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The problem is the widespread practice by many campuses in defining community membership in ways that deny their students the civil liberties and civil rights all other Americans are guaranteed. Thus, when forty-year old veterans enroll for even one part-time course, they may find that First and Fourteenth Amendment rights existing off campus no longer apply to them as students. They may seem to have joined a different nation with various sets of ambiguous rules. Some campuses place those sanctions not only on campus-based actions, but on social media comments made in the distant past as well. The reality is that there are more than 3,000 campuses in the United States. The efforts by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Speech First, and other organizations have been essential in establishing legal precedents and at least providing temporary relief to victims of speech suppression on various campuses. But the new judicial openness to holding campus authorities accountable through the imposition of personal damages offers an alternative to the "whack a mole" approach now used. In this article, George La Noue argues to create damage precedents, litigation will have to be more time consuming and expensive requiring attorney fees to be sought when cases are won. Extensive discovery and depositions with the creators of speech suppression policies will be necessary. Who drafted the policy and which administrators and board members reviewed it? What role did campus activists or outside groups play in policy design? Was legal counsel involved and what was their advice? Given that sort of record, a court can determine whether damages should be assessed, how much they should be, and who should pay them? When those sorts of precedents are established, more responsible speech policies consistent with constitutional rights in higher education nationwide will start to be seen.

Despite the potential instructional benefits of integrating devices such as cell phones into schools and classrooms, research reveals that their improper use can negatively impact student behaviour, learning, and well-being. This paper reviews the literature and litigation on cell phone use in schools due to controversies over cheating, cyberbullying, sexting, and searches of student cell phones. Recent studies suggested that the presence of cell phones and related technologies in classrooms could detract from students' academic performances while contributing to higher rates of academic dishonesty and cyberbullying. The growing prevalence of cyberbullying is especially concerning because it can have severely negative, even tragic, effects on student mental health and safety. However, given the relatively discreet nature of cell phone use, regulations about their use can be difficult to enforce. After reviewing literature and litigation on the potential risks associated with inappropriate cell phone use in schools, this paper offers suggestions for educators to consider when devising or revising policies balancing students' individual rights with their safety and well-being before ending with a brief conclusion.

Courts have long held that public school teachers are "state actors" when they carry out the duties of their job. Despite this, very few teacher preparation programs include an education law class. In order to understand teachers' legal literacy, a survey was given to 300 public school teachers in Indiana. The survey assessed knowledge of constitutional law issues, statutory law issues, and case law relevant to public school settings (e.g., student free speech, search and seizure, special education law, etc.). Results indicate that very few teachers are legal literate, often mistaking what is within the realm of legal possibility in a school setting. Implications and suggestions for mitigating possible lawsuits are discussed.

Typically, school administrators determine their school's security practices, but parental involvement may also play an important role in school security decisions. Data from the 2015-2016 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS 2016) was used to examine the relationship between parental involvement and the presence of physically invasive security practices in secondary schools. Invasive security was defined as the emplacement of metal detectors, contraband sweeps or drug sniffing canines. Analyses revealed that high levels of school-based parent engagement were associated with lower odds of employing invasive security measures in the school setting.

The time has come for a thorough review of the "Guidelines for the Consideration of Governing Bodies in Adopting a Code of Conduct for Learners" (hereafter the Guidelines). More than 20 years after its original publication, no amendments have been made to this important document. To substantiate the case for review, some of the most significant contradictions with the provisions of the "South African Schools Act 84 of 1996" are highlighted, as well as serious lacunae with regard to the definition of important concepts and the failure to incorporate constitutional developments that impact on school discipline and should be reflected in the code of conduct of all schools. School governing body members are mostly laypeople and guidance on legal aspects and developments should therefore be included in the Guidelines.

Weapons at school pose a danger to students as well as faculty. Educational administrators have attempted to reduce their prevalence by implementing random weapons searches in schools. This article examines the effectiveness of this approach using data from two geographically adjacent school districts in Florida (Miami-Dade and Broward). In the 1998-1999 school year, Miami-Dade County Schools implemented mandatory random weapons searches in schools, whereas Broward County did not. Using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, the results indicate that the searches reduced the likelihood that students brought weapons to school and reduced incidences of being offered illegal drugs at school in Miami. Moreover, students in Miami were less likely to report skipping school due to safety concerns following the introduction of the searches.

