Career’s New Policy
At the behest of Dr. Reginald Mayo, New Haven Public Schools are being equipped with metal detectors and students are asked to submit to random book bag/purse searches and metal detections. It is clear that this practice is both unlawful and implemented in an incredibly foolish way that will not increase the security of a high school.
First and foremost, I will attack the practice of ‘random’ searches. On September 12, 2006, the first day Career Regional Hill High School began the searches upon entry, I observed that, on average, only one out of four students were selected to be searched. This ratio does vary significantly, so in some circumstances one out of eight or one out of two may be selected.
The benefits provided by this ‘random’ process are negligible. For instance, it is possible for a student to ‘luck out’ and smuggle a weapon into the building. One may argue that the potential of being caught is enough to stop most teens from attempting to smuggle a weapon into school, but I will counter that if a student is this angry or depraved, the chance of being caught will not have significant impact upon them.
Being asked to submit to a search would also merely serve to expedite a Columbine-style shooting because detection of the weapons is imminent. If your intention was revenge against the school, you would just start firing into the crowd waiting to be sorted into the ’search’ and ‘pass’ lines instead of going through the checkpoint. I can think of little remedy to a situation like this, and I will concede that the searches are not being conducted for the sole purpose of preventing mass-murder, but to discourage people from carrying knives or guns to use when a fist-fight breaks out in the halls.
The metal detector was collapsed after a certain point in the morning, and the checkpoint was no longer used. If a student is determined to smuggle a weapon in, they need only to report to school late and they will have no fear of being searched. Alternatively, a determined student could ‘forget’ a bag at home and have their parents bring it to them later in the day. With the checkpoint decommissioned until the next morning, the parent may inadvertently bring a gun or other weapon into the building and hand it off to a student.
Other possibilities to smuggle weapons in exist. Every single door is not guarded, and our doors lock from the outside, so a student who had successfully passed through the checkpoint could open a door to allow somebody bearing a weapon inside. A knife or gun could be placed in a trash-can just outside of the building for retrieval during lunch or when students are moving from class to class. It is obvious that any determined person could get around the security measures with ease.
I, Nicholas Evans, was asked to step into the search line on September 14, 2006. I told the administrator sorting us into lines that I refused to consent to a search, and I was allowed into the building unmolested. The implications of that are incredible; if I am armed, can I simply refuse to submit to a search to get around the checkpoint? If this is the case, what is the point of the entire program?
That said, the acceptance of my refusal may have only been a fluke. A student at the Metropolitan Business Academy would not consent, and he was refused entry to the school. Attached to this document is his testimony.
So once again, I believe that the practice of the random searches provides us with a learning environment no safer than one without the searches. I recognize that the ‘randomness’ of the searches is due in part to the limited resources of the school; one metal detector and set of guards for searching over eight hundred people between seven-thirty and eight ‘o clock is a daunting, but noble, task. In the end, however, is is a fruitless effort, for reasons I have already explained.
Secondly, I believe that these searches are being conducted without the grounds required, as outlined by the New Haven Public Schools Administrative Procedures handbook. Pages 43 and 44 deal with the searches of students and their personal property.
The section titled ‘Student Searches’ states that:
School authorities are authorized to conduct searches of students or their property if there is reasonable grounds at the inception of the search that indicate a particular student is in possession of an item or a substance that represents a material threat to school routine or is prohibited by school board regulations or by law.
The section goes on to define what items are considered a student’s property and when it is appropriate to search them. As defined by the handbook, purses and book bags are considered ‘personal property’.
This clearly suggests that if the school wishes to perform a search, they require some notion that a student is carrying contraband material with them. I am unsure as to whether or not ‘metal’, as detected by a metal detector is considered contraband or not (I will assume not!), but a bigger issue lies here.
Students were being asked to unzip their bags and be prepared for a search before they even walked in the door. Even I was asked to do so, although I was only one asked to allow a searched of my bag or to step through a metal detector. Based on this observation and the requirements for a student search, as defined by the school system’s handbook, I can conclude one of two things. Either entering the building is enough reason for the school to think I have contraband (and if this is the case, I no longer wish to make use of New Haven’s public education system), or that the school is disregarding the constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches (and again, if this is the case, I no longer wish to attend such an institution).
