
which was the governmental concern in Skinner, supra,
at 628.  School years are the time when the physical,
psychological, and addictive effects of drugs are most
severe.  -Maturing nervous systems are more critically
impaired by intoxicants than mature ones are; childhood
losses in learning are lifelong and profound-; -children
grow chemically dependent more quickly than adults,
and their record of recovery is depressingly poor.-
Hawley, The Bumpy Road to Drug-Free Schools, 72 Phi
Delta Kappan 310, 314 (1990).  See also Estroff,
Schwartz, & Hoffmann, Adolescent Cocaine Abuse: Ad-
dictive Potential, Behavioral and Psychiatric Effects,
28 Clinical Pediatrics 550 (Dec. 1989); Kandel, Davies,
Karus, & Yamaguchi, The Consequences in Young Adult-
hood of Adolescent Drug Involvement, 43 Arch. Gen.
Psychiatry 746 (Aug. 1986).  And of course the effects of
a drug-infested school are visited not just upon the
users, but upon the entire student body and faculty, as
the educational process is disrupted.  In the present
case, moreover, the necessity for the State to act is mag-
nified by the fact that this evil is being visited not just
upon individuals at large, but upon children for whom
it has undertaken a special responsibility of care and di-
rection.  Finally, it must not be lost sight of that this
program is directed more narrowly to drug use by school
athletes, where the risk of immediate physical harm to
the drug user or those with whom he is playing his
sport is particularly high.  Apart from psychological
effects, which include impairment of judgment, slow re-
action time, and a lessening of the perception of pain,
the particular drugs screened by the District's Policy
have been demonstrated to pose substantial physical
risks to athletes.  Amphetamines produce an -artificially
induced heart rate increase, [p]eripheral vasoconstriction,
[b]lood pressure increase, and [m]asking of the normal
fatigue response,- making them a -very dangerous drug
when used during exercise of any type.-  Hawkins,
Drugs and Other Ingesta: Effects on Athletic Perform-
ance, in H. Appenzeller, Managing Sports and Risk
Management Strategies 90, 90-91 (1993).  Marijuana
causes -[i]rregular blood pressure responses during
changes in body position,- -[r]eduction in the oxygen-
carrying capacity of the blood,- and -[i]nhibition of the
normal sweating responses resulting in increased body
temperature.-  Id., at 94.  Cocaine produces -[v]asocon-
striction[,] [e]levated blood pressure,- and -[p]ossible
coronary artery spasms and myocardial infarction.- Ibid.
  As for the immediacy of the District's concerns: We
are not inclined to question-indeed, we could not
possibly find clearly erroneous-the District Court's
conclusion that -a large segment of the student body,
particularly those involved in interscholastic athletics,
was in a state of rebellion,- that -[d]isciplinary actions
had reached `epidemic proportions,'- and that -the
rebellion was being fueled by alcohol and drug abuse as
well as by the student's misperceptions about the drug
culture.-  796 F. Supp., at 1357.  That is an immediate
crisis of greater proportions than existed in Skinner,
where we upheld the Government's drug testing program
based on findings of drug use by railroad employees na-
tionwide, without proof that a problem existed on the
particular railroads whose employees were subject to the
test.  See Skinner, 489 U. S., at 607.  And of much
greater proportions than existed in Von Raab, where
there was no documented history of drug use by any
customs officials.  See Von Raab, 489 U. S., at 673; id.,
at 683 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
  As to the efficacy of this means for addressing the
problem: It seems to us self-evident that a drug problem
largely fueled by the -role model- effect of athletes' drug
use, and of particular danger to athletes, is effectively
addressed by making sure that athletes do not use
drugs.  Respondents argue that a -less intrusive means
to the same end- was available, namely, -drug testing on
suspicion of drug use.-  Brief for Respondents 45-46.
We have repeatedly refused to declare that only the
-least intrusive- search practicable can be reasonable
under the Fourth Amendment.  Skinner, supra, at 629,
n. 9 (collecting cases).  Respondents' alternative entails
substantial difficulties-if it is indeed practicable at all.
It may be impracticable, for one thing, simply because
the parents who are willing to accept random drug
testing for athletes are not willing to accept accusatory
drug testing for all students, which transforms the
process into a badge of shame.  Respondents' proposal
brings the risk that teachers will impose testing arbi-
trarily upon troublesome but not drug-likely students.
It generates the expense of defending lawsuits that
charge such arbitrary imposition, or that simply demand
greater process before accusatory drug testing is im-
posed.  And not least of all, it adds to the ever-expand-
ing diversionary duties of schoolteachers the new
function of spotting and bringing to account drug abuse,
a task for which they are ill prepared, and which is not
readily compatible with their vocation.  Cf. Skinner,
supra, at 628 (quoting 50 Fed. Reg. 31526 (1985)) (a
drug impaired individual -will seldom display any
outward `signs detectable by the lay person or, in many
cases, even the physician.'-); Goss, 419 U. S., at 594
(Powell, J., dissenting) (-There is an ongoing relation-
ship, one in which the teacher must occupy many
roles-educator, adviser, friend, and, at times, parent-
substitute.  It is rarely adversary in nature . . .-)
(footnote omitted).  In many respects, we think, testing
based on -suspicion- of drug use would not be better,
but worse.

                           VI
  Taking into account all the factors we have considered
above-the decreased expectation of privacy, the relative
unobtrusiveness of the search, and the severity of the
need met by the search-we conclude Vernonia's Policy
is reasonable and hence constitutional.
  We caution against the assumption that suspicionless
drug testing will readily pass constitutional muster in
other contexts.  The most significant element in this
case is the first we discussed: that the Policy was
undertaken in furtherance of the government's responsi-
bilities, under a public school system, as guardian and
tutor of children entrusted to its care.  Just as when
the government conducts a search in its capacity as
employer (a warrantless search of an absent employee's
desk to obtain an urgently needed file, for example), the
relevant question is whether that intrusion upon privacy
is one that a reasonable employer might engage in, see
O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U. S. 709 (1987); so also when
the government acts as guardian and tutor the relevant
question is whether the search is one that a reasonable
guardian and tutor might undertake.  Given the findings
of need made by the District Court, we conclude that in
the present case it is.
  We may note that the primary guardians of Vernonia's
schoolchildren appear to agree.  The record shows no
objection to this districtwide program by any parents
other than the couple before us here-even though, as
we have described, a public meeting was held to obtain
parents' views.  We find insufficient basis to contradict
the judgment of Vernonia's parents, its school board, and
the District Court, as to what was reasonably in the
interest of these children under the circumstances.

                       *    *    *
  The Ninth Circuit held that Vernonia's Policy not only
violated the Fourth Amendment, but also, by reason of
that violation, contravened Article I, -9 of the Oregon
Constitution.  Our conclusion that the former holding
was in error means that the latter holding rested on a
flawed premise.  We therefore vacate the judgment, and
remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                      It is so ordered.