FIRST AMENDMENT
Gilles v. Blanchard, No. 2:04-cv-0083 (7th Cir. 2007).
The Seventh Circuit declined to extend First Amendment free speech protections to a wandering evangelist’s preaching in the University Library’s lawn. The University adopted a policy requiring outsiders to obtain prior approval by the dean for all sales and solicitations on campus. Under the policy, solicitors, if approved, are limited to soliciting in a designated area. The evangelist was told that he could not preach in the University Library lawn, but could do so in a designated area. There was no evidence that any uninvited campus outsider has ever been permitted to use the lawn for sales or solicitation. Control over access to a nonpublic forum can be based on subject matter and speaker identity as long as the distinctions drawn are reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum and are viewpoint neutral. A campus need not make all of its facilities equally available to students and nonstudents alike. The court held that the University’s policy requiring University invitation to speak on the Library lawn was not unconstitutional because the University’s policy was consistent with its past practice and it designated a specific area as a public forum for such uses.
Pounds v. Katy Independent
School Dist., 2007 WL 2787693 (S.D. Tex. 2007)
A Texas Federal District court held that a school’s policy requiring prior review of distribution of more than ten copies of nonschool material and principal authorization to set time, place, and manner limitations for student distribution of such nonschool materials as not unconstitutional. Parents alleged that their children were prevented from mass distributing religious literature and other items. There was no need for a showing that the religious literature and items caused a substantial disruption of school operations. The regulations were both viewpoint and content-neutral and designed to further important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of student expression, namely the reduction of possible disruptions that may occur from widespread dissemination of nonschool materials on campus.
FOURTH AMENDMENT
T.S. v. State of Indiana, 863 N.E.2d 362 (Ind. App Ct. 2007).
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that a school police officer does not violate a student’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure when, in reliance on an anonymous tip, he removes a student from the classroom with the intent to take the student to the dean’s office for an investigation of illegal drug possession. The search and seizure was reasonable because: (1) there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school, and (2) the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and are not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and nature of the infraction. The school police offer did not identify the tipster or seek to obtain information on how the tipster knew the student possessed illicit drugs. Students are routinely removed from class for a variety of reasons. The school police officer was acting in furtherance of maintaining a safe educational environment, not solely to investigate the commission of a crime. The court held that, in light of the reduced expectation of privacy students enjoy in schools and the school’s duty to maintain a safe environment conducive to learning, the seizure was not unconstitutional.
Redding v. Safford Unified
School Dist., No. 05-15759 (9th Cir. 2007)
The Ninth Circuit held that a strip search of a student to find drugs was not violative of the student’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. A student informant’s tip was determined, in part, to be reliable because of the informant’s confirmed friendship with the student. The student was interviewed prior to the search and corroborated the informant’s relationship and other facts given which amply supported the informant’s veracity. The invasive search for drugs was justified in light of the importance of the school’s interest in maintaining a safe educational environment. The court acknowledged that such a search may not be justified if undertaken to discover items which do not pose a threat to health or safety, such as money.
The scope of the search was reasonable in light of the physical setting and circumstances during conducting the search. The court acknowledged that “reasonableness” under the Fourth Amendment does not require adherence to the least restrictive means available in conducting the search. The student was wearing clothes without pockets. The strip search was conducted during school hours and on the school premises by two school employees of the same sex, in a locked room, outside of the view of other students. At no time did the school employees touch the student during the search. The student was permitted to dress immediately following the search.
D.L. v. Indiana, no.
49A04-0703-JV-192 (Ind. App. 2007)
An Indiana Court of Appeals held that a school police officer does not violate a student’s Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a pat-down search of a student on school grounds for the sole purpose of finding the student’s identification card, if the student fails to produce it when asked to do so. The court found that in “this post-Columbine world” the privacy rights of students and citizens should be balanced to favor of the need of schools to identify individuals on school property in the interests of health and safety. The school police officer came in contact with the student in the hallway during a non-passing period, and asked the student for his school identification card, a pass or a schedule. The student answered that he had neither. The officer then conducted a pat-down search of the student and observed the student putting something down his pants. The officer then handcuffed the student and took him to the police officer for a further search and discovered the student to be in possession of a plastic bag containing marijuana. The court found that the search was justified at its inception and reasonable in scope under the circumstances because the student did not display his identification card as required and the initial pat-down search was minimally intrusive.
Scanlon v. Las Cruces Public
Schools, No. 26.334 (N.M. App. 2007)
The district court held: (1) that the board of education, in suspending the student for one year, properly considered evidence seized in violation of the student’s constitutional rights, because the exclusionary rule does not apply to school disciplinary hearings, and (2) that the Board could base its decision on the testimony of the assistant principal who investigated the incident, because due process does not require that the student be permitted to cross-examine students who gave the assistant principal his information. After a school groundskeeper reported to school employees that he saw four people smoking inside the student’s care, school employees searched the car and found marijuana and a decorative sword in the trunk. The other students that were in the car were taken to the assistant principal who told the assistant principal that the marijuana belonged to the student at issue. School authorities may properly base their disciplinary decisions on hearsay statements of school officials who investigated the alleged misconduct. The court reasoned that the exclusionary rule does not apply to school discplinary proceedings because the rule is not a personal constitutional right, but rather a prudential rule intended to deter governmental actors from committing future Fourth Amendment violations and its use has not been extended to civil proceedings by the United States Supreme Court.
