Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05135/USCOURTS-caDC-11-05135-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 23, 2012 Decided June 8, 2012

No. 11-5135

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES-IAM,

APPELLANT

v.

THOMAS J. VILSACK, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS

SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE AND THOMAS L. TIDWELL,

 IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS CHIEF OF THE

UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-01735)

Stefan P. Sutich argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Mark W. Pennak, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Tony

West, Assistant Attorney General, and Leonard Schaitman,

Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney entered

an appearance.

Before: ROGERS and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges, and

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 1 of 33
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Opinion for the Court by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

Dissenting opinion by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: The National Federation of Federal

Employees (“the Union”) challenges the constitutionality of a

random drug testing policy applicable to all employees working

at Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers operated by the U.S.

Forest Service. The district court granted summary judgment in

favor of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Chief of the U.S.

Forest Service (hereinafter “the Secretary”) and denied the

Union’s request for a preliminary injunction. Upon de novo

review, we conclude that the Secretary has failed to demonstrate

“special needs” rendering the Fourth Amendment requirement

of individualized suspicion impractical in the context of Job

Corps employment. See Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,

515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995); Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. Von

Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 665–66 (1989). Although identifying

governmental interests in the students’ abstention from drug use

and in their physical safety, the Secretary offered no foundation

for concluding there is a serious drug problem among staff that

threatens these interests and thus renders the requirement for

individualized suspicion impractical. Rather, the Secretary’s

evidence to date suggests the contrary. Because the Secretary

has offered a solution in search of a problem, the designation of

all Forest Service Job Corps Center employees for random drug

testing does not fit within the “closely guarded category of

constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches,” Chandler

v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 309 (1997). Accordingly, we reverse

and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 2 of 33
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I.

The Department of Labor (“DOL”) administers the Job

Corps program at approximately 124 residential and nonresidential centers across the United States. See 29 U.S.C.

§ 2887(a), (b) (2006). These centers include twenty-eight Job

Corps Civilian Conservation Centers operated by the Forest

Service, a unit within the Department of Agriculture (“USDA”). 

See id. § 2887(c)(1); 36 C.F.R. § 200.1(a) (2012); 7 C.F.R. pt.

15, subpt. A, app. (2012). As described by Larry J. Dawson, the

National Director of the Forest Service Job Corps program,

these Centers offer, in addition to education, vocational training

and counseling, “programs of work-based learning to conserve,

develop, and manage public natural resources and public

recreational areas or to develop community projects in the

public interest,” Decl. Larry J. Dawson ¶ 3, Nov. 5, 2010, and

are located generally in “remote, rural areas,” id. ¶ 5; see 29

U.S.C. § 2887(c)(1). 

All twenty-eight Forest Service Job Corps Centers are

residential. Students, ages sixteen to twenty-four, live and work

at the Centers except during winter and summer breaks,

although some vocational training and other activities occur off

site; they are prohibited from keeping personal vehicles on site. 

When they first enroll, students are advised of the Job Corps

Zero Tolerance Policy, 29 U.S.C. § 2892(b)(2)(C)(ii) (enacted

in 1998), and if they fail an initial drug test, they are placed in

a special training program and must take another drug test

within forty-five days; a second positive test for drug use results

in the student’s expulsion from the Job Corps. Students remain

subject to suspicion-based drug testing while in the program. 

Any Center employee can report suspicion of student drug use,

and residential staff periodically search for illegal drugs and

alcohol in student residential areas and in students’ luggage

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upon their return from winter and summer breaks. Canine units

assist in these searches at some Job Corps Centers.

 Prospective and incumbent Job Corps Center employees

must also undergo screening. For positions “supervis[ing]

young people,” all prospective employees are subject to a “Child

Care National Agency Check with Inquiries: Non Sensitive/Low

Risk.” For certain positions, including directors and certain

specialists, prospective employees must also undergo a

“Moderate Risk Background Investigation: Moderate

Risk/Public Trust.” Drug related offenses discovered during

these background checks inform suitability determinations by

hiring officials. Once employed in the Job Corps, all employees

are responsible for “modeling, mentoring, and monitoring”

appropriate workplace behavior under DOL policy. Suppl. Decl.

Larry J. Dawson ¶ 3, Jan. 27, 2011. Employees at Forest

Service Job Corps Centers are also subject to reinvestigation

approximately every fifteen years. See Dawson Suppl. Decl.

¶ 5.

In 1988, the USDA developed a “Plan for a Drug Free

Workplace,” which called for drug testing on the basis of

reasonable suspicion and of new employees in certain

designated job positions; of Job Corps Center positions, only

nursing occupations were designated.1

 (Employees required to

hold commercial driver’s licenses, such as residential staff at

1

 See Executive Order No. 12,564 § 3(a), 51 Fed. Reg.

32,889, 32,890 (Sept. 15, 1986), reprinted in 5 U.S.C. § 7301 note

(requiring agency heads to “establish a program to test for the use of

illegal drugs by employees in sensitive positions,” as determined by

“the nature of the agency’s mission and its employees’ duties . . . and

the danger to the public health and safety or national security that

could result from the failure of an employee adequately to discharge

his or her position”). 

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Job Corps Centers, were subject to random testing pursuant to

Department of Transportation regulations.) Drug testing was to

be conducted in accordance with guidelines promulgated by the

Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”). See

Executive Order No. 12,564 § 4(d), 51 Fed. Reg. 32,889, 32,891

(Sept. 15, 1986), reprinted in 5 U.S.C. § 7301 note.2

 Following

a 1995 investigation by a U.S. Senate Committee that identified

a drug problem among Job Corps students, see S.REP. NO. 104-

118 (1995), the DOL established the Job Corps Zero Tolerance

Policy and instructed that “[a]ll staff will be held accountable for

actively supporting and implementing the Job Corps Zero

Tolerance policy” and “must be held to the same standards of

conduct described in this policy for students.” Decl. Gerald A.

Nagel, Drug Free Workplace Program Manager, USDA, ¶ 18,

Nov. 5, 2010 (quoting 1995 DOL Job Corps Instruction No. 94-

21, “Implementation of Expanded Zero Tolerance for Violence

and Drugs Policy”). The DOL did not designate Job Corps

employees for random drug testing. The USDA, however, in

1996 designated all Forest Service Job Corps staff positions for

random drug testing. The Union, representing Forest Service

Job Corps Center employees, objected to the new designation,

and the new policy was not implemented. In 2003, the USDA

again designated Forest Service “Job Corps Center staff” for

random testing,3

 but as before the policy was not implemented. 

