Brad Burke of the Peoria Journal Star reports on the controversy surrounding Dunlap, Illinois school superintendent William Collier’s demand that athletes accused of attending a party where alcoholic beverages were served submit to polygraphic interrogation. Excerpt:
DUNLAP – The postseason fate of Dunlap High School’s football team will be decided on the field tonight, but the athletic futures of several football players soon may be settled in the courts.
Ten student-athletes – most of whom are varsity football players – suspected of violating the school’s athletic policy have agreed to take school-mandated polygraph tests to gauge their innocence, said William Collier, superintendent of Dunlap Community School District Unit 323.
But their parents have hired a lawyer who on Thursday said his clients are prepared to challenge the validity of the athletic policy, even if their kids pass the exams aimed at unearthing their involvement at a party where alcohol was present earlier this month.
“We want our kids to do what’s forthright and what’s proper without being punished for it,” said Matt Jones, the parents’ attorney.
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Now, the students’ story will be scrutinized by a polygrapher hired by the school. Both sides are negotiating who will administer the tests, to be given next week, and what questions students will be asked.
Once thing is clear: The truth won’t come cheap. Lie detectors regularly cost between $200 and $400 per test, according to polygraphers throughout Illinois.
Collier said the school will pay $200 per test, with parents covering the difference. That decision outraged some students’ rights lobbyists.
“Is that an appropriate use of school funds?” Illinois American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Ed Yohnka asked.
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Even polygraphers are divided on the issue. Some disagree about the role of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, a federal law passed in the late 1980s preventing employers from using lie detectors against their staffs.
“The Polygraph Protection Act only covers employees, it doesn’t cover students because they’re not employees of the school,” said Tom Ivey, a polygrapher who owns Ivey Investigative Services in Pekin who would not say if he is involved in the Dunlap case.
Under the law, he added, “any school can request” students take the test.
But not all lie-detection experts concurred.
Steve Theodore, a polygrapher in the Chicago suburb of Hillside with more than 30 years experience, said testing students is a blatant violation of the Polygraph Protection Act.
“I still wouldn’t do it myself, I don’t think it’s legal,” said Theodore, who added he is not involved in the Dunlap case.