A student called G.C. at Owensboro High School in Kentucky had a thick file of disciplinary infractions: tardiness, fighting in the locker room, walking out on a meeting with the school’s prevention coordinator and more.
But in September 2009, when he was caught sending text messages in class and school officials took his cellphone and read the messages, the conflict escalated. The school superintendent barred G.C. from school. G.C. sued in federal trial court and lost.
On appeal, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit last month correctly ruled that G.C. was improperly denied a hearing required by a Kentucky statute before he was expelled and that school officials violated his rights when they read text messages on his phone without reasonable suspicion.
The first issue was straightforward: G.C. did not get the hearing required by law. The second issue was knottier. Even under what the court called the Supreme Court’s “relaxed” standard for searches in a school setting, the lawfulness of a search depends on whether it was reasonable. The Sixth Circuit wisely interpreted that to mean the search is justified “if there is reasonable suspicion that a search will uncover evidence of further wrongdoing or of injury to the student or another.” There is no unlimited right to search any content on a phone.
In G.C.’s view, the school had no basis for searching his phone. The school claimed the search was partly for his own good because there were confessions of drug use in his file and the school said it wanted to make sure he did not intend to hurt himself or engage in illegal activity.
But the appeals court found “no evidence in the record” that “the school officials had any specific reason” to believe that G.C. was about to do anything else wrong. He was texting and simply got caught.
