Student privacy rights involving strip searches

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution provides protection of all citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. The US Supreme Court has affirmed that the basic purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against unreasonable intrusive searches by governmental officials. Since students possess constitutional rights and public school officials are considered governmental officials for Fourth Amendment purposes, privacy protection is afforded students in public schools within reasonable limits. A reasonable search is one that clearly does not violate the constitutional rights of students. What is reasonable, however, depends on the context within which a search occurs. Strip searches involving students in public schools are the most intrusive form of all searches. Extreme caution should be exercised by school officials regarding these types of searches.     

Editor's note

This study applies Elisabeth Noelle‐Neumann's spiral of silence theory to the controversial issue of whether children with AIDS should be allowed to attend public school. The study tests the theory's hypotheses in light of two content analyses of the media's treatment of the issue. The findings offer tentative and qualified support for Noelle‐Neumann's theoretical propositions about the relationship between individuals' perceptions of the issue and the media's tenor of the issue; particularly that of television. The findings suggest the need to address the role of other agents of influence, including reference groups, and to use time‐based data to unravel the causal order of the relationships.