An Alternative Approach to the Fourth Amendment in Public Schools: Balancing Students' Rights with School Safety

An Alternative Approach to the Fourth Amendment in Public Schools: Balancing Students' Rights with School Safety* I. INTRODUCTION A public school student, on his way to class, enters the school building through an exterior doorway. There is a bulge protruding from the student's jacket which is noticed by a teacher monitoring the hallways.l Acting on impulse, the teacher approaches the student and grabs him. The teacher then reaches underneath the student's jacket for the bulge and finds a.... Statistics show that students in the United States collectively bring nearly 135,000 guns to school everyday.2 Data suggests that twenty percent of our nation's high school students bring some type of weapon to school at least once a month.3 Statistics also "show `alarming increases' in drug use by students in grades six through twelve."4 As weapons, violence, and drugs in public schools continue to be a problem,5 situations like the one above will become more prevalent.6 Though what is found in the student's possession may lessen any public discomfort over the teacher's actions,7 under current Supreme Court precedent,s this search is likely a violation of the student's Fourth Amendment right9 to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures."10 In criminal proceedings, the constitutional guarantees of the Fourth Amendment are protected by the exclusionary rule, which requires that evidence obtained during an illegal search11 or seizure12 be suppressed from the corresponding adjudicatory proceeding.13 The Supreme Court has concluded that the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule does not bar illegally seized evidence in every instance,l4 but the Court has not determined whether the appropriate remedy for violation of the student's Constitutional rights in a public school disciplinary proceeding15 is the exclusionary rule.15 Consider, for instance, how the exclusionary rule might apply in the situation posed at the beginning of this Comment. Let us assume that the teacher finds a gun bulging from the student's jacket. The student is brought before the school disciplinary board, facing discipline for bringing a weapon onto school grounds. Most likely the student would move to have the gun excluded from the hearing as inadmissible evidence. For this to occur, the board must first find that there was a search or seizure, that the search or seizure was unconstitutional, and that the exclusionary rule precludes the board from considering the illegally seized evidence.l7 If the board answers these questions affirmatively, then the exclusionary rule would bar admission of the fruits of the illegal search, the gun, as evidence in the hearing. Most likely, this would leave only the teacher's testimony that she saw a bulge in the student's jacket as evidence of the student bringing a weapon onto school grounds. Thus, the student would not be punished for bringing the gun to school. This example raises a difficult question: What is the proper balance between a school's duty to provide a safe learning environment and its duty to protect the privacy afforded students under the Fourth Amendment? Currently, courts, and school districts taken to court, have two options: either to apply or not to apply the exclusionary rule in the school disciplinary hearing. This Comment will explain why these narrow options fail to achieve a satisfactory balance between school safety and students' rights and will explore an alternative approach, which if implemented, would both protect students' rights and further school safety. Part II of this Comment begins with a synopsis of the constitutional rights afforded students in public schools. This Part also focuses on application of the exclusionary rule in criminal proceedings and looks at Supreme Court cases addressing the issue of whether the exclusionary rule should apply to contexts outside of the criminal setting. Part II concludes with a capsulation of those cases addressing the issue of whether the exclusionary rule applies to school administrative hearings. …