College students who reside in campus dormitories at public universities have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their dorm rooms that is protected by the fourth amendment; and officials cannot search these rooms for law enforcement purposes without a valid warrant. Non-students, however, have no such reasonable expectation of privacy in dormitory rooms that they have vacated or live in as guests in violation of college housing rules. A line of cases indicates that college and university officials may search students' dormitory rooms for non-law-enforcement purposes without offending the fourth amendment if the search is authorized by language in a housing contract or a reasonable regulation adopted to maintain safety, security, and an educational environment conducive to learning. The ninth Circuit has ruled that campus authorities may conduct searches in areas where students have objectively reasonable expectations of privacy without obtaining a warrant if officials are motivated by a "special need" to protect the university's security that is separate and apart from law enforcement concerns. The seventh Circuit has ruled that university student inspectors may conduct a "lawful regulatory search" of a dormitory room to advance "special needs" beyond the needs of law enforcement without the necessity of obtaining a warrant. However, campus officials cannot rely on language in their regulations or student-housing contracts to justify warrantless searches that are conducted pursuant to a criminal investigation. [Discussion questions developed by Alyse Gray Parker.]

Cell phones and the use of social media have changed the environment in schools, and principals recognize all too well that new technology is almost always accompanied by new ways to misuse or abuse that technology. The addition of a camera to cell phones has unfortunately been accompanied with the serious problem of "sexting" by youth who send nude or semi-nude images to others through social media. Although many initial acts of "sexting" may be consensual, such images may still be illegal, and the potential for forwarding the images to others is very high. Principals are responsible for investigating all acts of "sexting" that they become aware of, and these investigations carry unique risks and dangers for principals due to the potential of the discovery of images of child pornography. This article outlines the major dangers principals must be aware of as they conduct sexting investigations in their schools, and also discusses the dangers of sexting for students. Recommendations for minimizing these risks are included.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the efforts of two universities to address the issue of providing computer forensics students with the opportunity to get involved in the practical aspects of forensic search and seizure procedures. The paper discusses the approaches undertaken by the University of Sunderland and the University of South Wales (Glamorgan) to give the students the opportunity to process a case from the crime scene through to the court room. In order to do this both institutions adopted a problem-based learning (PBL) approach--to reflect real-world solutions and encourage students to work in groups to seek further knowledge and understanding of the various processes and procedures--in particular the steps around search and seizure of digital evidence from a crime scene. The PBL activities at Sunderland and Glamorgan were designed in order to help the students understand the processes of digital crime scene analysis and search and seizure procedures and to give them the opportunity to put into practice their digital forensics techniques. Both exercises were designed to give the opportunity to solve realistic problems using PBL, and to illustrate the inter-relationships between science, technology and human activity as it applies to digital forensics, forensic science and the criminal justice system. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the exercises considering the impact they have had on student understanding and learning. Consideration is given to how the PBL activities can be disseminated and/or transferred to the wider community.

This study examined federal and state court decisions related to student Fourth Amendment rights following the "New Jersey v. T.L.O." ruling in 1985. There has been minimal research in judicial treatment of students' Fourth Amendment rights across regions of the country and less to what extent regional rulings implicitly or explicitly transmit cues about acceptable administrative behavior. From data gathered from case law and the National Center for Education Statistics, the analysis examined the link between the characteristics of the school where the search occurred, aspects related to the search of the student, and the outcome of the case by national region. Catagorical analyses revealed a considerable regional effect associated with highly discretionary elements of Fourth Amendment law. Findings of note suggest a greater likelihood of students losing in court within urban contexts and considerable discrepancies in rulings between national regions with respect to search intrusiveness and the severity of the offense. Implications for legal decision-making and implementation are discussed. (Contains 5 tables.)

As Internet-based communications and interactions by and between students and school staff become more prevalent, an appreciation of school rules for student behavior is important. Students carry electronic devices, sending and receiving communications inside and outside school, so two key questions exist regarding search and seizure of such devices: (1) What are the limits on a school's authority to search or seize student property relative to sexting and/or cyberbullying?; and (2) To what extent can a school regulate off-campus sexting and cyberbullying when it relates to students? Foundational legal principles in this area were established by the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago in "Tinker v. Des Moines," when the court confirmed that students enjoy certain constitutional protections while at school. When investigating potential student misconduct relative to sexting and cyberbullying, schools must still operate within the parameters of the Constitution regarding due process, free speech, and search and seizure rights. When the seriousness or shocking nature of a student's misconduct online affects other students or school staff, it makes the misconduct difficult to ignore. But certain limits exist on school authority to regulate off-campus behaviors or to conduct lawful searches. Schools are charged with addressing bullying or harassing behaviors (including cyberbullying) under recent amendments to the Illinois School Code. And according to a "Dear Colleague Letter" from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) dated October 26, 2010, a school that does nothing (if it has the authority to act) could run afoul of the civil rights laws that OCR enforces. The Illinois Legislature also has created new statutes imposing criminal sanctions for cyberstalking and prohibitions on sexting by minors. This means schools need to balance both the need to understand students' rights and protections in this area, while taking reasonable, lawful steps to assure that students and staff are not being victimized.

