The Fourth Amendment typically protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures" under a standard of probable cause. However, schools garner an exception to the probable cause requirement for a search to occur.
The Supreme Court has previously recognized that school students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate" in the anti-war protest case Tinker v. Des Moines. However, as the Supreme Court acknowledged in Tinker, the freedom of speech or expression is not unlimited as speech that disrupted the learning environment would not be protected. Similarly, the Supreme Court held that the right against unreasonable searches and seizures applied to public schools under a lower threshold standard of reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause in the case New Jersey v. T.L.O.
The T.L.O. decision spawned new inquiries on how far searches could be conducted before requiring a warrant. Generally, the Supreme Court has allowed drug testing without a warrant. In Veronica v. Acton, the court upheld a local school board's requirement to drug test all junior football players. The justices agreed that the drug testing fell under the Fourth Amendment as a search but it was considered to be reasonable in order to prevent drug use among teen athletes. The Veronica decision was further extended in Board of Education v. Earls which allowed for drug testing students who participated in any extracurricular activity, regardless if it was a sport or not. Similarly, the Supreme Court reasoned that the school had an interest in curbing drug use and that students in activities would have a lower expectation of privacy.
Even though it seems that the court has been willing to allow schools to conduct searches based on a lower standard, there have been instances where the justices agreed that an institution went too far. Savana Redding was strip searched by a school official after a student tip informed the school that Redding may have Ibuprofen. The justices ruled that the search violated Redding's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court reasoned that reasonable suspicion was present but the underlying reasons that lead to the suspicion must be reliable. In the case of Redding, the student tip did not allow for fulfilling the requirement to be reliable. As a result, the Supreme Court has established a limit to the T.L.O case with regards to the extent of searches on school grounds.
