Public High School Students Have The First Amendment Right...

Public high school students have the First Amendment right of free expression and the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches while they’re at school. These protections extend a student’s social media and to the digital contents of their cell phones. At the same time, public high schools have special characteristics associated with their duty to educate students and provide a safe and orderly place conducive to learning and so students accept greater restrictions of their constitutional rights while in school. At issue with respect to Rocktown High School’s 2016 AP History class is whether the school’s â€Å"search† of history student’s social media â€Å"friends,† obtained under threat of suspension, was reasonable, whether the†¦show more content†¦Fourth Amendment. Mrs. Smith was justified in demanding that Britney Sullivan log on to social media and reveal the â€Å"secret group† suspected of cheating because Mrs. Smith’s suspicions were supported by facts and she narrowly focused her â€Å"search† to the group’s discussion of the AP history exam questions. Before searching through a student’s personal items, school officials need to have reasonable grounds to believe that the student has violated a school rule. Reasonable grounds can be based on all sorts of information, including a tip from another student as well as a student’s history of breaking school rules. Mrs. Smith knew that a group of AP History students missed the same questions, had, unexpectedly, extremely high test scores and she had a tip that the test had been stolen and questions discussed by a secret group on a specific social media site. The tip and the fishy test results gave Mrs. Smith enough suspicion to question Sullivan, a m ember of the suspect group who had broken school rules before. Cheating on a high school exam is a very serious violation. And the more serious the violation, the stronger the school’s reasons to search for evidence to either approve or dispel it. â€Å"Fourth Amendment rights†¦ are different in public schools†¦ the reasonableness inquiry cannot disregard the schools custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.†(Board of Education v. Earls 536 U.S. 844) This is