Case background
This is the year the Supreme Court decided New Jersey v. T.L.O
1985
This constitutional amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The Fourth Amendment
This was the Supreme Court's vote in New Jersey v. T.L.O.
6:3
True or false: School officials always need a warrant to search a student.
false
This item found in the purse contradicted T.L.O.'s denial of smoking.
Cigarettes
This is what T.L.O. was accused of doing in the school bathroom.
Smoking cigarettes
This is the level of suspicion generally required for police to obtain a search warrant.
Probable cause
This side won the Supreme Court case.
New Jersey
This must justify a school search at its beginning.
Reasonable grounds to suspect rule or law violations
These items found during the search suggested possible drug dealing.
Small plastic bags, money, and a list of names
This school official searched T.L.O.'s purse.
Assistant vice principal
This lower standard generally applies to public school officials searching students.
Reasonable suspicion
This Chief Justice wrote the majority opinion.
Warren E. Burger
This describes how far a school search may reasonably go.
The cause must relate to the suspected violation and not be excessively intrusive into personal privacy
This is the name of the student in the case as identified publicly.
T.L.O
This item was found in T.L.O.'s purse and helped justify further searching.
A pack of cigarettes
This is what the Fourth Amendment protects people from.
Unreasonable searches and seizures
This was the Court's conclusion about the purse search.
Reasonable under 4th amendment
True or false: Public school students have no Fourth Amendment rights.
False
This is the legal concept balancing student privacy against a school's need for order.
Reasonableness
This state brought the case to the Supreme Court.
New Jersey
This constitutional amendment makes Fourth Amendment protections applicable to states.
The Fourteenth Amendment
This is why the decision mattered for public schools.
established a reasonable-suspicion standard for student searches
These two factors help determine whether a search is excessively intrusive.
The student's age, and the nature of the suspected violation
This is the central constitutional question the Court decided.
Whether the school official's warrantless purse search violated the Fourth Amendment