Internet: Privacy for High School Students

 

An Analysis of Privacy Issues and High School Students in the United States Today

 

In the Age of Information, the issue of invasion of privacy continues to dominate the headlines. More and more people, it seems, are becoming victims of identity theft, one of the major forms of privacy invasion, and personal information on just about everyone in the world is available at the click of a mouse. In this environment, can anyone, especially high school students, reasonably expect to have any degree of privacy? High school students, after all, are not protected by many of the same constitutional guarantees as adults, but their needs for privacy may be as great, or greater, than their adult counterparts. To determine what measure of privacy, if any, high schools students can expect at home and school today, this paper provides an overview of the issue of privacy, followed by an analysis of its various dimensions as they apply to this segment of the population. A discussion of current and future trends is followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.

 

Review and Discussion

 

Background and Overview. In his essay, “The Costs of Privacy,” Kent Walker (2001) advises that “Privacy is both an individual and a social good. Still, the no-free-lunch principle holds true. Legislating privacy comes at a cost: more notices and forms, higher prices, fewer free services, less convenience, and, often, less security. More broadly, if less tangibly, laws regulating privacy chill the creation of beneficial collective goods and erode social values” (p. 87). Likewise, Jeffrey Rosen suggests that “privacy protects us from being misdefined and judged out of context in a world of short attention spans, a world in which information can easily be confused with knowledge” (p. 209). Yet, while the headlines are replete with reports concerning privacy issues and how they are playing out in the workplace and school, there are some profound differences in what can reasonably be expected in terms of privacy from one society to the next.

 

In the West, privacy assumes a more important role for many people, perhaps, than their counterparts in the East simply by virtue of the social emphasis on individuality in the former and the emphasis on the needs of the group first in the latter; nevertheless, people everywhere seem to agree to privacy is an important component of the human existence. This assumption was borne out by research conducted by Naz Kaya and Margaret J. Weber (2003), who found further differences even in the nations of the West as their concerned the reasonable expectation for privacy. “Although the desire for privacy varies from one situation to another,” they say, “it appears that some cultures have a stronger preference for privacy and more privacy needs and gradients than others” (Kaya & Weber, 2003, p. 79). Other researchers have characterized different cultures as being “contact” and “non-contact” in their privacy expectations, with a clear reference to the Western concept of the “need for space” being involved in such assessments. According to Kaya and Weber, “The contact culture is composed of individuals (e.g., Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Hispanic) who interact more closely with one another than individuals of the non-contact culture (e.g., Northern European, North American)” (p. 80). Therefore, students from contact cultures who prefer closer social interaction would have less privacy needs than their non-contact culture counterparts.

 

In an increasingly multicultural society, these different expectations of privacy can result in different reactions among different people, of course, but despite these differences, all people need to be alone sometimes, and solitude in these cases should not be confused with isolation. According to James Q. Whitman, “In every corner of the Western world, writers proclaim ‘privacy’ as a supremely important human good, as a value somehow at the core of what makes life worth living. Without our privacy, we lose ‘our very integrity as persons'” (p. 1151). A number of observers have agreed that privacy is somehow fundamental to humanity’s “personhood”; further, it is widely recognized that individual privacy is being threatened by the evolution of contemporary society through innovations in telecommunications, surveillance and increasingly intrusive methods of inquiry. Whitman says, “Commentators paint this menace in very dark colors: Invasions of our privacy are said to portend a society of “horror,” to “injure [us] in [our] very humanity,” or even to threaten “totalitarianism,” and the establishment of law protecting privacy is accordingly declared to be a matter of fundamental rights. It is the rare privacy advocate who resists citing Orwell when describing these dangers” (p. 1151). These fears are not unfounded of course.

 

Today, many states, as well as a number of counties, localities, and federal agencies, operate a variety of centralized “human services” data banks that manage client records submitted by agencies for virtually permanent storage. According to Trudy Hayden, Evan Hendricks, and Jack D. Novik’s book, Your Right to Privacy: A Basic Guide to Legal Rights in an Information Society (1990), “Police and other criminal justice officials can often obtain information from client records simply on request. Schools, employers, and landlords are sometimes told that a student, employee, or tenant is the client of a welfare or social services program. Records are often made available to researchers. So loose are the confidentiality regulations for most programs that these disclosures are perfectly legal. On the other hand, some programs maintain very strict confidentiality; for example, federally funded drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs generally protect client records even against a subpoena” (p. 57).

