Students Rights

Civics Report

I chose to do my report on students rights in the public

school system.  Lisa Rowe, then sixteen a student at Teaneck High

School, in New Jersey, thought she was doing a good dead when

she returned a purse she'd found in her English class. When she

took the purse to the office instead of being rewarded she was told

to step into the principals office and asked to pull up her sweater

and pull down her slacks, and then she was searched.  Why?  In

case she was hiding stolen money from the purse. That is just one

example of how students rights are being violated, and here is

another.  In the case T.L.O. Vs NEW JERSEY a girl got cought

smoking in the bathroom of her school.  She was then taken to the

office, and asked to open her purse and spill out the contence.

What was found in the purse was marijauna a role of money and

notes sujesting that she was a marijuna dealer. Her parrents soon

filed a suit against the school on the basis that the evidence found

was obtained illegally becauce no search warrent was used. In

1985 the case got all the way to the supreme court. The court ruled

that the fourth amendment rights didn't apply in the school, and

school officialsstill have to have reasonable suspicion not probale

cause.  Another famous case is the case TINKER Vs DES

MOINES where two students wanted to protest the war by

wearing arm bands.  When the school officials saw what the two

students were wearing the teachers demanded that the students

take the arm bands off at once.  The case got all the way to the

United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that the

students had a right to wear arm bands just as long as they wernt

going to harm themselvs or any one elts. Just a coupple of laws on

students rights.  The First Amendment says that you have a right to

freedom of speech, press, religion, and freedon to a peaceful

assembly. The Second Amendment says that you have the right to

be secure in your home, and your personal things, but apon

probable cause.  Can students lockers be searched without a search

warrent?  Yes, your lockers can be searched without a warrent,

only reasonable susipision that a rule or law has been broken is all

that is needed to preform a search.  Can students be subject to

mass searches on campus?  No, there must be suspicion directed at

each student beaing searched.  What should you do if something of

yours is getting searched the best thing to do is to say in a loud

clear voice that you dont want them to searech your things so that

you can have witneses, but don't try to stop them. Most important

of all don't put anything in your locker that you don't want anyone

to see.  I feel that students rights are being violated mare than

people know.  If more people knew exactly what rights they had it

would make alot of things better and easier to understand.

Biblography

Cover, Marilyn. "Should Students have Rights," Update, Winter 1985, 11-15

Reprintedin Privacy, Volume 3 (Boac Ruton, Flordia: Social

Recources Series, Inc, 1993) Article number, 42.

Price, Janet R. Levine, Alan H., Cary, Eve, The Rightsof Students, United

States of America, American Civil Liberties Union, 1988.

Schuessler, Nancy, "A Question of Rights." Seventeen, May 1989,          

192-193+207.

Sudo, Phil, "Do You Know Your Rights," Scholastic Update, (September 21,

1990) 6-8 25+26.

Zirkel, Perry A., "Searching and Researching," Phi Delta Kappan, Volume

71, (December 1989), 330-332.