PRINCETON BOROUGH — This year's Princeton High School prom has come and gone, but the debate over a new policy that required attendees to submit to a breath-test for alcohol continues as a pair of students who refused the test dispute its legality under federal law.

Seniors Sasha Chhabra and Kevin Petrovic arrived at The Westin at Princeton Forrestal Village on May 24 knowing that the alcohol screening was required, but declined to take the test and were denied entry. Chhabra argued that the test was a violation of students’ constitutional rights.

“If I’m misbehaving, if I’m acting rowdy or if I’m appearing drunk, maybe you have grounds to search me,” Chhabra said yesterday. “But if I’m just another student with a good record, strong academic standing and have never been written up for any instance before — and I’m assumed to be guilty — I think there’s something really wrong with that.”

Princeton Regional superintendent Judy Wilson confirmed that two students did not comply with the mandatory screening, while noting that they were cordial to the school officials administering the tests.

“They were very respectful and very appropriate and said, in so many words, that they did not intend to take the breath sensor,” Wilson said yesterday. “It was well thought-out, planned and respectful. It’s their statement, and that’s fine. They respected that the terms of entering the prom were to take the breath censor.”

Wilson said a legal review had determined that Chhabra’s constitutional claims didn’t apply to the policy.

Chhabra said the mandatory breath-test violated students’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, calling it an unreasonable and unwarranted “blanket search” that forced students to incriminate themselves.

The two students cited New Jersey v. T.L.O., in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a vice principal at Piscataway High School in Middlesex County. The vice principal searched a student’s purse after she was caught smoking cigarettes in the bathroom and found various drug paraphernalia.

The Supreme Court ruled the search was reasonable because students’ privacy had to be weighed against the school’s responsibility to maintain discipline on school grounds. But Chhabra argued the ruling only allowed searches for cause.

“It would be one issue if they searched, with reasonable suspicion, people who are misbehaving or people who are being violent,” Chhabra said. “It’s another thing to say that every single student who wants to go to the prom is assumed to be guilty, and we must Breathalyze every one of them. There’s no warrant for that search. There’s no reasonable suspicion.”

The Princeton Regional school board unanimously approved the policy in April, a few months after the high school canceled its homecoming in the wake of various alcohol-related incidents.

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