 

At the same time, advocates of maintaining existing privacy protections and expanding them in the future are likewise forced to admit that the concept of privacy is exceedingly difficult to define. “[N]obody,” writes Judith Jarvis Thomson, “seems to have any very clear idea what [it] is” (p. 37). While all authors are not quite as vague about the concept as Thomson, many of them feel compelled, nevertheless, to acknowledge that privacy, fundamentally important though it may be, is an particularly elusive concept to articulate. “In particular,” Whitman says, “the sense of what must be kept ‘private,’ of what must be hidden before the eyes of others, seems to differ strangely from society to society” (p. 1152). There are some legal guidelines available, though, that help to codify precisely what adults in the United States can expect in terms of personal privacy.

 

According to Black’s Law Dictionary (1990), the “right to privacy” means “The right to be left alone; the right of a person to be free from unwarranted publicity; and right to live without unwarranted interference by the public in matters with which the public is not necessarily concerned” (p. 1195). While everyone, adolescent and adult, East and West alike, perhaps, shares an approximation of what “the right to privacy” is and what can reasonably be expected in day-to-day life, there are four basic categories of privacy invasion that are actually actionable in the U.S. courts today:

 

1.

 

Appropriation. This term refers to the increasingly common crime of identity theft, or other circumstances wherein an individual’s name or likeness is appropriated without permission.

 

2.

 

Intrusion. This occurs when someone intrudes on another person’s solitude or seclusion, as well as an individual’s residence.

 

3.

 

Public disclosure of private facts. This type of privacy invasion involves unwanted publicity “of a highly objectionable kind,” that is provided about someone; the information can even be true, but a cause of action may still exist if the individual involved is not a celebrity, politician, sports figure or someone who has been otherwise exempted from this component. According to Robert Lissit, there is a fine line between what is allowed to be publicly disclosed, but this line has become increasingly blurred in recent years, particularly as it applies to juveniles: “Whether it’s a live telecast of bloodied teens carried from Columbine High School, a live feed of a man shooting himself on a California freeway, or a mother and son running from cameras after visiting a memorial for school shooting victims, there’s a conflict between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to privacy” (p. 98).

 

4.

 

False light in the public eye.

 

The final type of privacy invasion consists of publicity that places an individual in the “false light of the public eye” (Black’s, p. 1195).

 

Certainly, most people cherish their privacy and will go to great lengths to protect it; however, privacy considerations for adults and adolescents vary in significant ways, but still tend to mirror privacy considerations for their adult counterparts. In his essay, “The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity vs. Liberty,” James Q. Whitman points out that, “Privacy advocates often like to claim that all modern societies feel the same intuitive need to protect privacy. Yet it is clear that intuitive sensibilities about privacy differ from society to society, even as between the closely kindred societies of the United States and continental Europe. Some of the differences involve questions of everyday behavior, such as whether or not one may appear nude in public. But many involve the law” (p. 1151). These issues have assumed increasing importance in recent years as well.

 

For example, in her book, Mind Your Own Business: The Battle for Personal Privacy, Gini Graham Scott (1995) reports that, “From elementary school to college, school has become a privacy battleground, primarily in high school and university. Mainly, these conflicts have occurred on four main fronts: the effort to keep schools safe from crime and drugs; efforts to control, shape, or punish different types of student behavior; the school — media conflict over what the media can cover and publish; and the struggle over what a school can say when it is trying to terminate or has terminated a teacher or staff member” (p. 271). The increasing surveillance in other areas of society that have been the result of concerns about crime and drugs has been carried over into the country’s high schools and colleges.

 

