Student Searches: Violating the Fourth Amendment?

The Supreme Court decisions of New Jersey v. T.L.O., Vernonia School District v. Wayne Acton, and Pottawatomie v. Earls set the precedent for all future Supreme Court decisions regarding the Fourth Amendment. These three cases were each based upon the application of the Fourth Amendment to the school environment. The Fourth Amendment states that American citizens have the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” However, this amendment makes no point of defining “unreasonable searches or seizures,” which allowed the Supreme Court to interpret that meaning in the following three cases, causing a greater limit on students’ rights to privacy.

New Jersey v. T.L.O. was decided on January 15, 1985. The respondent of this case was T.L.O., a fourteen-year-old high school freshman girl, who was caught smoking cigarettes in a school bathroom by a teacher of Piscataway High School in Middlesex County, New Jersey. The teacher then reported T.L.O. and another girl to the principal, because smoking cigarettes was against one of the school rules. Assistant Vice Principal Theodore Choplick questioned T.L.O., who denied the fact that she had been smoking in the lavatory; although her friend admitted to it, T.L.O. claimed that she never smoked. Mr. Choplick then took T.L.O. into his private office and looked through her purse, finding a package of cigarettes. However, upon removing the cigarettes from her purse, Mr. Choplick then discovered a package of cigarette rolling papers (which are generally associated with marijuana). He then decided to search the purse completely, not only finding marijuana and a pipe, but also many plastic bags, a lot of money in the form of one-dollar bills, a piece of paper of the names of students who owed T.L.O. money, and two letters implicating T.L.O. as a marijuana dealer.

After T.L.O. was taken into the authorities by her mother (through a request from the school) and charged to hear before the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Middlesex County, T.L.O. “moved to suppress the evidence found in her purse as well as her confession, which, she argued, was tainted by the allegedly unlawful search.” Although the juvenile court and the Court of Appeals did not recognize the violation of the Fourth Amendment in the case of T.L.O., her appeal to the Supreme Court of New Jersey brought about the reversal of the decisions of the lower courts. However, the State of New Jersey then petitioned to have the case tried in front of the Supreme Court, where it reversed the decision of the State of New Jersey.

One of the major questions of this case is “whether [the Fourth] Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials.” Although the Supreme Court holds that it does, it then goes on to say that “the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search.” Because, however, the Supreme Court found the search of T.L.O.’s purse by Mr. Choplick to be reasonable—Mr. Choplick had a reasonable suspicion that the purse contained cigarettes (T.L.O. had been caught smoking them) and the discovery of the marijuana and drug paraphernalia was reasonable because of the suspicion caused by the detection of the rolling papers—the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Supreme Court of New Jersey and determined that Mr. Choplick’s search(es) were not in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The next Supreme Court case regarding the violation of the Fourth Amendment was Vernonia School District v. Wayne Acton, which was decided June 26, 1995. The petitioner of this case, Vernonia School District, had problems with drugs in its town of Vernonia, Oregon, especially among athletes, who were described as “the leaders of the drug culture.” Because of this, the school district decided to create the Student Athlete Drug Policy, which would drug test all athletes, not only to prevent student athletes from using drugs, but also to protect them, since “drug use increases the risk of sports-related injury.”

The respondent to this case, James Acton, was a seventh grader who wanted to join the school football team. However, he was not allowed on the team because he and his parents refused to sign the forms which would consent to allowing Acton to be tested for drugs. “The Actons filed suit, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from enforcement of the Policy on the grounds that it violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

The Supreme Court decided that Vernonia School District was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They stated that not only should athletes have a reduced expectation of privacy, because “there is an element of communal undress inherent in athletic participation,” but also that “the privacy interests compromised by the process of obtaining the urine sample are in our view negligible.” Therefore, because “the Policy was undertaken in furtherance of the government’s responsibilities, under a public school system, as guardian and tutor of children entrusted to its care,” the Supreme Court found that Veronia’s Student Athlete Drug Policy was reasonable and therefore constitutional.

The most recent Supreme Court decision regarding student searches was decided on June 27, 2002. This case, Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County, et al., v. Lindsay Earls et al., was very similar to the case of Vernonia v. Acton, in that the Pottawatomie School District held mandatory drug testing for its students. However, unlike Vernonia, Pottawatomie extended the required drug testing to all its middle school and high school students participating in any extracurricular activities. The respondents, Lindsay Earls and Daniel James, who both participated in extracurricular activities including the Academic Team and the marching band, brought a suit against the School District, because they claimed that it violated their rights as specified by the Fourth Amendment.

“Applying the principles of Vernonia to the somewhat different facts of this case, [the Supreme Court] conclude[d] that Tecumseh’s Policy [was] also constitutional.” The Supreme Court found that “while schoolchildren do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse, Fourth Amendment rights are different in public schools than elsewhere; the reasonableness inquiry cannot disregard the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.” In other words, because the school takes on the responsibility of the children enrolled there, it also may invade the privacy of students in “reasonable” circumstances, as in the suspicion of health-harming drugs. The Court goes on to say that “the invasion of students’ privacy is not significant” because the drug test results do not lead to academic or disciplinary consequences and are shown to a limited amount of people. Drug testing is in the best interest of the students, because the school can then do its best to protect the health and safety of its students.

Because the definition of “unreasonable searches or seizures” is not specifically defined in the Constitution, the Supreme Court set the precedent of testing reasonableness in searches and seizures in the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O. Therefore, students’ rights to privacy have become increasingly limited over time because of the concern for the safety and protection of students—a “reasonable” justification to the violation of the Fourth Amendment. Eventually, the Supreme Court could justify any actions towards students by any responsible institutions as reasonable for the security and well-being of students—perhaps allowing for required drug testing in all schools, causing students to have no privacy whatsoever. The question this raises, however, is where does this “reasonability” end? Will colleges and employers also be able to justify the complete lack of privacy shown towards students and employees in searches or seizures as being reasonable to protect the interests of their institution and their students or employees?