Should students have the rights to be protected against unreasonable searches?
As part of a system students, primarily students of color, have been targeted for searches during school, an institution teenagers are required to take. As a result of compulsory schooling, there has been an increase of incarceration of students of color due to practices implemented by schools. Practices such as the zero tolerance policy disproportionately affect students of color. Zero tolerance describes a strict and uncompromising form of administration that penalizes any forms of offenses. This encourages other practices such as random searches against students, which threatens their right to not be subjected against unreasonable searches, in other words their
…show more content…
In the Supreme Court case New Jersey v. T. L. O., “TLO” (Tracy Lois Odem) had her pursed check by the school’s vice principal because a teacher had caught her smoking inside the girl’s bathroom. TLO then was convicted of dealing and use of illicit drugs discovered during the search. She later fought the search and presented this case to the New Jersey Juvenile Court. The court found her guilty of delinquency, but TLO repealed and the court reversed this decision and asked the Supreme Court to review the case. This case shows how controversial the Fourth Amendment can be but it also reveals that in certain cases that searches against students can be unreasonable and therefore violating their constitutional rights.
Some may argue that teachers have the right to search students if they have a reasonable cause as stated in the amendment but probable cause is subjective and the burden falls upon the student to prove that it is not unreasonable. A study showed that the success of a student proving unreasonableness is highly unlikely because of the systems in place that oppress students according to Expelling Hope, a book written by Christopher G. Robbins. The fact that it is up to the student proves that it is in the students disadvantage and that there is a problem that needs to be