CHEYENNE - Dozens of Goshen County families are suing their local school district over a new drug and alcohol testing policy that will require students who are in grades 7-12 and involved in extracurricular activities to agree to random drug and alcohol testing.

Board members in Goshen County School District 1 voted 8-1 in favor of the new policy in April. Fifty-eight students plus their parents or grandparents filed suit Thursday in Goshen County District Court in Torrington.

Students who don't sign a form agreeing to the testing by a company contracted by the district won't be allowed to participate in activities including sports, cheerleading, marching band and drama.

"The entire drug testing policy is unconstitutional. I don't believe that random, suspicionless drug testing is appropriate or allowed by either the Wyoming Constitution or the federal Constitution," said the plaintiffs' attorney, Harriet Hageman, on Tuesday.

Superintendent Ray Schulte said he believes the policy is constitutional, otherwise he wouldn't have recommended approval by the school board. Schulte declined to comment further on either the lawsuit or the policy, however.

Defendants include Schulte and the school board as well as the school district.

It's the first time anyone has challenged a school district's random drug and alcohol testing policy in court in Wyoming, according to Hageman.

A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld random drug testing for students involved in sports and other competitive extracurricular activities. The court ruled 5-4 that such testing did not violate students' constitutional protection against unreasonable searches.

The Goshen County lawsuit claims the school district violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The lawsuit also claims the policy violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection provision by treating students involved in activities differently than other students.

The lawsuit invokes similar search-and-seizure and equal protection language in the Wyoming Constitution.

The lawsuit says the school district has not shown that students involved in any of the extracurricular activities covered under the new policy are more likely to use drugs or alcohol than other students. Rather, the lawsuit says, involvement in such activities is "critically important to the health and well-being of every student" and helps students avoid using alcohol and illegal drugs.

The policy applies to students at the Lingle-Fort Laramie high school and middle school, the Torrington high school and middle school, and the Southeast high school and middle school in Yoder. The school district still is seeking a contractor to administer the new policy, according to the district's Web site.