Constitutional Rights at school?

[Andrew Hospodor]

Originally Posted by Levin571

I find it quite odd that at schools here in America where students learn about the constitutional rights, like the right of free speech and the right to no unresonable search and seizure, that these rules are bent and broken by the administration to the point where they are essentially nul and void.

An example is that I rescently discovered that my boarding school uses a program called "AIM sniffer" to log the AIM messages of all the students on our intranet (both incoming and outgoing). This is a clear violation of both the first and fourth amendments, and even thought cases like this have been brought to court, it still persists.

Another one is the locker inspections that sometimes occur at high schools, where even if there is basis for the search. While this can catch potential crimes or other actions, what about those innocent students who are just bystanders?

I want to know what is the opinion of the CD community on this issue (yes i know it had nothing to do with robotics, but i feel it is a resonable question concidering how many of us are or were students at one time).

The constitution protects your from the gov't, not necessarily a private institution. And if your school has a student rule book, I would suggest looking in there. Typically, private schools have a set list of rules some of include random locker searches, random computer searches, and other things as such. The program AIM Sniffer is perfectly legal. It is their internet connection, you are just borrowing it in a sense. Plus, if there exists a rule that says they can randomly search your computer/network, they will win. I would really consider going over the rule book and if they don't list that they can randomly have searches, question the administration.

Just some thoughts, interesting point though