2

 The HHS “Mandatory Guidelines for Federal Workplace

Drug Testing Programs,” 73 Fed. Reg. 71,858 (Nov. 25, 2008) (“HHS

Guidelines”), provide that employees to be tested report to a collection

site, where they produce a urine sample within an enclosed stall

without direct visual observation. Id. at 71,863. Samples may be

tested only for specified drugs, id. at 71,880, and positive tests are

reported only after a second test using a different method confirms the

result, id. at 71,893–94.

3

 USDA Departmental Regulation No. 4430-792-2 establishes

the policy and procedures for the Drug-Free Federal Workplace

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During collective bargaining negotiations for an agreement

entered into on May 27, 2010, however, the Forest Service

informed the Union that all Job Corps Center staff would be

subject to the random testing program. See Nagel Decl. ¶ 19. 

By letter of August 30, 2010, the National Director instructed

Forest Service Job Corps Center directors to “come into

compliance” with the random testing policy, noting that only

nurses and employees required to hold a commercial driver’s

Program and Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Program. It

requires random testing of specified positions, including all Job Corps

Center staff as follows: 

Job Corps Center Staff (Includes any occupational

series in which the incumbent may perform the duties

described below) (Subject to applicant testing).

Each Center staff member see [sic] students every

day, and each staff member is responsible for the

safety of every student, including administering CPR

and/or first aid whenever needed. Also, each staff

member is required to possess a valid driver's license

to transport students in cases of emergency, to and

from work sites, etc. 

Drug usage by Center staff members could result in

the loss of students' lives or injury to the students.

Also, all Center staff personnel are responsible for

administering the Zero Tolerance for Drug Policy.

Improper or illegal drug use is inconsistent with

assisting others in becoming and remaining drug-free.

USDA Departmental Regulation No. 4430-792-2, app. A, § 14 (Aug.

25, 2003). Job Corp nursing occupations are also subject to random

testing. See id. § 16. 

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license were in compliance.4

 Mem. from Larry J. Dawson to

Forest Service Job Corps Center Directors 1 (Aug. 30, 2010).

On October 13, 2010, the Union sued the Secretary, seeking

a declaratory judgment that the random testing policy covering

all Forest Service Job Corps Center employees violates the

Fourth Amendment and an order enjoining the policy’s

implementation. The Union also moved for a preliminary

injunction, attaching various sworn declarations, including the

declaration of Larry E. King, vice president of the Union’s

Forest Service Council and a Job Corps employee since 1983,

stating that neither the USDA nor the Forest Service had made

any showing that random drug testing of staff was necessary for

the safe operation of the Centers. Decl. Larry E. King ¶¶ 1, 3,

11–12, 17, Oct. 13, 2010. The district court granted the

Secretary’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the

Secretary’s interests in preventing illegal drug use at the Job

Corps Centers by both students and staff justified the intrusion

4

 Forest Service Job Corps Center employees fall roughly into

five categories. (1) Administrative staff includes file clerks,

automation clerks, and computer assistants; nurses and medical

records technicians; supply technicians and purchasing agents; and

cooks. (2) Educational staff includes classroom teachers and driver’s

education teachers. (3) Counseling staff consists of both guidance

counselors and drug and alcohol counselors. (4) Vocational staff

members teach students certain trades, such as information

technology, culinary arts, urban forestry, welding, brick masonry,

carpentry, and electrical work. (5) Residential and recreational

employees include social service assistants and recreation assistants,

who are primarily responsible for monitoring student residential areas

and transporting students as necessary, and who are subject to random

drug testing by reason of being required to have commercial driver’s

licenses. Additionally, outside independent contractors provide

various services at the Job Corps Centers, including vocational

training.

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on the employees’ privacy interests and Fourth Amendment

rights, and it denied the Union’s request for an injunction. Nat’l

Fed’n Fed. Emps.-IAC v. Vilsack, 775 F. Supp. 2d 91, 113–14

(D.D.C. 2011). 

The Union appeals. Our review of the grant of summary

judgment is de novo, see, e.g., Moore v. Hartman, 571 F.3d 62,

66 (D.C. Cir. 2009), and we must draw all justifiable inferences

in favor of the non-moving party, see Anderson v. Liberty

Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). Our review of the denial

of injunctive relief is for abuse of discretion, although it remains

de novo for underlying conclusions of law. See Chaplaincy of

Full Gospel Churches v. England, 454 F.3d 290, 297 (D.C. Cir.

2006).

II.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the

government from violating “[t]he right of the people to be secure

in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.” 

U.S.CONST. amend. IV. Drug testing of federal employees is a

search subject to the Fourth Amendment reasonableness

requirement. See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665. “[A]s a general

matter, warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under the

Fourth Amendment.” City of Ontario v. Quon, 130 S. Ct. 2619,

2630 (2010) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357

(1967)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Among the “few

specifically established and well-delineated exceptions to that

general rule,” id., is an exception for circumstances in which

“special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement,

make the warrant and probable-cause requirement

impracticable,” Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 653 (quoting Griffin v.

Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987)) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Even where the government claims “special needs,”

a warrantless search is generally unreasonable unless based on

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“some quantum of individualized suspicion.” Skinner v. Ry.

Labor Execs.’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 624 (1989). “[A] search

may be reasonable despite the absence of such suspicion,”

however, “where the privacy interests implicated by the search

are minimal, and where an important governmental interest

furthered by the intrusion would be placed in jeopardy by a

requirement of individualized suspicion.” Id. Accordingly,

where the government invokes “special governmental needs,

beyond the normal need for law enforcement,” a court must

“balance the individual’s privacy expectations against the

government’s interests to determine whether it is impractical to

require a warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in

the particular context.” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665–66. In

conducting this balancing test, a court “must undertake a

context-specific inquiry, examining closely the competing

private and public interests advanced by the parties.” Chandler,

520 U.S. at 314; see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665–66. 

The Union does not dispute that the need asserted by the

Secretary — to protect Forest Service Job Corps Center students

from harm caused by the use of illegal drugs by Center

employees — lies beyond the normal need for law enforcement. 

It also does not challenge the constitutionality of random testing

of Forest Service Job Corps Center nursing occupations and

employees required to hold a commercial driver’s license, which

include residential and recreational employees. Instead, the

Union contends that the district court improperly weighed and

balanced the relevant interests in upholding the random testing

of all Forest Service Job Corps Center employees regardless of

the requirements or responsibilities of their particular positions.