On December 21, 1911, Fremont Weeks, an employee of the Adams Express Company, was arrested while on the job at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Police suspected that Weeks was selling and "transmitting chances" in a lottery, which at the time was considered gambling, an illegal action in Missouri. While Weeks was being held at the police station, Police officers went to his residence and seized items, without a search warrant, and turned over the evidence to U.S. Marshal A.J. Martin. Based on the evidence taken by the law enforcement officials, Weeks was indicted on charges of gambling and using the U.S. Postal Service to distribute chances in a lottery. As a result of the evidence used during the trial, Weeks was found guilty by the jury of illegal gambling. "Weeks v. The United States" was argued before the Supreme Court on December 2-3, 1913. The question of interest to the Court was whether or not the evidence seized from Weeks's residence without a search warrant was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court decided to overturn Weeks's conviction by a unanimous vote, not because he was innocent of the charges but because the evidence that had been used to convict him had been obtained without a search warrant and was thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment protecting him against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court decision banning illegally obtained evidence in federal court serves as a point of entry for the study of search warrants and the Fourth Amendment. Teaching suggestions for the study of search warrants and the Fourth Amendment are presented.

Strip searches should be considered searches of last resort based on the intrusive nature of the search and the resulting impact it may have on a student. It is well established by the courts that as the intrusiveness of the search intensifies, the standard of the Fourth Amendment reasonably approaches probable cause which is a higher standard than the reasonable suspicion standard that applies to non-intrusive searches. This article discusses a recent case involving a strip search in which the U.S. Supreme Court applied a more stringent standard that school officials must meet to justify initiating a strip search. The importance of the High Court's decision is that it resulted in a national standard by which actions of school officials will be judged in conducting intrusive searches during their investigation of alleged violations of school policies.

School administrators are expected to balance the need for school safety and good order with the rights of students to be free of unreasonable search of their person and property. This balance can be particularly difficult when over-the-counter or prescription drugs are involved. This article summarizes a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that considered the question of how far school administrators can go in their efforts to enforce a drug-free campus policy.

Purpose: A factor largely overlooked amid the press for greater security in schools is the extent to which law enforcement participates in search and seizure and the implications such actions carry for student civil liberties. As case law suggests, police engaged in school searches may be held to the probable cause standard or the more flexible reasonable suspicion standard articulated in "New Jersey v. T. L. O." (1985). This article examines the use of law enforcement in schools and whether the probability that student offenses are criminalized increases as a result. Data Collection and Analysis: In this study, researchers report data on 2,270 schools from the "School Survey on Crime and Safety" made available through the National Center for Education Statistics. Using a factorial ANOVA, researchers use various demographic indicators to measure whether schools ordinarily relying on law enforcement for security report offenses to municipal police to a greater degree than those that do not. Findings: Findings indicate that schools using off-duty law enforcement officers report offenses to the police at a significantly higher rate than those not using off-duty law enforcement officers. While poverty, minority composition, and urbanicity do not interact significantly with off-duty police use, the minority composition of the school and the percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price lunch, when examined as main effects, yield statistically significant differences in the mean percentage of offenses reported to the police. These findings suggest the need for schools to develop clearly articulated policies with respect to police intervention, as well as the need for further research into decision making of principals in schools with greater concentrations of student poverty. (Contains 2 tables and 6 notes.)

