Arizona Hotel Room

Several issues related to student rights, responsibilities, and privacy have been brought forward to various levels of the federal court system. In the case study from chapter three of the text, several questions are posed related to the legal implications of a principal searching students’ hotel rooms and the limits that exist related to discipline and power. The primary points of constitutional emphasis from this case study relate to the Fourth Amendment rules of search and seizure and the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Essex sums up the general rulings of courts by stating,”It is important to remember that a fair and reasonable exercise of administrative authority will withstand court scrutiny.” (Essex, 2016, p.53) This case …show more content…
The fact that students were notified in advance of the trip that drugs and alcohol were forbidden provides an expectation for behavior that the students must meet. That being said, the principal needs to find more information to support the assumption that the students are smoking. The principal should quickly identify whether there is anyone in the hallway that is not associated with the field trip. Additionally, the principal must search for clues that may indicate that one or more students is the guilty party. The smell of marijuana is a step towards reasonable suspicion, but would not hold up as the sole reason for a search of hotel rooms. As discussed previously, the odor of marijuana approaches grounds for reasonable suspicion. According to Essex, T.L.O. v. New Jersey set a strong precedent for school personnel and their ability to search …show more content…
The principal’s preferred method, should he be able to narrow down a group of potential suspects, would be to request access from the students and bring a fellow chaperone with him. In the event that a student is showing signs of drug use and does not allow access to the room, the principal will then have reasonable suspicion to search the room that would hold up in court. One underlying question from the case study involves who the hotel rooms are legally possessed by. While the case study does not explicitly state this, the assumption is that the school is the official holder of the room reservations and students were simply assigned a room. This could give the principal legal protection to request access. Consequently, if the rooms are treated similarly to lockers, and if students do not allow the principal permission to search their rooms, the principal could be acting outside of the law. In the event that the principal must ask for access from the hotel employees, this could be an indiscriminate search. Essex clarifies,”Barring an emergency, indiscriminate searches of students’ lockers are indefensible and illegal.” (Essex, 2016, p. 68) While marijuana use is against the law, the use of marijuana does not constitute an emergency and the search might be found to be unconstitutional in