The Secretary maintains that for the Union to prevail in

such a facial challenge it must show that no set of circumstances

exist under which the policy would be valid, invoking the

standard enunciated in Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301

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(1993), and citing Skinner, 489 U.S. at 632 n.10, as applying this

standard to Fourth Amendment challenges to drug testing

policies. When assessing the reasonableness of the Fourth

Amendment intrusion by such policies, however, the Supreme

Court has differentiated between job categories designated for

testing, rather than conducting the balancing test more broadly

as the Secretary appears to suggest. See, e.g., Von Raab, 489

U.S. at 677–78. So has this court. See Harmon v. Thornburgh,

878 F.2d 484, 492–93 (D.C. Cir. 1989); Nat’l Fed’n Fed. Emps.

v. Cheney, 884 F.2d 603, 611–12 (D.C. Cir. 1989).5

Furthermore, to the extent the Secretary maintains that the court

should defer to the USDA with regard to “the nature of the Job

Corps program, the extent of any drug problem faced by the

program, and how the needs of the program would be served and

furthered by the challenged random drug testing,” Appellees’

Br. 21, the Secretary relies on cases presenting familiar

principles of judicial deference to reasonable interpretations and

findings under statutes the department administers. See Menkes

v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 637 F.3d 319, 329 (D.C. Cir. 2011);

Public Citizen, Inc. v. FAA, 988 F.2d 186, 196–97 (D.C. Cir.

1993). Deference is never blind, in any event, see Am. Fed’n

Gov’t Emps. v. FLRA, 778 F.2d 850, 864 (D.C. Cir. 1985), and

the Secretary bears a burden to establish entitlement to summary

judgment, see, e.g., Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323

(1986). More particularly, the Supreme Court has made clear

that the constitutional question is distinct from policy questions

involving otherwise constitutional administrative judgments

about how best to operate a program. See, e.g., Von Raab, 489

U.S. at 665; cf. Chandler, 520 U.S. at 317–18.

5

 Our dissenting colleague paints with a broad brush without 

regard to precedent from the Supreme Court, and this court, on the

particularity of the Fourth Amendment inquiry.

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A.

The balancing test set forth in Skinner and Von Raab

requires the court, in assessing employees’ privacy interests, to

determine both “the scope of the legitimate expectation of

privacy at issue” and “the character of the intrusion that is

complained of.” Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 658. The court must then

consider the nature of the government interests to be furthered

by the drug testing policy as well as the immediacy of the

government’s concerns regarding those interests and the efficacy

of the policy in addressing those concerns. See id. at 660. 

Finally, the court must balance the employees’ privacy interests

against the government’s interests “to determine whether it is

impractical to require a warrant or some level of individualized

suspicion in the particular context.” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at

665–66. Thus, even where the government asserts important

interests, it must still demonstrate an immediate threat to those

interests that could not practically be addressed through a

suspicion-based approach in order to justify a suspicionless

search under the Fourth Amendment. See Vernonia, 515 U.S. at

662–63.

A substantial body of precedent elucidates the relevant

considerations. The Supreme Court has found “compelling,” in

view of documented problems, the governmental interest in

ensuring public safety in railroad travel, Skinner, 489 U.S. at

620–21, 28, 34, the “national interest in self-protection” against

the importation of illegal drugs, and the public interest in

preventing the promotion of potentially judgment-impaired

employees to “positions where they may need to employ deadly

force,” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 670–71. Central to these

determinations were the magnitude and immediacy of the threats

— the concern that “even a momentary lapse of attention [could]

have disastrous consequences” for human lives and property. 

Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 670; see Skinner, 489 U.S. at 628.

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Similarly, this court has upheld the random drug testing of

employees in “safety-sensitive” positions, such as those

responsible for maintaining and operating trains, see BNSF Ry.

Co. v. Dep’t of Transp., 566 F.3d 200, 206 (D.C. Cir. 2009),

airplanes, see Aeronautical Repair Station Ass’n, Inc. v. FAA,

494 F.3d 161, 174 (D.C. Cir. 2007); Am. Fed’n Gov’t Emps. v.

Skinner, 885 F.2d 884, 892 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (“AFGE”); Cheney,

884 F.2d at 610, and motor vehicles, see Nat’l Treasury Emps.

Union v. Yeutter, 918 F.2d 968, 971–72 (D.C. Cir. 1990);

AFGE, 885 F.2d at 892, as well as those required to carry

firearms in the performance of their duties, see Cheney, 884

F.2d at 612. In the context of hazardous material inspection, this

court concluded that the government’s efforts to ensure that

employees “whose exclusive assigned duties are [] intimately

related to the prevention of public harm [] are certifiably drugfree,” even by means of random drug testing, were “a reasonable

precaution against the occurrence of the feared harm.” AFGE,

885 F.2d at 891 (emphasis added). Also, in Stigile v. Clinton,

110 F.3d 801 (D.C. Cir. 1997), the court upheld a policy, based

on the government’s interest in ensuring protection of the

President and Vice President of the United States within the

White House security perimeter, authorizing the random drug

testing of employees who worked in the Old Executive Office

Building, which is located adjacent to the White House. 

Although the harm that the government was seeking to prevent

was unrelated to the performance of the duties of the economists

for the Office of Management and Budget, the court explained

that the relevant nexus “is that between the risk posed by a drugusing employee and the evil sought to be prevented by the

testing.” Id. at 805. 

Beyond public safety and national security interests, the

Supreme Court has also concluded that the public interest in

deterring drug use by public schoolchildren is “important

enough,” given the risks to their health and safety as well as the

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disruptive effect on the educational process as a whole, as

weighed against the significantly diminished expectations of

privacy enjoyed by schoolchildren. Vernonia, 515 U.S. at

661–62, 64–65; see Board of Educ. v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 834

(2002). Upon recounting the demonstrated problem of drug and

alcohol use by student athletes who were the “leaders” of an

aggressive local “drug culture,” which was responsible for

disciplinary actions reaching “epidemic proportions” and which

the school district had been unable to control by other means,

the Court in Vernonia upheld a policy, approved by the students’

parents, requiring random drug testing of the student athletes. 

515 U.S. at 649–59, 64–65. In Earls, 536 U.S. at 830, the Court

extended its holding to competitive extracurricular activities

generally, again focusing on the students’ significantly limited

privacy interests in a public school environment and the

“specific evidence of drugs use” by students at the schools, id.

at 834, including drugs found near school facilities and in a

student’s car, id. at 835. 

