The Right to Search Students Personal Property by Halie

The Right to Search Students Personal Property by Halie - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

We all know or have heard of the bill of rights. These 10 amendments are built in too the constitution to safeguard individual liberty . This basically means that the amendments are in place to make sure government officials don’t abuse their power on the people. The fourth amendment may be one of the most important in the Bill of Rights. It protects us people from unreasonable search and seizures unless there is probable cause.
The term probable cause is a very broad statement and can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. For example, let’s say there is a student at school who is getting bullied by the star football player, he is sick and tired of all the abuse physically and mentally so he calls the secret witness line and tells them that the football player has drug paraphernalia in his locker. Now since this scene is on school grounds the school administration and maybe even the police have the right to search the locker and seize the inappropriate substances. Many people don’t know that when they register their kids in too a school they are signing over their kids fourth amendment right.
I do not believe that this is right and justified. The constitution states that we are protected from search and seizures UNLESS PROBABLE cause. Schools nationwide are breaching this amendment all the time. Personal at my high school in Reno, Nevada they will do random locker searches without probable cause and without the student’s consent. Along with that they will come in too classes and disrupt the classroom by doing a random search on the students. Lastly to be able to park on campus you also sing away your right to privacy. The school has the right to search and seize your car whenever the administration feels like.
My argument is to make it more known that when you sign your child up for school that you know what you are signing away. Constitutional rights are a very serious matter at this time and point in the United States and schools should not be able to just defy these rights whenever they please too. I’m not saying that students should be just be able to do and bring whatever they want on to school campuses but I’m saying that people need to be specifically notified what their child is losing constitutionally when they enter a school because the fourth amendment is not the only amendment being disobeyed by schools.