Policing Our Students: A Legal Review of Civil Rights in Schools

• In Event: 66.068 - Policy and Precedent: An Examination of Legal Implications in Education for Policy Scholars

Abstract

Purpose
Questions surrounding students’ safety in public schools require careful consideration of the Constitutional and judicial principles that govern such policy. In general, schools and school-based personnel have been given greater leeway in protecting their students via less rigorous standards for search, seizure, and detainment. Still, there are questions that must be carefully considered surrounding the balance between students’ safety and their civil rights. These questions are amplified by the recent increase in the use of police officers as school safety agents in public schools. The question, then, is what is the line for a police officer in school? Are they police, or are they school administrators? Further, do the same conflicts between historically marginalized communities and police now penetrate our schools as well?

Methods/framework
I situate these questions in the context of the role police play in larger society and the laws that govern their actions in protection of all Americans’ civil rights, and review influential case law regarding the civil rights of students in moments of discipline/punishment at school, particularly when those moments involve police.

Findings
While one might expect the same civil rights to apply to students in school as any other public space, my findings suggest this may not always be the case. For example, school leaders carry out searches and other discipline with comparatively wide freedom in their discretion to conduct such investigations; they need only be “reasonably suspicious” of a violation to meet their Constitutional requirements. Police, on the other hand, need to establish “probable cause,” a far more stringent standard (largely informed by New Jersey v. T.L.O. [1985]).
I also note the differential use of force by American police on people of color and its implications for young people of color in schools. As young people of color are more likely to be subject to school discipline and more likely to be referred to police as a result of school discipline (US DOE, 2016), and more likely to be subjected to force by law enforcement (Harris, 1996; Brunson, 2007), the issues described above are magnified for these students, creating yet another layer of inequity.

Conclusion
In my analysis, I reveal an inherent problem current case law has created for students: as school leaders and local police work in concert, the Constitutional protections afforded to all Americans are necessarily restricted for young people as a function of a being a student in a school. When considered with the newfound increase of police presence in schools, the partnerships between school leaders and police ostensibly create a due process “run-around” for young people. They are stripped of certain civil rights protections typically afforded by the Constitution, simply because they are in school, despite the fact that they are still being exposed to real legal punishments as opposed to less severe school-based consequences.

Author

• Samuel J. Kamin, University of Connecticut