The Supreme Court held that although the tests were searches under the Fourth Amendment, they were reasonable in light of the schools' interest in preventing teenage drug use.

At the trial, the Vernonia High School football and wrestling coaches noted they had witnessed injuries attributable to student drug use.

In response, the school district offered special classes, speakers, and presentations to the students intended to deter drug use.

Central to the Court's analysis, in this case, was the fact that the "subjects of the policy are (1) children, who (2) have been committed to the temporary custody of the State as a schoolmaster."

The schools act in loco parentis to the children, and have "such a portion of the power of the parent committed to his charge... as may be necessary to answer the purposes for which he was employed."

Public schools require students to undergo vaccinations, vision, hearing, dermatological screenings, and other examinations.

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."

More recently, the Court had limited its willingness to dispense with the individualized suspicion requirement only in particularly dangerous contexts, such as prisons.

Furthermore, the school district itself already had in place a discipline system based on individualized suspicion for a variety of infractions, such that adding drug testing to the mix would not be particularly onerous.

If the school district had acted against these particular students, it could have avoided intruding on Acton's Fourth Amendment rights at all.