This study explores the court system's treatment of students' Fourth Amendment rights in cases emerging from contrasting minority school settings and whether discrepancies exist in case outcomes between these extremes. From virtually every search and seizure case that occurred between the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court case in "New Jersey v. T.L.O." and December 2003, data for each search and how it was administered were gathered and analyzed. Findings suggest discrepancies in the manner in which student searches are administratively justified and subsequently treated (e.g., school disciplinary infraction versus criminal violation) by school officials. Implications for leadership and the role of emotion in legal decision making are presented. (Contains 8 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)

In light of the dramatic increase in the presence of weapons, violence, drugs, and other contraband in schools, school officials in the United States and England face significant challenges as they seek to maintain safe and orderly learning environments. Almost twenty five years after the United States Supreme Court's 1985 ruling in "New Jersey v. T.L.O." allowed educational officials to search student lockers and property in order to keep schools safe, the Justices addressed the more delicate matter of strip searches for contraband such as drugs. In "Safford Unified School District No. 1 v. Redding" ("Redding"), the Court invalidated the strip search of a student for drugs but left the door open for the possibility of allowing searches for weapons under some circumstances. In light of remaining unanswered questions after "Redding," this article reviews the background on the Fourth Amendment, earlier cases on student searches in American public schools, "Redding" in detail, and reflects on unanswered questions in its wake in the hope of shedding light on the propriety of strip searches of students. (Contains 39 notes.)

The Supreme Court's preview is presented in this article. During the 2006-07 Supreme Court term, it was the 5-4 decisions that garnered the most attention. Twenty-four of the term's 72 cases were decided by this narrowest of margins--the highest percentage of 5-4 opinions in a decade--even as the share of unanimous opinions fell "below levels seen during most recent years under former Chief Justice William Rehnquist." For years, the Rehnquist Court had two "swing voters"--Justices O'Connor and Kennedy--ideologically poised between three comparatively conservative justices and four comparatively liberal justices. After Rehnquist's death and O'Connor's retirement, the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito have transformed the Court. Now four outright conservative justices--Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito--are frequently balanced against Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. In most of the high profile and controversial cases, that means there is only one swing voter left--Kennedy. As this article reviews the past term, and considers the new one, which began October 1, it can be seen that, in general, this has made for a much more reliably conservative Court. (Contains 23 notes and 3 resources.)

This paper addressed the need for continued awareness on the part of Educational Administrators as to their legal responsibilities as instructional leaders and custodians of the students under their supervision. Research revealed that school administrators unknowingly are violating the law everyday. Courts are keeping a close eye on school districts, which ignore the fact that they are acting in place of students' parents and cannot overstep their bounds. The author stressed the fact that it is up to school officials to educate themselves as to their legal responsibilities. The study covered key issues including due process, suspension and expulsion, student searches, and sexual harassment. Case studies were cited and suggestions for litigation avoidance offered.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the people of the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures. On first reading, these protections seem clearly defined. The amendment was meant to protect Americans from the kinds of random searches and seizures that the colonists experienced under British colonial rule. Under British law, "writs of assistance" gave British soldiers broad discretion to search colonists' homes for evidence of crimes. Perhaps the first thing to note about the Fourth Amendment is that it is not concerned with every search and seizure. It only applies to "unreasonable" searches and seizures, and even then only restricts police or other governmental officials who are acting in their official capacities. In a school setting, teachers and school administrators may be governed by the Fourth Amendment, while a student's parents (or classmates) would not be. This article discusses the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its applicability in schools. (Contains 2 notes.)

Reactions to the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and debate over the president's replacement nomination, Judge John Roberts, Jr., of the D.C. Circuit, dominated this summer's Supreme Court recess. Subsequently, after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's death on September 3, 2005, President Bush nominated Roberts for the chief justice slot. In the 2004-2005 term, O'Connor provided the deciding vote in many of the 13 capital cases the Court decided, and her opinions have been described as a kind of "bridge" over the wide gulf between the Court's left and right factions in this area. In this article, the author reviews some of the landmark cases handled by the Supreme Court under the jurisprudence of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The author also provides his views on some of the Supreme Court's decisions. (Contains 21 notes).

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution provides protection of all citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. The US Supreme Court has affirmed that the basic purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against unreasonable intrusive searches by governmental officials. Since students possess constitutional rights and public school officials are considered governmental officials for Fourth Amendment purposes, privacy protection is afforded students in public schools within reasonable limits. A reasonable search is one that clearly does not violate the constitutional rights of students. What is reasonable, however, depends on the context within which a search occurs. Strip searches involving students in public schools are the most intrusive form of all searches. Extreme caution should be exercised by school officials regarding these types of searches. (Contains 5 notes.)

The purposes of this article are (a) to describe drug search policies in nationally representative samples of schools from 1998 to 2001 and (b) to examine the association between drug searches by schools and reported drug use by students. Most schools (86%) reported searching students for cause or suspicion, while 40% of schools reported randomly searching students. The use of drug searches differed according to school characteristics. For-cause drug searches were positively associated with 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students' 12-month illicit drug use, while random drug searches were associated (positively) only with 10th-grade students' 12-month drug use.