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has instructed, the

merely “symbolic,” and thus insufficiently important, interest in

detecting and deterring drug use by candidates for public office,

who “typically do not perform high-risk, safety-sensitive tasks”

and do not aid drug interdiction efforts, did not warrant intrusion

on their Fourth Amendment rights. Chandler, 520 U.S. at

321–22. “Indeed,” the Court explained, “if a need of the ‘set a

good example’ genre were sufficient to overwhelm a Fourth

Amendment objection, then the care [that] Court took to explain

why the needs in Skinner, Von Raab, and Vernonia ranked as

‘special’ wasted many words in entirely unnecessary, perhaps

even misleading, elaborations.” Id. at 322. Similarly, this court

concluded that the governmental concern in the general

“integrity of its workforce” was insufficiently important to

warrant random drug testing encompassing federal prosecutors

who were not specifically “responsible for the enforcement of

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federal narcotics laws.” Harmon, 878 F.2d at 490–91; see also

Yeutter, 918 F.2d at 974. But in the context of “critical jobs”6

 in

the United States Army, this court in Cheney, 884 F.2d at 614,

upheld random testing of drug counselors because the

government had a legitimate interest in “ensuring that its

employees are allegiant to their essential mission” when their

“successful performance of assigned duties may reasonably be

viewed as depending on their abstinence from illicit drug use.”

In short, where the government asserts “special needs” for

intruding on Fourth Amendment rights, as here, the specific

context matters. In demonstrating that the governmental

interests are “important enough to justify the particular search

at hand, in light of other factors that show the search to be

relatively intrusive upon a genuine expectation of privacy,”

Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 661, the Secretary must provide a

foundation for his determination that the requirement of

individualized suspicion is impractical in the Forest Service Job

Corps Center context, see id. at 653, 63–64; see also Chandler,

520 U.S. at 320.

1. Government employees “have a serious and legitimate

privacy interest in not being subject to urinalysis.” Stigile, 110

F.3d at 804; see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 671. Certain factors,

however, may diminish their reasonable expectations of privacy

at work. Upon consideration of those factors, we conclude the

Forest Service Job Corps Center’ employee’s privacy interests

at issue remain robust.

6

 The Department of Defense (“DoD”) Directive identified

“critical jobs” as those “sufficiently critical to the DoD mission or

protection of public safety that screening to detect the presence of

drugs is warranted as a job-related requirement.” Cheney, 884 F.2d at

605 n.2.

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The “‘operational realities of the workplace’ may render

entirely reasonable certain work-related intrusions by

supervisors and co-workers that might be viewed as

unreasonable in other contexts.” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 671

(quoting O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 717 (1987)

(plurality opinion)). Acknowledging that “these operational

realities will rarely affect an employee’s expectations of privacy

in the workplace with respect to searches of his person,” the

Supreme Court observed that “certain forms of public

employment may diminish privacy expectations”; “[e]mployees

of the United States Mint, for example, should expect to be

subject to certain routine personal searches when they leave the

workplace every day. Similarly, those who join our military or

intelligence services may . . . also expect intrusive inquiries into

their physical fitness for those special positions.” Id. (internal

citations omitted). This court applied that understanding in

Cheney, 884 F.2d at 613. So too, the Supreme Court suggested,

the successful performance of certain employees’ duties —

those involved in the interdiction of illegal drugs or required to

carry firearms — may “uniquely” depend on particular attributes

of “judgment and dexterity” such that these employees

“reasonably should expect effective inquiry into their fitness and

probity.” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 672. Importantly, however,

such employees are “[u]nlike most private citizens or

government employees in general,” id., and such operational

realities are not characteristic of government employment, see

O’Connor, 480 U.S. at 717. 

The Secretary characterizes as “operational realities” the

asserted facts that Forest Service Job Corps employees “work

with at-risk youth in residential settings” that are “often quite

remote,” and that these employees are responsible for

maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy, ensuring the students’

safety, and driving students in emergency and other situations. 

Appellees’ Br. 32–33. But the Secretary offers no explanation

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of how these general program features and loosely ascribed staff

responsibilities serve to undermine the reasonable expectations

of privacy held by Job Corps employees not previously subject

to random drug testing. Furthermore, this characterization

consists of contested facts, for the Union proffered evidence not

only that there was no staff drug problem necessitating random

testing, but also that different job categories at the Job Corps

Centers have different levels of responsibility, or none, for

maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy, ensuring student safety,

and driving students in emergency or other situations. Job

descriptions for many positions in Forest Service Job Corps

Centers’ administrative staff contain no mention of these

responsibilities. And employee declarations indicate that

purchasing agents, for example, bear no responsibility for

maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy, have never performed

CPR on students, cannot recall providing first aid to students,

and have rarely if ever driven students or staff. Decl. of Lance

A. Hamann ¶¶ 5–8, Oct. 12, 2010; Decl. Jerry D. Case ¶¶ 4–7,

Oct. 12, 2010. Additionally, the National Director

acknowledged that not all Forest Service Job Corps Center

employees are required to have a driver’s license. See Dawson

Decl. ¶ 14. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

the Union, as we must, it is not clear that the Secretary’s

description of the “nature and context” of Forest Service Job

Corps employment accurately portrays the nature and context of

all job categories, and thus it is not clear that the attendant

“operational realities” of the workplace — undeveloped in the

record — serve to diminish employees’ reasonable expectations

of privacy regardless of their positions.

The Secretary suggests that the privacy interests of Job

Corps Center employees are diminished because they were on

notice of the USDA’s intention to subject them to random drug

testing as early as 1996 and the Union was informed of the

decision to bring the Forest Service Job Corps “into

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17

compliance” during the most recent collective bargaining

negotiations.7

 “[A]n applicant’s knowledge of what will be

required, and when, affects the strength of his or her [privacy]

interest.” Willner v. Thornburgh, 928 F.2d 1185, 1190 (D.C.

Cir. 1991); see Harmon, 878 F.2d at 489 & n.6. But the

USDA’s failure to implement the random drug testing policy for

all Job Corps employees for more than a decade weakens the

import of the 1996 notice. Furthermore, unlike in Von Raab,

see 489 U.S. at 672 n.2; see also Willner, 928 F.2d at 1190, here

the random drug testing policy applies not only to applicants for

certain positions or promotions, but also to incumbent

employees. A Job Corps employee “may decline to be tested

only if she is willing to relinquish a job she already holds.” 

Harmon, 878 F.2d at 489; see Aeronautical Repair Station

Ass’n, 494 F.3d at 174; USDA Departmental Regulation No.

4430-792-2, § 6(f). 

Of course employees’ expectations of privacy may be

“lessened” where “they occupy positions that require stringent

background checks.” Stigile, 110 F.3d at 804. For most Forest

Service Job Corps positions, applicants’ background checks

include inquiries into their residential, educational, employment,

and military histories, as well as any illegal drug use within the

past year.8

 For positions involving the supervision of young

7

 The district court noted, see Nat’l Fed’n Fed. Emps.-IAM,

775 F. Supp. 2d at 108 & n.9, that an agency’s decision to designate

positions for drug testing falls within the management rights clause of

the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Act, 5 U.S.C.

