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JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, and with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins as to Part I, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the
judgment.
JUSTICE POWELL, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR joins, concurring.
I agree with the Court's decision, and generally with its opinion.
I would place greater emphasis, however, on the special characteristics
of elementary and secondary schools that make it unnecessary to
afford students the same constitutional protections granted adults
and juveniles in a nonschool setting.
In any realistic sense, students within the school environment
have a lesser expectation of privacy than members of the population
generally. They spend the school hours in close association with
each other, both in the classroom and during recreation periods.
The students in a particular class often know each other and their
teachers quite well. Of necessity, teachers have a degree of familiarity
with, and authority over, their students that is unparalleled
except perhaps in the relationship between parent and child. It
is simply unrealistic to think that students have the same subjective
expectation of privacy as the population generally. But for purposes
of deciding this case, I can assume that children in school --
no less than adults -- have privacy interests that society is
prepared to recognize as legitimate.
However one may characterize their privacy expectations, students
properly are afforded some constitutional protections. In an often
quoted statement, the Court said that students do not "shed
their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate."
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393
U.S. 503, 506 (1969). The Court also has "emphasized the
need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the states and
of school officials . . . to prescribe and control conduct in
the schools." Id., at 507. See also Epperson v. Arkansas,
393 U.S. 97, 104 (1968). The Court has balanced the interests
of the student against the school officials' need to maintain
discipline by recognizing qualitative differences between the
constitutional remedies to which students and adults are entitled.
In Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), the Court recognized a
constitutional right to due process, and yet was careful to limit
the exercise of this right by a student who challenged a disciplinary
suspension. The only process found to be "due" was notice
and a hearing described as "rudimentary"; it amounted
to no more than "the disciplinarian . . . informally [discussing]
the alleged misconduct with the student minutes after it has occurred."
Id., at 581-582. In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), we
declined to extend the Eighth Amendment to prohibit the use of
corporal punishment of schoolchildren as authorized by Florida
law. We emphasized in that opinion that familiar constraints in
the school, and also in the community, provide substantial protection
against the violation of constitutional rights by school authorities.
"[At] the end of the school day, the child is invariably
free to return home. Even while at school, the child brings with
him the support of family and friends and is rarely apart from
teachers and other pupils who may witness and protest any instances
of mistreatment." Id., at 670. The Ingraham Court further
pointed out that the "openness of the public school and its
supervision by the community afford significant safeguards"
against the violation of constitutional rights. Ibid.
The special relationship between teacher and student also distinguishes
the setting within which schoolchildren operate. Law enforcement
officers function as adversaries of criminal suspects. These officers
have the responsibility to investigate criminal activity, to locate
and arrest those who violate our laws, and to facilitate the charging
and bringing of such persons to trial. Rarely does this type of
adversarial relationship exist between school authorities and
pupils. 1 Instead, there is
a commonality of interests between teachers and their pupils.
The attitude of the typical teacher is one of personal responsibility
for the student's welfare as well as for his education.
as the Court states, is the education and training of young people.
A State has a compelling interest in assuring that the schools
meet this responsibility. Without first establishing discipline
and maintaining order, teachers cannot begin to educate their
students. And apart from education, the school has the obligation
to protect pupils from mistreatment by other children, and also
to protect teachers themselves from violence by the few students
whose conduct in recent years has prompted national concern. For
me, it would be unreasonable and at odds with history to argue
that the full panoply of constitutional rules applies with the
same force and effect in the schoolhouse as it does in the enforcement
of criminal laws. 2
In sum, although I join the Court's opinion and its holding, 3
my emphasis is somewhat different.
---------Begin Endnotes-----------
1 Unlike police officers, school
authorities have no law enforcement responsibility or indeed any
obligation to be familiar with the criminal laws. Of course, as
illustrated by this case, school authorities have a layman's familiarity
with the types of crimes that occur frequently in our schools:
the distribution and use of drugs, theft, and even violence against
teachers as well as fellow students.
2 As noted above, decisions
of this Court have never held to the contrary. The law recognizes
a host of distinctions between the rights and duties of children
and those of adults. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 591 (1975)
(POWELL, J., dissenting.)
3 The Court's holding is that
"when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that [a]
search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or
is violating either the law or the rules of the school,"
a search of the student's person or belongings is justified. Ante,
at 342. This is in accord with the Court's summary of the views
of a majority of the state and federal courts that have addressed
this issue. See ante, at 332-333, n. 2.
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