I spoke with a school administrator regarding the new security measures on September 15, 2006. This administrator told me that the program was put into place to combat a rise in violence in our community over the summer, but that no students were suspect. This individual stressed that no students were suspected of anything.
This implies that the searches are groundless because no student is being suspected of anything. Again, the policy regarding student searches is clear that the search may only take place if there is an indication that ‘. . .a particular student is in possession of an item or substance that represents a material thread to school routine or is prohibited by school board regulations or law’. And if this is so, then the searches are indeed groundless.
Another observation I made as I walked by the scene was that students were required to submit their bags to a search prior to even stepping into the metal detector–and, for the purposes of brevity, I will not disagree that the presence of metal is enough to justify a search at the moment– then the search is still groundless.
If you are unconvinced that students are entitled to be free of unreasonable searches in a school environment, I will direct you to the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of New Jersey vs.T. L. O. Justice White stated that, in the case of the principal of Piscataway High School, “. . .we are faced initially with the question whether that Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials. We hold that it does.”
Additionally, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that individualized suspicion that a student is carrying contraband is required in DesRoches v. Caprio, et al. In this circumstance, a pair of tennis shoes had gone missing and a school official searched the bags of every student in an an art class.
In DesRoches v. Caprio, Judge Murnaghan of the circuit court not only upheld New Jersey v. T. L. O., but stated that “Therefore, in the present case, there is no question but that DesRoches enjoyed a legitimate expectation of privacy in his backpack so as to trigger the protections of the Fourth Amendment.”
School of Americas Watch v. Columbus, Georgia is another case that casts considerable doubt upon mass-metal detector searches. Here, a group of protesters were asked to pass through a security checkpoint, much the same as the one at Career High School, before they could gather for their protest. Judge Tjoflat of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was very clear on the matter:
The plaintiffs’ first contention is that the mass, suspicionless, warrantless
magnetometer searches violate their Fourth Amendment right to be free of
“unreasonable searches and seizures.†We agree.
Again, I can only draw the conclusion that the searches are groundless and unenforceable by my observations and the rulings of federal courts. I am at an absolute loss for what possible justification Dr. Mayo had when he called for schools to implement this policy. It lacks a legal basis and there is minimum benefit involved as far as student safety goes if we continue on in the manner we have done so today.
TESTIMONY OF LOUIS BRENNER
Louis Brenner is a student of the New Haven school district. On September 15, 2006 he was turned away at the door because he refused to be searched. He stated the following.
On the drizzly day of 9/15/06 I got off my bus to enter The Metropolitan Business Academy and found myself stopped by a security guard. He said: “please put your book bag on the table and take out any metallic objects on your person†I looked him in the eye and said “I do not consent to an unwarranted search – I would like to exercise my 4th amendment right†his reply was “you have to.†I looked him in the eye and said “No I do not, I do not consentâ€. I was then asked to step aside and wait. A teacher asked me to call my parents on my cell, which I did. He asked my father what he was to do and my father said that I am old enough to make my own decisions and do whatever the book tells him to do. Well, apparently there is no book because I was not suspended nor were the police called; I was just told I could not enter the building unless I gave my consent. My father made his way to the school as I sat in the drizzle and sketched up some outlines for a flyer to hand out first thing Tuesday.
REFERENCES
WTNH. “Metal detectors ordered for New Haven high schools.” September 8, 2006. September 12, 2006 <http://www.wtnh.com/global/story.asp?s=5381137>.
University of Missouri-Kansas. “New Jersey vs. T. L. O.” January 15, 1985. US Supreme Court.September 12, 2006 <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/tlo.html>.
FindLaw. “Individualized Suspicion Required For Student Searches.” December 1, 1998. September 12, 2006 <http://library.findlaw.com/1998/Dec/1/128937.html>.
Franklin Pierce Law. Center. “DesRoches v. Caprio, 156 F.3d 571 (4th Cir. 1998).” September 23, 1998. Steptember 12, 2006 <http://www.faculty.piercelaw.edu/redfield/library/case-desroches4thCir.htm>.
New Haven Public Schools Administrative Procedures. Connecticut: New Haven Public School District, 2006.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. “D.C. Docket No. 02-00171 CV-CDL-4.” October 15, 2004. September 16, 2006 <http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200216886.pdf>.
