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Posted at 3:14 PM ET, 05/12/2010
Should Breathalyzers be used at proms?
By Valerie Strauss
With prom season upon us, more and more high schools across the country are turning to Breathalyzers or similar machines to test kids for alcohol consumption before they can enter the dance.

The real question is whether they have the desired effect.

School officials, obviously, see the devices as a way to stop kids from drinking before they come to prom. And at some schools, the students themselves choose to have all prom attendees tested. That’s what the students at Jefferson City High School in Missouri requested for this month’s prom, which was being held at a hotel for the first time.

Some folks say that a message of distrust is sent to kids when everyone is tested before they can dance and have some punch.

That’s what the school board in Bellows Falls, Vermont, decided when members voted against testing students for alcohol at Bellows Falls Union High School’s prom this month--and even banned having a Breathalyzer at the dance, according to the Rutland Herald.

It quoted senior Nadine Rowell of Saxtons River as saying that it was "incredibly insulting" for students to be treated "like criminals" by requiring a breath test at the prom.

Others note, though, that drinking is against the law for minors, and that underage drinking is not only a personal behavior issue but one of public safety when one of these drunken kids gets behind a wheel. Few object to metal detectors or body wands that check for weapons.

The one dissenting vote in Bellows Falls was Stephen Major, who said that while he had questions about whether mass testing of students was constitutional, he thought it was a matter of safety.

But perhaps the real question is whether testing everybody actually stops kids from drinking on prom night.

I’ve been asking dozens of adults and kids, and not one of them said they think it stops kids from drinking who are planning to do so. Do you think they are wrong? What are the schools in your area doing?

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Two Princeton High School students refuse Breathalyzer, miss prom
Print Mike Davis/The Times By Mike Davis/The Times
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on June 06, 2012 at 8:00 AM, updated June 06, 2012 at 11:24 AM



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Martin Griff / The Times
File photo of Princeton High School, which instituted a mandatory breath-test for alcohol for all students attending its May 24 prom.
PRINCETON BOROUGH — This year’s Princeton High School prom has come and gone, but the debate over a new policy that required attendees to submit to a breath-test for alcohol continues as a pair of students who refused the test dispute its legality under federal law.

Seniors Sasha Chhabra and Kevin Petrovic arrived at The Westin at Princeton Forrestal Village on May 24 knowing that the alcohol screening was required, but declined to take the test and were denied entry. Chhabra argued that the test was a violation of students’ constitutional rights.

“If I’m misbehaving, if I’m acting rowdy or if I’m appearing drunk, maybe you have grounds to search me,” Chhabra said yesterday. “But if I’m just another student with a good record, strong academic standing and have never been written up for any instance before — and I’m assumed to be guilty — I think there’s something really wrong with that.”

Princeton Regional superintendent Judy Wilson confirmed that two students did not comply with the mandatory screening, while noting that they were cordial to the school officials administering the tests.

“They were very respectful and very appropriate and said, in so many words, that they did not intend to take the breath sensor,” Wilson said yesterday. “It was well thought-out, planned and respectful. It’s their statement, and that’s fine. They respected that the terms of entering the prom were to take the breath censor.”

Wilson said a legal review had determined that Chhabra’s constitutional claims didn’t apply to the policy.

Chhabra said the mandatory breath-test violated students’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, calling it an unreasonable and unwarranted “blanket search” that forced students to incriminate themselves.

The two students cited New Jersey v. T.L.O., in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a vice principal at Piscataway High School in Middlesex County. The vice principal searched a student’s purse after she was caught smoking cigarettes in the bathroom and found various drug paraphernalia.

The Supreme Court ruled the search was reasonable because students’ privacy had to be weighed against the school’s responsibility to maintain discipline on school grounds. But Chhabra argued the ruling only allowed searches for cause.

“It would be one issue if they searched, with reasonable suspicion, people who are misbehaving or people who are being violent,” Chhabra said. “It’s another thing to say that every single student who wants to go to the prom is assumed to be guilty, and we must Breathalyze every one of them. There’s no warrant for that search. There’s no reasonable suspicion.”

The Princeton Regional school board unanimously approved the policy in April, a few months after the high school canceled its homecoming in the wake of various alcohol-related incidents.