Law Commons^™

The Fourth Amendment Standard For Searches Of Students By School Officials: Reasonable Suspicion Or Probable Cause?, Lois Yankowski

Antioch Law Journal

The fourth amendment rights of students subjected to searches by school administrators or teachers has been the subject of much legal debate and confusion.' The Supreme Court has never considered the issue of search and seizure in the schools and has never addressed even the more general question of whether fourth amendment protections apply to juveniles. The lower courts which have examined the school search issue, with one exception,2 have provided students with substantially less fourth amendment protection than adults in non-school environments enjoy. These courts have focused on the in loco parentis status of school officials and have found …