Mississippi Delta Community College Expulsions Based on Hair Follicle Drug Tests Unconstitutional, Lawsuit Alleges

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Mississippi Delta Community College (MDCC) faces a proposed class action lawsuit over its alleged practice of automatically expelling Health Sciences Division nursing students for testing positive on a hair follicle drug test. 

The 19-page case was filed by three women who also allege MDCC unconstitutionally fails to afford those who’ve tested positive on a hair follicle drug test with a meaningful opportunity to respond to and refute “the conclusion that they are drug users and therefore should be expelled from nursing school.” 

The plaintiffs argue that MDCC’s failure to provide Health Sciences Division students with a hearing at which they can make the case that they are not drug users, and should be allowed to remain in school, violates their due process rights under the United States Constitution. 

According to the case, MDCC, whose student body is comprised largely of African American and Black students, enforces a drug screening regimen that requires each student to submit to “random and/or group” drug screenings each semester, as well as pre-admission. Per the suit, a positive drug screen is grounds for a student to be immediately dismissed from MDCC.

The lawsuit argues that MDCC’s policy provides “absolutely no procedural safeguards” for erroneous test results. 

The suit says that one plaintiff, a licensed practical nurse who currently works at a nursing home, was expelled by MDCC after a random hair follicle test came back positive for cocaine. Upon receiving the test result, the plaintiff immediately began contacting instructors, staff and administrators yet received no help, the lawsuit says.

Per the case, MDCC Dean of Student Services Derrick Fields responded to the plaintiff, suggesting that “she may have tested positive for drug use because she had sex with a cocaine user, even if she had not used any drugs” and that the woman may have tested positive “not because she used drugs but because another person may have put a drug in her drink.” The suit says the dean’s statements implied that the plaintiff “may have been the victim of a crime, associated with rape, which by itself would have justified her automatic expulsion.” 

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, in the meantime, had additional hair follicle testing done at her own expense. The results came back negative for illegal drugs, the case says. Though the plaintiff submitted the negative results to MDCC, the defendants, the filing alleges, informed the woman that the school “would not consider any test of any hair sample other than the original gathered.” 

Further, the lawsuit states that the plaintiff paid to have her original hair sample re-analyzed. Per the case, the re-analysis failed because, “according to the lab, the sample was abnormally structured or damaged.” 

A second plaintiff faced a similar situation wherein a hair follicle test came back positive for cocaine even though the woman does not use the drug, the lawsuit states. The plaintiff, at her own expense, went for additional hair follicle and urine drug testing, both of which came back negative for illegal drugs, the case says. The school nevertheless would not reconsider the plaintiff’s initial positive drug test, the suit claims. 

The third plaintiff’s situation mirrored that of her co-plaintiffs in that she, too, tested positive for cocaine on a school-related hair follicle test. The plaintiff ran into an issue with regard to her request that the lab contracted by MDCC perform a re-analysis, as her specimen for retesting was apparently lost in transit, according to the complaint. 

Although the plaintiff subsequently underwent at her own expense urine and hair follicle drug testing—both of which came back negative for illegal drugs—the woman was told by the school that her only option to become eligible to resume her nursing program study was to “complete a drug rehabilitation program,” the lawsuit says. 

The filing charges that without a meaningful hearing to refute hair follicle drug test results, MDCC places students at an unnecessary risk of being terminated due to false positives, even though they do not use illegal drugs. 

The lawsuit looks to represent all past, present and future Mississippi Delta Community College Division of Health Sciences students who have been or may be expelled due to a positive drug test absent constitutionally adequate procedural safeguards. 

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