Opinion ID: 789707
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the Searches of the Male Students

Text: 19 In light of the factors set forth in Vernonia, the searches performed on the male students in this case were in violation of the Fourth Amendment. First, the privacy interest here was great. Students of course have a significant privacy interest in their unclothed bodies. See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 337-38, 105 S.Ct. 733 (noting that a search of a child's person ... is undoubtedly a severe violation of subjective expectations of privacy). The Supreme Court did note in Vernonia, however, that public school locker rooms are not notable for the privacy they afford. 515 U.S. at 657, 115 S.Ct. 2386. The boys were thus not deprived of a privacy interest as much as if they had been searched, for instance, in an office. However, the scope of the search did exceed what would normally be expected by a high school student in a locker room. As alleged by the plaintiffs, the boys were individually and directly examined as they unclothed. Moreover, unlike in Vernonia, the students did not voluntarily subject themselves to a degree of regulation ... higher than that imposed on students generally. 515 U.S. at 657, 115 S.Ct. 2386. The students here were attending gym class as part of a general school curriculum. They accordingly did not voluntarily consent to be regulated more closely than the general student population, as do student athletes who choose to go out for school sports teams. See id. 20 Second, the character of the intrusion was far more invasive than the character of the urinalyses in Vernonia, where students remained fully clothed. Also unlike in Vernonia, the searches were likely to disclose much more than the limited information (presence of drugs) at issue in Vernonia. The boys were required to lift their shirts and to remove both their pants and underwear. 21 Third, the governmental interest, though of some weight, was not as great as in cases like Vernonia. School administrators have a real interest in maintaining an atmosphere free of theft. But, a search undertaken to find money serves a less weighty governmental interest than a search undertaken for items that pose a threat to the health or safety of students, such as drugs or weapons. See Oliver v. McClung, 919 F.Supp. 1206, 1218 (N.D.Ind.1995) (finding that a strip search for money was not reasonable, but noting that the same search may have been reasonable if undertaken to find drugs or weapons). In addition, the lack of individualized suspicion also makes the government's interest less weighty. The government may have a comparatively strong interest in searching a particular student reasonably suspected of theft, because of the likelihood that the search will be successful. Such interest is diluted considerably when, instead of one, two, or three students, the school officials search over twenty students, without reason to suspect that any particular student was responsible for the alleged theft. In that case the intrusive search of each individual is that much less likely to be successful. 22 The highly intrusive nature of the searches, the fact that the searches were undertaken to find missing money, the fact that the searches were performed on a substantial number of students, the fact that the searches were performed in the absence of individualized suspicion, and the lack of consent, taken together, demonstrate that the searches were not reasonable. Accordingly, under T.L.O. and Vernonia, the searches violated the Fourth Amendment. 23