In re Juvenile, 931
A.2d 1229 (N.H. 2007)
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that a principal’s search of a student’s locker for a “large pot pipe” based upon uncorroborated information supplied to the principal by a teacher from several unidentified students was not unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. While the principal did not know the identities of the students who provided information about the student and his pot pipe, he knew the teacher who reported the information to him, and the teacher knew the circumstances under which he obtained that information. It was reasonable for the principal to assume that the teacher vouched for the reliability of the information the teacher was passing along to him. In addition, the fact that mere possession of a such a pipe is not illegal under state law did not make it unreasonable for the principal to assume that the search for the pipe would also turn up marijuana. Further, it was reasonable to search the student’s locker for the pipe because it was a plausible location for storing a “large pot pipe.”
United States v. Soderstrand,
412 F.3d 1146 (10th Cir. 2005)
The Tenth Circuit held that no Fourth Amendment violation occurred when an employee, acting without direction from her superior, became curious about the contents of an unlocked safe in a University supply room, and discovered child pornography owned by a University professor. The employee reported her findings to her superiors who contacted the university police. The university police obtained a valid search warrant for the safe and found the pornographic materials along with correspondences linking the professor to the materials.
The professor argued that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the safe and that it had been locked when he left it. The court found that the employee was not a government actor when she investigated the safe, but was merely acting in her private capacity. As a result, the protections of the Fourth Amendment were inapplicable to her actions in discovering the contents of the safe, regardless of whether it was locked or unlocked.
United States v. Soderstrand, 463 F. Supp.2d 1308 (W.D. Okla. 2006)
The district court held that the warrantless search and seizure by university officials of a professor’s personal laptop computer, which at the time of the seizure was located in the professor’s private office, had been on and running; the screen showing university supported programs and containing various spreadsheets appearing to contain office records, did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The search and seizure was reasonable in its inception and scope in light of the university’s earlier discovery of a safe in a storage room at the university containing child pornography, correspondences linking the professor to the materials, and the circumstances regarding the professor’s work use and current operating state of the laptop.
EMPLOYEE DISMISSAL
Bd. of Directors Ames Comm. School Dist. v. Cullinan, No. 6-424/05-1059 (Iowa App Ct. 2007).
The Iowa Court of Appeals held that the school board’s determination that a coach failed to effectively lead the school’s basketball program and adequately remediate deficiencies is not supported by the preponderance of competent evidence in the record. The coach had a history of complaints from students, parents, and faculty. However, evidence showed that the coach has been successfully complying with a remediation plan. The Board’s notice to remedy and remediation plan did not adequately define deficiencies. The Board did not show that the coach was noncompliant with the remediation plan. The Board, in determining dismissal as proper, relied upon player surveys of which only ten students responded out of fifteen. The surveys used subjective criteria, asking the students to provide a “fun” rating for “this season at this point.” The court held that the Board’s decision to terminate the coach was arbitrary and capricious as it was based upon assumptions from prior leadership deficiencies and not a preponderance of evidence of present leadership deficiencies or noncompliance with the remediation plan.
STUDENT DISCPLINARY PROCEDURES
Brown v. Plainfield CCD #202, 2007 WL 2331947 (N.D. Ill 2007).
An Illinois Federal District court held that preliminary injunction would not be granted on student’s Section 1983 suit alleging that student’s expulsion for inappropriately touching his teacher was product of race discrimination and violation of due process rights. The student sought the preliminary injunction directing school officials to enroll the student for the upcoming 2007-2008 school year. The court held that the injunction would not be granted because the student was unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claims, that the balance of hardships favored the school, and such relief was not in the public interest even though student would likely suffer irreparable injury if such allegations were proven. In addition, the student did not have a federal due process right to cross-examine unnamed students who submitted witness statements regarding his misconduct. Here, the students’ statements played only a small role in the expulsion in light of other evidence considered by the Board and permitting their cross-examination would have had little probative value. Additionally, the school had a strong interest in protecting students who came forward to report misconduct by their peers, and a great administrative burden would result from creating the right to cross-examination at school disciplinary hearings.
Risica v. Dumas, 466
F.Supp. 2d 434 (D. Conn. 2006)
A Connecticut Federal District court held that where the student and parents are informed about the decision to suspend the student for ten days and the student admitted to making a “hit list” of students he supposedly wanted to get even with, the suspension was justified and the school officials did not deprive him of procedural due process. The middle school student was recently transferred to a new school and had been verbally harassed by fellow students. The student drew up a “hit list” of those students on the cover of his geography book, which was discovered by the school janitor. In addition, the parents of the student argued that their child’s substantive due process rights were violated when school officials failed to intervene to prevent the harassment and that his right to privacy was infringed when the principal disclosed the “hit list” to her staff. The court found that the student was not a “confined individual” and therefore school officials could not have violated 14th Amendment rights in failing to protect him from harassment by others. Moreover, the court found that the “hit list” was not an educational record under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and as a result, the principal’s disclosure of the list to her support staff did not violate the student’s right to privacy under the 14th Amendment.