University Of Hard Knocks

The ACLU has wasted no time in going after Linn State Technical College in Missouri, the little school that made big noise with its mandatory student drug testing policy.

Linn State Technical College’s first-in-the-country, mandatory student drug testing that could lead to no-refund dismissals has been challenged in court.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri this week filed a federal lawsuit accusing the two-year publicly funded college in Linn, Mo., of “violating the constitutional rights of its students by forcing them to submit to mandatory drug tests as a condition of their enrollment.”

On Thursday, a judge in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, where the lawsuit was filed, granted a temporary restraining order to stop the testing and analysis of any samples already collected and to block release of any results garnered from the testing.

Donald M. Claycomb, president of Linn State Technical College, and members of the board of regents are named as defendants. Officials at the college east of Jefferson City declined to comment and referred calls to their attorney Kent Brown, who was not available for comment.

The drug testing policy was adopted earlier this month and requires all students — first-year and those returning after at least a semester-long break — to pay a $50 non-refundable fee and submit to urine test. The college has 1,176 students.

The folks who should be screaming the loudest at this are the Ron Paulites and the smaller government conservatives, but Paulites will say that there should be no community colleges period and conservatives have no problem using government power to go after college kids who might learn something and become liberals (or graduate from technical school and take up trades as -- the horror -- unionized blue collar workers).

I'll let Bon take this one from here, seeing as this is in her backyard.