The Fourth Amendment to the constitution protects United States citizens from

unreasonable searches and seizures. Our forefathers recognized the harm and abuses that
occurred in the colonies to innocent people by the British, and they made sure to write
protections into the U.S. Constitution. Fearing the police state that any nation has the
potential to become and recognizing that freedom and liberty is meaningless when
victimization by the police is a real and foreboding threat the Fourth Amendment was
created. The Fourth Amendment has gone through many challenges and controversies in
the past, and currently the issue of how the Fourth Amendment applies to students in
public schools has come to be contended in the courts. While it is apparent to me that the
Fourth Amendment should be no less applicable in schools than in the general society
these essential Constitutional protections have been under fire in recent years and many
rights have been taken away from students.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution states, The right of the people 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. No where in this law does it create special divisions or
classifications between adults and minors in society, so one should naturally assume that
persons under 18 should be afforded the same protections as anyone over 18. The
moment when minors are most at the mercy of government officials is while in school,
and this is when these Constitutional Fourth Amendment protections are needed.
The largest and first assault on the rights of students to be free from unreasonable
searches and seizures occurred in the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O. In 1980 at Piscataway
High School in Middlesex County, N.J. a few girls were caught smoking in the bathroom.
After being brought to the principals office one of the girls, T.L.O., denied that she had
been smoking. The principal then searched her purse looking for cigarettes. After finding
a pack of cigarettes the search continued until the principal discovered evidence of drug
dealing. This evidence was used to prosecute T.L.O. and ultimately she received a year of
probation.
Supporting the applicability of the Fourth Amendment in public schools Justice White
writing for the court opinion stated that, It is now beyond dispute that the Federal
Constitution, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits unreasonable searches
and seizures by state officers. Equally indisputable is the proposition that the Fourteenth

Amendment protects the rights of students against encroachment by public school

officials. he further stated that In carrying out searches and other disciplinary functions
pursuant to such policies, school officials act as representatives of the State, not merely as
surrogates for the parents, and they cannot claim the parents immunity from the
strictures of the Fourth Amendment.
While the opinion of the court takes care to point out the rights of students in school and
despite the ruling, tempers it somewhat with its recognition of students rights. The
concurring opinion by Justices OConnor and Powell was not quite as nice. In Powells
words I agree with the Courts decision, and generally with its opinion. I would place
greater emphasis, however, on the special characteristics of elementary and secondary
schools that make it unnecessary to afford students the same constitutional protections
granted adults and juveniles in a nonschool setting. This is clearly a detraction from the
rest of the justices opinions and against the nature of the amendment and previous school
precedents.
Ultimately the opinion of the court established a reasonableness approach to search and
seizure rather than a probable cause approach as outlined in the constitution. This
Supreme Court decision reinterpreted how the law applies in school with such wordings
as: reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence, reasonably
related to the objectives of the search, reasonably related in scope clearly the court has
created a new way to apply this law based on no precedent or prior interpretations. The
court has thrown out the probable cause clause of the Fourth Amendment and invented a
murky, dangerous classification of reasonableness. Clearly this will have the effect of
further limiting the rights of students in public school.
The depreciation of Fourth Amendment protections in school have unfortunately
continued further past the New Jersey v. T.L.O. decision. In the case of Vernonia School
District 47J v. Acton the court approved of random drug testing of athletic students based
on no suspicion or reasonableness at all. Writing for the opinion of the court Justice
Scalia says that, A search unsupported by probable cause can be constitutional, we have
said, when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the
warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.' He then goes on to argue that
We have found such special needs to exist in the public-school context. There the
warrant requirement would unduly interfere with the maintenance of the swift and
informal disciplinary procedures [that are] needed, and strict adherence to the

requirement that searches be based upon probable cause would undercut the substantial
need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools. T.L.O.
In this attack Justice Scalia sets up that the half of the Fourth Amendment that provides
for warrants and probable cause isnt needed in all situations, and then proclaims public
schools as a situation where probable cause and warrants are never needed. Scalia
referred back to T.L.O. to support his claim that schools have special needs but yet goes
further than T.L.O. and argues that not only does the warrant requirement not apply, but
the situation of individualized suspicion of wrong doing that was present with T.L.O.
should not apply either. Using Skinner as precedent Scalia maintains that random,
suspicionless searches of students are allowed by the constitution in public schools.
The circumstances in the Verona School District 47J v. Acton involve a school policy of
requiring random urine tests by athletes for drugs. James Acton, a seventh-grader, wanted
to play football but was not allowed because he would not consent to these random
searches. Because of the broad suspicionless nature of this search it has very negative
implications to the Constitution and to the promise of the Fourth Amendment in public
schools and in society at large.
Another important aspect of this case is the courts argument that there is a lower
expectation of privacy in regards to athletics. That due to changing clothes in front of
other people on the team you have some how less of a desire to keep the contents of your
veins and arteries a secret. This I find to be substantially suspect. While I do not argue
that the student athletes have a lower expectation of privacy due to their situation in the
locker rooms and activities undertaken together as a team, I do not believe that this
expectation is nearly low enough to allow an invasion of ones own body for the purposes
of a search. Clearly there is no way for anyone to have any indication of what chemicals
are contained inside ones own blood by a casual glance or even a thorough study of the
outside of ones body. The expectation of privacy regarding ones blood would be
equivalent to the contents of a safe hidden and locked inside ones house. While this
expectation of privacy is something to be respected it can still be violated by an
individual suspicious of guilt accompanied by a probable cause and a search warrant. In
that case the blood test or the opening of the safe would be justified in my opinion. But
due to the nature of the randomness of this search it is obvious to me that it is
unconstitutional and this court decision should be reversed.

These two court cases are very important in the evolution of the Fourth Amendment in
public schools.