Fourth Amendment Protection in Public and Private Schools Chloe and Sara

What is the 4th Amendment?

Our Interpretation

Every person has the right to privacy unless there's a valid reason for the police or government to intrude on your privacy and search your personal property.

The 4th Amendment in Schools

When you want to attend a school, you and your parents have to sign papers and wavers before you are allowed to attend. In those papers you sign contracts agreeing to the schools policy and code of conduct, and although these vary from school to school, they say the same basic thing. The school has every right to search you and your belongings, but only with probable cause. To play sports at a school you sign more papers agreeing not to use drugs and the school or team has right to random drug testing. Depending on the school and the state, they may be able to legally do random locker, car, or back pack searches with or without you being present. As students and minors, our Fourth Amendment protection is less of what it would be in the "real world".

Exceptions

Open Field / "In Plain Sight" Exception

The Open Field Doctrine was added as an exception to the Forth Amendment in 1924 when police observed a marijauna crop growing on a suspects property, but they had not stepped onto their property yet. It was ruled that since the plants were in plain sight and the police had not technically "searched" the premises, they could use that as evidence against the suspect.

Case 1: Veronia School District

In the early 1990s the officials at the Veronia School District started noticing an increase in drug use among their students. They also noticed that student athletes were a major part of the problem. So, in order to put a stop to this, they made a contract for all student athletes. This contract was for the students and their parents that they had to sign in order to participate on sport teams. By signing the contract you agreed to random drug testing. Every week the school officials put all of the student athletes name in a bowl and randomly picked a few names. The ones chosen would have to give a urine sample to be tested.

James Acton at Veronia School signed up to play football that year for his school but was denied participation. His parents didn't agree with contract and refused to sign it. If you don't sign the contract you can't play on a team sport. Furious, the Acton family took the school to court saying this violated their sons Fourth Amendment right.

The court found nothing wrong with the schools policy. They said that they have every right to random drug test as long as the parents sign the contract. They also have the right to deny a kids participation if they don't agree to their rules and policies.

Case 2: New Jersey vs T.L.O

In 1984, an eighth grade girl named Tracy Lois Odem was caught smoking cigarettes with her friend in a school bathroom. Tracy's friend admitted to smoking, but Tracy denied it, and was sent immediately to the principles office. The principle asked to see her purse because since she had just been caught smoking, he had probable cause to open her purse and look for the cigarettes. He found them right on the top and when he took them out, he saw rolling paper, small amounts of marijauna, and other drug paraphernalia underneath the cigarettes.

Since the principle did not touch any of the things underneath, he just saw them, it fell under the "in plain sight" exception, so he believed it was okay for him to continue looking because he had more of a probable cause, even without judicial permission. The court, although they did not like the fact that he kept looking through Tracy's purse, felt that he had done the right thing. Tracy was found guilty of the dealing and use of illicit drugs and was expelled and fined $1000.

Case 3: Safford Unified School vs Redding

Savana Redding an 8th grader at Safford unified middle school was strip searched by school officials by a tip from another student saying she was hiding over the counter ibuprofen on her body, violating school policy. The Redding family filed suit against the school saying their wasn't enough probable cause and illegal search and seizure. The court found that Savana's 4th amendment was violated, meaning the school didn't have enough probable cause to search her.

Private Schools

In general, private schools do not follow the Fourth Amendment like public schools do, Most private schools will make contracts like public schools that the student and their parents must sign to enroll in the school. However when it comes to private schools, those contracts say different things then public schools do. In a private school the contract states that if you violate school rules they have the right to search or seize anything they want, or they can just kick you out with out any investigating, and for the most part, even if you are just suspected of having or doing something bad, on or off school property, the search process will be skipped and you will be kicked out immediately.

The handbook at Bishop Marshall states the same thing as many other private schools. All of the parents and students must sign contracts saying they won't make any violations at school. Bishop Marshall doesn't usually have many infringements that lead to cases. Whenever a rule is violated, a mandatory meeting is planned with the students parents to figure out the next step in punishments. They automatically receive a detention and then suspension and expolltion is brought up. Once the punishment is decided the student must be on its best behavior because another infringement leads to expolltion.

Private School Case: Micheal Vs Gresbach

On May 19th 2004 a case was filed against a school in Wyoming. A relative of one of the students at the private school had made a note to the principal saying another kid had hit her nephew. The school hired a state official to come and investigate the accusations. The state official arrived and told the principal if she could interview each kid. The principal asked if he should notify the parents, the official said no that it wouldn't be necessary. During the interview she looked at the kids wrist and found no markings and then asked him to lift his shirt and again found no markings. She also investigated the other student having her remove her tights and again found no bruising. The Paramus of the kids took Gresbach to court for not notifying them first. The two families won the case because the court ruled that the parents should of been notified first because the children's Fourth Amendment Rights was violated.

Our Opinion

We believe that the Fourth Amendment in schools is too permissive and is allowing the wrong people to have control over students personable rights. School officials needed to have very specific probable cause to search a student without consent of a warrant, and can not go off of small tips from other people because that is not a good enough reason to search someone. Students also should have the right to know when locker searches are happening, and should have the right to not have their personal belongs searched, such as clothes, backpacks, and purses, unless there is probable cause, officials have a warrant, or they are an immediate danger to themselves or those around them. Schools and school officials should have limited powers over the students Fourth Amendment rights, while still protecting students in the learning environment.

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