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Speak Up! - View Question #419 |
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Question: Can a school official search your backpack without permission?
Answer: The short answer is not unless the official has a 'reasonable suspicion' that something wrong has occurred and that evidence of the wrong will be found in the backpack.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that people have a right to be secure against unreasonable searches of themselves and their belongings.
The United States Supreme Court has decided that the Fourth Amendment applies to schools and that a search must meet the following requirements:
1. The motivation for the search must be reasonable in light of the information that the school official obtained that made him or her think a search was necessary; and
2. The measures adopted for the search must be reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.
A 'reasonable suspicion' is a belief or opinion based on the facts or circumstances. So if a school official has a reasonable suspicion that some wrong doing has occurred and that evidence of that may be found in your backpack, that official can probably search your backpack without your permission
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| Comments |
| 41 thru 45 of 53 comments |
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On 03/04/03
Brittney from AZ said:
hey i think that they shouldnt be allowed to ne ways for any reason be cuz what if some little girl had pads and tampons in her back pack and they want to search it cuz they suspect something and they offical happens so be a guy i know i would be mortified that would be so embarrassing so i dont think that they should be able to do that unless they have a real reason and unless its a GIRL who is searching the girls back pack well that all i have to say so talk to ya later bye bye
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On 11/06/02
Heather from AZ said:
I go to a Charter School, on November 5, 2002 the school conducted a drug search.This search was underway while the students were in class so they had no say. The staff went through every backpack on top of the lockers. If the bag contained something "illegal" (knives, lighters, drugs, matches, ciggarettes, etc...) they too them to the office and would not give them back until after school, regardless if your school work was in it for another class. They took my bag because it contained a knife( which was not what they were looking for). Myself and about half of the student body was suspended
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On 06/14/02
Geoff from WA said:
This happened in my class also, only no one stood up against the teacher. She didn't say any of the stuff like "i have the right to my money" or anything like that. My freinds were telling me it was against my rights to have my backpack searched without a relieable source that says I have drugs, alcohol, harmful weapons, or anything that could hurt myself. I have spoken to many teachers about this so called "Attack of the back pack freack" and they said that I shouldn't be in other peoples businness.
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On 06/08/02
Melissa from WA said:
My history teacher had checked out some books from the public library under her name so that the students (of four classes) could collect information from them. She didn't have any system for checking the books out, and she just used the honor system. When five or six books were missing by the end of the week, we came in to class and she told us that "it's not that I don't trust you guys, it's just that I'm going to have to pay for these if I don't find them, so I'm going to have to do a backpack search." She was going around the room checking people's backpacks and nobody else stood up for
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On 06/04/02
Piper from IL said:
Someone in my gym class had a cell phone stolen from her locker during finals, and there was no possible way for anyone in my class to have taken it seeing as how we were in the gyms taking the exam. However, the school officials found it necessary to search all of the girls' bags and I felt so violated. I also missed the first fifteen minutes of the next final that day and I could not stop thinking about how wrong it was for them to search our bags.
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