§ 7106(a)(1), and conflicting proposals are therefore non-negotiable. 

See U.S. Dep’t of the Interior Minerals Mgmt. Serv. v. FLRA, 969 F.2d

1158, 1162 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Nat’l Ass’n Gov’t Emps., Local R14-9

Union v. U.S. Army, 30 F.L.R.A. 1083, 1086–87 (1988).

8

 See OPM, Questionnaire for Non-Sensitive Positions,

available at http://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf85.pdf.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 17 of 33
18

people, the background check includes investigation of

applicants’ federal and state criminal histories, see 42 U.S.C.

§ 13041(a)-(b) (2006); FED. R. EV. 201(b)(2), (c)(1); these

investigations are typically completed within two months after

the employee’s entry on duty, see Dawson Suppl. Decl. ¶ 5. 

Forest Service Job Corps Center employees are typically

reinvestigated every fifteen years. See id. In the National

Director’s opinion, the background checks of prospective Forest

Service Job Corps employees are “more rigorous” than those for

“most Forest Service employees,” Dawson Decl. ¶ 12,

suggesting that a prospective employees’ reasonable

expectations of privacy may be diminished somewhat. Cf.

Cheney, 884 F.2d at 615 & n.10. Even these background

checks, however, are less “stringent” than those required of Old

Executive Office Building professionals with passes allowing

access to areas frequented by the President and Vice President

of the United States, see Stigile, 110 F.3d at 807 n.2 (Rogers, J.,

concurring), or Justice Department attorney applicants, Willner,

928 F.2d at 1190–91, or members of the Army holding key

positions, see Cheney, 884 F.2d at 612–13, and they are

significantly less stringent than the secret and top secret national

security clearance investigations required of other federal

agency employees, see Hartness v. Bush, 919 F.2d 170, 173

(D.C. Cir. 1990); Harmon, 878 F.2d at 492. 

The record thus suggests with regard to the job positions at

issue that the employees’ reasonable expectations of privacy are

somewhat diminished by the pre- and post-employment

background checks they must undergo, and perhaps, although to

a far lesser extent, by decade-old notice of their possible

inclusion in the random drug testing program. But given the

relatively limited scope of their background checks and the

incumbent status of the employees now subjected to random

drug testing, these employees’ reasonable expectations of

privacy remain more robust than the expectations of federal

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 18 of 33
19

employees in many other positions examined by the Supreme

Court and this court. Although courts have viewed the HHS

Guidelines, see supra note 2, as “significantly minimiz[ing]” the

intrusion upon privacy occasioned by urinalysis, Nat’l Treasury

Emps. Union v. U.S. Customs Serv., 27 F.3d 623, 629 (1994);

see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 672 n.2, they do not render minimal

the overall intrusion on Job Corps employees’ privacy interests

occasioned by the random drug testing policy. Unlike in Von

Raab, where drug testing occurred only upon application for a

particular position, see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 661; see also

Willner, 928 F.2d at 1189–90, the testing pursuant to the USDA

policy is random and can occur an unlimited number of times. 

See Nagel Decl. ¶ 9. Even assuming this factor “‘would tip the

scales’ only ‘in a particularly close case,’” U.S. Customs, 27

F.3d at 629 (quoting Harmon, 878 F.2d at 489), “[r]andom drug

testing represents a greater threat to an employee’s privacy

interest than does mandatory testing because of the ‘unsettling

show of authority that may be associated with unexpected

intrusions on privacy,’” id. at 629 (quoting Von Raab, 489 U.S.

at 672 n.2). 

2. The Secretary states that the drug testing policy serves

two important governmental interests at the Forest Service Job

Corps Centers: maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy among

students and ensuring student safety. Drug use by Job Corps

employees, the Secretary reasons, could threaten to undermine

the Zero Tolerance Policy because such use “could become

known” to students, and because drug using employees might be

“less likely to report knowledge or suspicion of a student’s drug

use and could even serve as a conduit for drugs in these remote

settings.” Appellees’ Br. at 37–38. Further, the Secretary states,

drug use by Job Corps employees “potentially threatens the

physical safety of every student at these remote sites, . . .

because a drug using employee is necessarily impaired in his or

her ability to function in emergencies.” Id. at 38. 

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 19 of 33
20

Although precedent regarding employees in “safetysensitive” positions supports the importance of the Secretary’s

interest in securing the Job Corps students’ safety, see, e.g., Von

Raab, 489 U.S. at 670; AFGE, 885 F.2d at 891, support for the

Secretary’s interest in maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy by

drug testing of all Job Corps Center employees is more

attenuated. This interest rests upon a connection the Secretary

effectively seeks to forge between the concerns recognized in

Vernonia and Cheney. See Appellees’ Br. 37–39; Mem. in

Supp. Defs.’ Mot. Summ. J. 14, 18–19. In Vernonia, 515 U.S.

at 661–62, the Supreme Court noted the risks of “physical,

psychological, and addictive effects” associated with adolescent

drug use, and risks of immediate physical harm faced by student

athletes during games or practice. In Earls, 536 U.S. at 829–30,

the Court reemphasized the students’ diminished privacy

interests and the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibilities. 

In view of Vernonia and Earls, the Secretary’s interest in

preventing drug use among at-risk youth in a government

program designed to expand their opportunities may be

“important enough” to justify certain searches.9

 Yet here, unlike

in Vernonia and Earls, the Secretary seeks to justify the random

drug testing not of Job Corps students, but of an expanded group

of employees at the Forest Service Job Corps Centers. The

governmental interest in the detection and deterrence of drug use

by such employees is thus at a remove from that previously

9

 According to a study commissioned by the DOL,

approximately 26 percent of all entering Job Corps students tested

positive on their initial drug tests in 2004 and 2005. See Dawson

Decl. ¶ 7. Directors of three Forest Service Job Corps Centers

reported initial drug tests showing drugs in approximately 15, 18, and

23 percent of students at their respective sites. See Decl. Linda J.

Guzik ¶ 5, Jan. 26, 2011; Decl. Raymond J. Ryan ¶ 5, Jan. 26, 2011;

Decl. Cynthia S. Kopack ¶ 5, Jan. 26, 2011. No comparable evidence

was offered regarding staff drug use.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 20 of 33
21

addressed by the Supreme Court. Indeed, in Vernonia, the Court

emphasized that “[c]entral” to its decision was “the fact that the

subjects of the Policy [we]re (1) children, who (2) ha[d] been

committed to the temporary custody of the State as

schoolmaster.” Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 654; see id. at 665. 

