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Locker Searches

Locker searches are common occurrences in American public schools. The use of locker searches has proliferated in recent years due to continuing threats of drugs and violence. Many school officials view locker searches as an indispensable tool to deter negative behaviors, and on the whole, lower courts seem clearly to side with the efforts of school officials to curb crime by conducting locker searches. While recent acts of violence in schools justify their use, students' privacy interests and school safety should be equally balanced. Although locker searches may represent a minimally intrusive search, their unchecked use could very well weaken students' expectations of privacy. This entry reviews the case law on this issue.

An Early Case on Privacy

In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its first decision clarifying the Fourth Amendment rights of students. Although New Jersey v. T. L. O. afforded school officials greater flexibility by way of permitting searches of students based on the less rigid “reasonable suspicion” standard (as opposed to the “probable cause” expected of the police), the Court acknowledged that students are entitled to legitimate expectations of privacy.

Justice White, author of the majority in T. L. O., recognized this expectation, writing as follows:

School children may find it necessary to carry with them a variety of legitimate, noncontraband items, and there is no reason to conclude that they have necessarily waived all rights to privacy in such items merely by bringing them onto school grounds, (p. 339).

Although the presumption that students relinquish all privacy is clearly rebutted, the Court chose not to offer specific implementation guidelines with regard to privacy protection in lockers, desks, or other forms of school property, nor did it place any restrictions on mass suspicionless searches. The Court's refusal to elaborate is not unusual given its usual deference to the expertise of school officials in administrative matters.

In T. L. O., interest groups such as the National School Boards Association (NSBA) rallied in support of school officials' powers in maintaining safety and order through so-called friend-of-the-court briefs. As to lockers, the NSBA contended that since student lockers are neither student domiciles nor “castle[s],” they are not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Mass Suspicionless Searches

Two subsequent U.S. Supreme Court cases, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton (1995) and Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls (2002), validated the constitutionality of mass suspicionless searches, specifically random drug testing, through a three-part analysis. The analysis involved assessing students' privacy interest, the relative unobtrusiveS-ness of the searches, the severity of the need to justify such a search, and the likelihood that it would achieve its goal.

Lower courts apply similar analyses in justifying mass locker searches. At the same time, there appears to be a fair amount of consensus across lower courts regarding the degree to which privacy in lockers should be afforded. Case law reflects a trend of upholding searches on the basis that doing so is clearly in the best interest of maintaining school safety and order.

Courts typically view mass locker searches as a minimally intrusive method of confronting drug and weapons problems. In Commonwealth v. Cass (1998), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that a search of 2,000 high school lockers was reasonable at its inception, in light of suspicious activity that included students' use of beepers, students' dilated eyes, and students carrying around large amounts of money, as well as reasonable in scope because of the minor intrusiveness of the type of search.

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