Opinion ID: 2994252
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Nature of the privacy interest

Text: Public high school students have a lesser expectation of privacy than the general public. However, students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. See Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). Similar to the students in Vernonia, PHM students are in the temporary custody of the School. Also, students in general are subject to routine physical examinations and vaccinations. However, unlike the athletes in Vernonia, PHM students who participate in extracurricular activities or who drive to school do not subject themselves to more explicit and routine loss of bodily privacy as a necessary component of their participating in the activities in question. Indeed, unlike the student athletes in Vernonia, these students otherwise do not subject themselves, by virtue of their participation in these activities, to regulations that further reduce their expectation of privacy. For example, as the Supreme Court noted in Vernonia, the athletes in that case were required to submit to a physical examination before the beginning of the season. Also, the athletes needed to obtain insurance coverage and they agreed to abide by rules on conduct, dress, and training hours. Finally, they also expected a degree of communal undress not experienced by other public school students. See Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 657. Although PHM students in extracurricular activities, other than athletics, also volunteer to join a particular group and to subject themselves to the rules of that organization, those rules do not require the same surrender of physical privacy as required of the student athletes in Vernonia. In the case of students driving to school, the contrast is even more stark. Overall, the expectation of privacy for students in extracurricular activities or with parking permits, although less than the general public, is still greater than the expectation of privacy for athletes.