In an effort to surmount this key distinction, the Secretary

has argued that the success of the Zero Tolerance Policy in

deterring drug use by Job Corps students depends on its

enforcement by Job Corps employees; should these employees

be “unsympathetic” to this mission “because of their own drug

use,” Cheney, 884 F.2d at 614, the aims of the policy would be

thwarted. See Mem. in Supp. Defs.’ Mot. Summ. J. 14. Yet

notwithstanding the important governmental interest identified

in Vernonia and Earls, the Supreme Court did not imply that

protection of this interest would justify random drug testing of

the teachers and other staff at the schools — to the contrary, it

“caution[ed] against the assumption that suspicionless drug

testing will readily pass constitutional muster in other contexts.” 

Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 665. The extent to which the Secretary’s

interest in deterring drug use among Job Corps students through

the Zero Tolerance Policy justifies random drug testing of all

staff hinges on whether the Secretary has laid a foundation for

concluding that drug use among Job Corps staff poses a threat

to this interest. See id. at 662–63. In determining the

immediacy of the Secretary’s concerns, the court first looks for

“a demonstrated problem of drug abuse” among the Job Corps

employees in the job categories to be subjected to drug testing

“to clarify — and to substantiate — the precise hazards posed by

such use.” Chandler, 520 U.S. at 319; see Vernonia, 515 U.S.

at 662–63. Absent such a foundation for invoking the “special

needs” exception, the Secretary cannot show that an important

governmental interest is placed in jeopardy and thus adherence

to the requirement of individualized suspicion is impractical. 

See Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665–66; Skinner, 489 U.S. at 624.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 21 of 33
22

In support of summary judgment, the Secretary stated as

undisputed facts: The Forest Service Job Corps Centers are

generally located in remote areas; the Centers offer a residential

program in which students live and work on-site; students are

advised of and subject to the Zero Tolerance Policy; any Center

employee can report suspicion of drug use by a student; “[a]

number of employees who do not hold commercial driver’s

licenses are called upon to transport students in the course of

their responsibilities”; and some employees teach welding and

electrical work. Defs.’ Mot. Summ. J. (Statement of Material

Facts 1–2). Notably absent from this statement of facts and the

record is any indication of a serious drug problem among Job

Corps Center staff. The National Director stated in his

declaration that “[d]rug use has been found among [Forest

Service Job Corps] employees in the past, [that] several

employees have been disciplined for drug use in recent years,”

and that “[r]eview of existing Forest Service disciplinary records

show[ed] that eight [] employees have been subject to adverse

actions, with penalties ranging from [fourteen-]day suspensions

to removal, in recent years.” Dawson Decl. ¶ 17. Taking the

declaration at face value, the small number of incidents among

a workforce of several thousand over an unspecified number of

years does not establish a serious problem, much less an

“immediate crisis,” as in Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 663,

necessitating expansion of the random drug testing policy,

compare note 9, supra; nor does the declaration suggest that any

problem has not been satisfactorily addressed in a manner

consistent with the individualized suspicion requirement and

student safety, see King Decl. ¶¶ 11–12. 

Also absent from the record is any demonstration of

difficulty in maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy as a result of

any staff drug use during the fourteen years between the

USDA’s adoption of the Policy and the implementation of

random drug testing for all Forest Service Job Corps Center

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 22 of 33
23

employees. Cf. Chandler, 520 U.S. at 319. The record indicates

that the DOL, the primary administrator of the federal Job Corps

program, see 29 U.S.C. §§ 2883a, 2887(a), has never required

such drug testing. The absence of such a decision by the DOL

combined with the USDA’s long-delayed action and the absence

of a documented problem belie the conclusion that there is so

serious a staff drug problem at the Forest Service Job Corp

Centers as to present “special needs” requiring suspicionless

intrusion on all employees’ Fourth Amendment rights. The

National Director’s instruction that the “[Forest Service] Job

Corps will come into compliance” with USDA’s drug testing

program made no reference to the governmental concerns

articulated here; rather, it offered the tautological explanation

that “[t]o date the Forest Service Job Corps has not been in full

compliance with this regulation.” Mem. from Larry J. Dawson

to Forest Service Job Corps Center Directors (Aug. 30, 2010). 

Apparently neither the USDA nor the Forest Service cited any

incidents leading to the determination that random drug testing

of all Forest Service Job Corps Center employees was necessary,

or any drug use or other statistics to support that determination. 

See King Decl. ¶¶ 11–12. The Secretary has thus offered a

solution in search of a problem.

Moreover, even assuming the Secretary’s responsibility for

maintaining the Zero Tolerance Policy and ensuring Job Corps

students’ safety would suffice to whittle down the relaxed

evidentiary standard where “special needs” are invoked, the

Secretary has failed to show, as to newly designated staff, “an

immediate, non-attenuated” nexus between “the risk posed by a

drug-using employee and the evil sought to be prevented by the

testing.” Stigile, 110 F.3d at 805; see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at

677–78; Harmon, 878 F.2d at 492–93; Cheney, 884 F.2d at

611–12. Those employees whose “exclusive assigned duties are

[] intimately related to” the enforcement of the Zero Tolerance 

Policy, AFGE, 885 F.2d at 891 — residential staff — have long

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 23 of 33
24

been subject to random drug testing. Even assuming that drug

counselors in direct and regular contact with students and are

thus likely “in a position to render harm,” Stigile, 110 F.3d at

805; see Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 671, by undermining the Policy

through their own example or through their lack of commitment

to their counseling and enforcement tasks, see Cheney, 884 F.2d

at 614, the nexus between the danger and the duties of other

positions is far more attenuated. Contrary to the district court’s

findings, see Nat’l Fed’n Fed. Emps.-IAC, 775 F. Supp. 2d at

110–11, evidence proffered by the Union reveals that certain

positions have very limited contact with students and bear no

responsibility for maintaining the Policy. “[I]t is not evident that

those occupying these positions are likely to” be in a position to

undermine the Zero Tolerance Policy, and “this apparent

discrepancy raises . . . the question whether the [USDA] has

defined [the] category of [Job Corps Center staff] more broadly

than is necessary to meet [the Secretary’s] purposes.” Von Raab,

489 U.S. at 678. 

A similar question of scope arises with regard to Job Corps

employees’ responsibility for securing the students’ safety in

emergencies, for the record fails to indicate that all employees

are likely to be in a position to render the harms feared by the

Secretary. See id.; Harmon, 878 F.2d at 492–93; Cheney, 884

F.2d at 611–12. Although some staff are responsible for

transporting students and required to hold commercial driver’s

licenses (and are already subject to random drug testing under

Department of Transportation regulations), others are not even

required to hold valid driver’s licenses. The Union proffered

evidence that employees in certain positions have very limited

contact with students and so are rarely if ever in a position to

administer CPR or first aid; these employees are thus unlikely to

be “in a position to render harm.” Cf. AFGE, 885 F.2d at 892. 

For such categories of employees not previously subject to

random drug testing, “the chain of causation between misconduct

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 24 of 33
25

and injury is considerably more attenuated.” Harmon, 878 F.2d

at 491. The lack of evidence of a serious drug problem among

Forest Service Job Corps staff coupled with the speculative

nature of the risk identified by the Secretary render the expanded

random drug testing policy unjustified.

To the extent the Secretary maintains that he has a

“legitimate interest in deterring drug use that might affect work

performance, that employees who use drugs off the job risk

performance-impairing addiction, that off-duty drug users may

buy [or sell] drugs at work,” Appellees’ Br. 37–38, such

speculation is, as the court explained in Yeutter, 918 F.2d at 974

(emphasis in original), insufficient to justify a Fourth

Amendment intrusion. In Yeutter, the court rejected suspicionbased testing of off-duty drug use by USDA employees because

the Secretary had not produced sufficient “evidence that might

establish a relationship between off-the-job drug use and job

performance.” Id. Similarly here, unlike in Stigile, 110 F.3d at

803–04, the Secretary asserts interests in preventing harms

arising only from employees’ inadequate job performance. 

“Absent [] a ‘clear, direct nexus’ between the duties of” all

covered Forest Service Job Corps employees “and the nature of

the feared harm[s], and absent any compelling reason to expect

that drug use will result in misplaced sympathies for their

responsibilities, testing these employees lacks the necessary

causal connection between the employees’ duties and the feared

harm[s].” Cheney, 884 F.2d at 614 (citation omitted).

Additionally, the efficacy of designating all Forest Service

Job Corps Center positions for random testing is dubious

inasmuch as, unlike the policies upheld in Vernonia and Earls,

the expanded application of the USDA policy is at best an

indirect means of detecting and deterring drug use by students. 

See Earls, 536 U.S. at 837–38; Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 663. In

Cheney, the court took note of the Army’s assessment of the

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 25 of 33
26

efficacy of drug screening “in light of its experience from fifteen

years of testing its military personnel,” 884 F.2d at 611, yet 

distinguished, much as the Supreme Court did in Von Raab, 489

U.S. at 678, between job positions in concluding that the record

supported the reasonableness of random drug testing for some

but not for others, notwithstanding the Army’s “serious

interests,” Cheney, 884 F.2d at 611–12. Finally, the work setting

of many Forest Service Job Corps Center employees is that of

“traditional office environments,” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 674;

see, e.g., Suppl. Decl. Lance A. Hamann ¶ 4, Feb. 16, 2011,

where it is “feasible to subject employees and their work product

to . . . day-to-day scrutiny,” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 674, so the

requirement of individualized suspicion for employees in these

positions is not impractical. See Chandler, 520 U.S. at 321. 

3. Upon balancing the employees’ privacy interests against

the Secretary’s interests “to determine whether it is impractical

to require a warrant or some level of individualized suspicion in

the particular context,” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665–66, we

conclude that the Secretary has failed to demonstrate “special

needs” justifying random drug testing of all Forest Service Job

Corps Center employees. Although the newly designated

employees’ privacy interests may be somewhat diminished by

their required background checks and the Secretary’s adherence

to the HHS Guidelines in administering the tests, they are not as

diminished as other privacy interests the courts have examined

and remain robust. Conversely, even assuming that subjecting

all Job Corps employees to random drug testing is premised on

important governmental interests, the lack of a foundation for

“special needs” to intrude on their Fourth Amendment rights

significantly undermines these interests. “A demonstrated

problem of drug abuse, while not in all cases necessary to the

validity of a testing regime, would shore up an assertion of

special need for a suspicionless general search program.” 

Chandler, 520 U.S. at 319 (citation omitted); see Earls, 536 U.S.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 26 of 33
27

at 835. The Secretary has made no such showing with regard to

the newly designated positions, and his generalized assertions of

need are contradicted by evidence from the National Director of

the Forest Service Job Corps program; nor has the Secretary

demonstrated the requisite nexus between the stated

governmental interests and all Forest Service Job Corps Center

staff positions.

Accordingly, because the Secretary’s designation of all

Forest Service Job Corps Center employees for random drug

testing under the USDA policy “does not fit within the closely

guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless

searches,” Chandler, 520 U.S. at 309, we reverse the grant of

summary judgment and remand the case to the district court for

proceedings consistent with this opinion. We also reverse the

denial of the Union’s request for a preliminary injunction,

because the denial was based solely on the likelihood of the

Secretary’s success on the merits and the loss of constitutional

protections constitutes irreparable injury. See Mills v. Dist. of

Columbia, 571 F.3d 1304, 1312 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 27 of 33
KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, dissenting: This case 

concerns drug testing of government employees who work at 

specialized residential schools for at-risk youth. In my view, 

Supreme Court precedent and common sense strongly support 

this narrowly targeted drug testing program. I would affirm 

Judge Howell’s decision for the District Court upholding the 

program. I therefore respectfully dissent.

I

Ratified in 1791, the Fourth Amendment prohibits 

“unreasonable” government searches and seizures. By 

establishing reasonableness as the legal test, the text of the 

Fourth Amendment requires judges to engage in a commonlaw-like balancing of public and private interests to determine 

the constitutionality of particular kinds of searches and 

seizures.

Difficult Fourth Amendment issues can arise when the 

government, in order to protect the public at large, deploys 

new technologies to search or surveil individual citizens. See, 

e.g., United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012) (GPS); 

Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001) (thermal imaging); 

Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989) (helicopter 

surveillance); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)

(listening devices).

Drug testing is one such example of a modern technology 

used to protect the public from harm. In part because of the 

increase in drug-related violent crime during the 1970s and 

1980s, and particularly after the 1986 death of Len Bias, the 

ravages of drugs became the subject of great public concern 

and debate. Around the same time, drug testing technology 

became more widely available. Many private entities started 

drug testing their employees. Likewise, federal, state, and 

local government entities began to drug test in a variety of 

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 28 of 33
2

settings, including government workplaces and public 

schools.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Supreme Court 

considered the Fourth Amendment implications of 

government-mandated drug testing. The Supreme Court 

approved government-mandated drug testing without a 

warrant or individualized suspicion when the testing was 

motivated by a “special need” beyond the normal need for law 

enforcement and the government’s interest in testing 

outweighed the intrusion on individual privacy. Applying 

that fact-specific balancing test in a series of cases, the 

Supreme Court upheld drug testing of certain government 

employees, as well as drug testing of public school students 

who participate in athletics or other competitive 

extracurricular activities. See National Treasury Employees 

Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989); Skinner v. Railway 

Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989); Vernonia 

School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995); Board of 

Education v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822 (2002); cf. Chandler v. 

Miller, 520 U.S. 305 (1997). For its part, this Court upheld 

drug testing of government drug counselors; other courts of 

appeals similarly approved drug testing of public school 

teachers, other public school employees, and public 

correctional officers. See National Federation of Federal

Employees v. Cheney, 884 F.2d 603 (D.C. Cir. 1989); Knox 

County Education Ass’n v. Knox County Board of Education, 

158 F.3d 361 (6th Cir. 1998); American Federation of Gov’t 

Employees v. Roberts, 9 F.3d 1464 (9th Cir. 1993).1

 1 As the case law generally reveals, government-mandated 

drug testing of government employees is more likely to be 

permitted than government-mandated drug testing of private 

citizens. That dichotomy reflects the constitutional tradition that 

the government as employer has somewhat more flexibility in 

maintaining discipline and control over its own employees than it 

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 29 of 33
3

II

No Supreme Court case has addressed drug testing of 

public school teachers or other public school employees. This 

case likewise does not require us to resolve that broader 

question because this case raises a far narrower issue: drug 

testing of public employees at residential public schools for 

at-risk youth where many of the students have previously used 

drugs. Applying the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness 

standard and the fact-specific balancing test set forth by the 

relevant precedents, I would uphold the Department of 

Agriculture drug testing program at issue in this case.

2

The government has a strong interest in maintaining this 

narrowly targeted drug testing program. This limited program 

requires drug tests only for government employees who work 

at specialized residential schools for at-risk youth.

3

 

does in regulating private entities and individuals. See generally

Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 671; O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 

717-18 (1987) (plurality opinion); Pickering v. Board of Education, 

391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968).

 These

residential schools bring economically disadvantaged and atrisk youth from troubled environments, house them in remote 

rural locations, and train them in various vocations. The 

students who attend the schools range in age from 16 to 24

and often have not finished high school. Many of the students 

have previously used drugs. These schools provide a chance 

– sometimes a last chance – for the students to straighten out 

their lives.

2 The only question in this case concerns application of the 

balancing test. The government has articulated a special need for 

this drug testing program beyond the normal need for law 

enforcement. See, e.g., Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 665-66.

3 The schools are formally called Job Corps Civilian 

Conservation Centers, sometimes abbreviated as JCCCCs.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 30 of 33
4

At these specialized residential schools, the potential for 

drug problems is obvious. After all, any residential school or 

camp with young people poses a risk of mischief ranging 

from the innocuous to the extremely dangerous. The hazards 

are magnified when, as here, the residents at the school are atrisk youth who have a history of drug use. Indeed, the United 

States Senate conducted an investigation in the 1990s and 

discovered rampant drug problems at these institutions.

A residential school program for at-risk youth who have a 

history of drug problems can turn south quickly if the schools

do not maintain some level of discipline. To maintain

discipline, the schools must ensure that the employees who 

work there do not themselves become part of the problem. 

That is especially true when, as here, the employees are one 

of the few possible conduits for drugs to enter the schools. 

Put simply, the Department of Agriculture has a strong and 

indeed compelling interest in maintaining a drug-free

workforce at these specialized residential schools for at-risk 

youth.

4

Moreover, on the individual privacy side of the ledger, it 

bears mention that this particular drug testing program –

while no doubt intrusive and annoying like all drug testing –

 4 The majority opinion notes that not many employees have 

been caught using drugs. But the Supreme Court has cautioned that 

“[d]etecting drug impairment on the part of employees can be a 

difficult task.” Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 674. So a low detection rate 

without drug testing certainly does not itself mean that there is little 

drug use among the employees. To assume otherwise would be 

naive. Moreover, the Supreme Court has explained that even a few 

drug-using employees can pose problems in certain workplaces. 

Therefore, the “mere circumstance that all but a few of the 

employees tested are entirely innocent of wrongdoing does not 

impugn the program’s validity.” Id.

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 31 of 33
5

entails only a urine sample produced in private. It does not 

require observation or a physically invasive procedure. Cf.

Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of 

Burlington, 132 S. Ct. 1510 (2012); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 

(1968); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966); BNSF 

Railway Co. v. Dep’t of Transportation, 566 F.3d 200 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009). In addition, this drug testing program reveals only 

whether the employee has used drugs; it does not disclose

other private information – a fact the Supreme Court has 

noted in upholding other drug testing policies. See Von Raab, 

489 U.S. at 673 n.2; cf. Jones, 132 S. Ct. at 954 (Sotomayor, 

J., concurring); id. at 957 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment).

Applying the fact-specific balancing test set forth by the 

relevant precedents, I would conclude that the government’s 

strong interest in ensuring a drug-free workforce at these 

schools outweighs the infringement of individual privacy

associated with this drug testing program. In residential 

schools for at-risk youth, many of whom have previously used 

drugs, it seems eminently sensible to implement a narrowly 

targeted drug testing program for the schools’ employees. In 

these limited circumstances, it is reasonable to test; indeed, it 

would seem negligent not to test.

I therefore would affirm Judge Howell’s decision for the 

District Court upholding this drug testing program. Judge 

Howell summarized the issue persuasively:

Based upon the Court’s findings that all JCCCC 

employees must help maintain a drug-free environment 

for JCCCC students[;] their role as counselors, educators 

and adult supervisors to youth prone to drug use[;] and 

the employees’ responsibilities in maintaining a safe 

environment for residential students located in remote 

parts of the country, the Court concludes that the 

USCA Case #11-5135 Document #1377726 Filed: 06/08/2012 Page 32 of 33
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government has a compelling interest in testing these 

employees to ensure that they do not compromise the 

Jobs Corps’ overall educational program and do not put 

students at risk. . . . 

The defendants’ interests in testing JCCCC 

employees are not merely symbolic, but are directed 

toward maintaining the effectiveness of the JCCCC 

program and ensuring the safety of students located in 

remote rural sites across the country. This rationale 

overrides the employees’ expectation of privacy, which is 

already diminished considering the nature of their 

employment and the regulations already imposed upon 

them.

National Federation of Federal Employees-IAM v. Vilsack, 

775 F. Supp. 2d 91, 113 (D.D.C. 2011).

* * *

I would rule that this narrowly targeted drug testing 

program is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. I

respectfully dissent.

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