According to Scott, “Like a microcosm of society, schools have been invaded by these same problems, resulting in the airport-like screening devices and police practices that have become a daily routine in many schools. In many communities, as widely reported in the news, even elementary schools now have check-in stops through which students have to pass, so they can be checked for weapons” (p. 271). If any contraband is found, it is confiscated, and the student will sometimes be charged with a crime or suspended from school as well. In many high schools, school officials now conduct occasional locker checks for illegal drugs, stolen property, or other evidence of a crime. Like their adult counterparts in the workplace, student lockers represent a particular challenge for authorities seeking a balance between the Fourth Amendment guarantees and the need to ensure the safety of the juvenile and others. From an adult’s perspective, these expectations have assumed some fairly concrete forms. According to Darien A. McWhirter (1994), “By the end of the twentieth century both the police and average citizens have a good idea of what the Fourth Amendment does and does not protect. W hile some of the rules may seem silly to some people, they are not confusing. From searching automobiles to backpacks to houses, mistakes can no longer be laid at the door of the Supreme Court. Police officers who violate the rules have only themselves to blame if a guilty person goes free because constitutional rights were violated” (p. 144). The same can also be said concerning the more general right to privacy as it applies to adults. Although other areas may also fall under the umbrella constitutional protections, adults in the United States have the right to decide who they will marry, whether or not they will have children, and whether or not their children will attend private school; women have a fundamental right to control their own bodies, including the right to decide to have an abortion, limited only by the right states enjoy to regulate the abortion process to serve legitimate governmental goals (McWhirtier, 1994). By sharp contrast, though, these Fourth Amendment guarantees fade in significance when they are applied to a high school setting, a point made by Barbara Dority (1997) who reports that, “Every day, public schools in America are becoming safer. Walk-through metal detectors have been in use in many inner city schools for over a decade, while hand-held detectors and random weapons screenings are more popular on smaller, rural campuses. They’re expensive, but they’re thorough. And we want nothing but the best when it comes to the safety of our children” (p. 37). Under various circumstances, schools across the country are requiring students to submit to body searches. The Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union recently settled a case in which fifteen students were strip-searched by school personnel looking for a missing $100. Commented one of the students, ‘It felt like we were criminals. It was humiliating.’ Kids say the darndest things, don’t they?” (Dority, 1997, p. 38). The war on drugs is being vigorously waged in our public schools, as reflected in an October 1996 story by the Associated Press. A thirteen-year-old honor student in Ohio was suspended ten days from Junior high school for accepting two Midol tablets from a classmate. The school’s “zero tolerance” policy makes no distinctions — prescription or nonprescription, legal or illegal. The student could reduce her suspension time only by undergoing “drug screening” (initial cost, $100; several subsequent “counseling” sessions, $90 each). She and the friend who gave her the tablets were ordered to undergo a “drug evaluation” or face expulsion. Both girls said this hardly seemed fair for two unswallowed Midols, but they’re just kids. When they’re older, they’ll understand why it was so important for officials to make no exceptions (Dority, 1997, p. 38). .

 

In a 1995 Supreme Court ruling permitting mandatory random drug testing of students participating in sports and other extracurricular activities, the Court specifically said that those who refuse testing can be barred from participation. Students in at least twenty two states are now required to submit or be excluded from many school activities. To some students, this seems unjust. But to quote the father of a star athlete at one Washington high school, ‘We’re supposed to prepare students for the world of work. On the door of Albertson’s [food store] it says, ‘We’re going to drug test you before we hire you, so don’t apply if you do drugs'” (Dority, 1997, p. 38). Likewise, in early July 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held that high school students involved in extracurricular activities could be required to submit to drug testing. According to Hagen and Nichols (2002), “Privacy and drug-decriminalization groups voiced disappointment. ‘We believe the testing of students violates their Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure’ says Shawn Heller, national director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)” (p. 6). The lack of parental involvement in such invasive programs was also denounced: “If a student wants a Tylenol he needs parental consent, but not for an invasive drag test,” Heller said. “The role of schools is to educate, not investigate and incriminate. Schools can perform a useful rule in educating students about the real harms of drug and alcohol use” (emphasis added). These observations are entirely on point and timely as well. Sharlene A. McEvoy (2002) reports that as a result of more technology in the workplace and the ability of employees to have access to e-mail and the Internet on employer-owned computers, questions have arisen as to an employer’s right to monitor personal use of these devices in the workplace. McEvoy says, “Cases indicate that an employee uses e-mail and the Interact for personal purposes at his or her peril” (p. 69). The “peril” involved is very real and adult concerns over privacy in the workplace are likewise very real because they are based on the reality of workplace surveillance today. For instance, in May 2000, the American Management Association conducted a survey that determined the number of businesses that performed at least some type of worker surveillance grew from 45% to 66% in 1999. According to McEvoy, monitoring telephone calls is also on the list of employee activities that are used by companies today. These same surveillance techniques, as well as the rationale that supports them, are being used in high schools today, but critics are pointing out that in many cases school officials and law enforcement authorities are taking the whole thing much too far. “Kids love dogs, right?,” Dority asks. This author notes that by, “Having a drug sniffing dog check out their clothing, lockers, purses, and book bags isn’t nearly as upsetting as searches by police. The dogs are usually brought in without notice each semester. Students are permitted to play with them after the work is finished. It’s important to turn these activities into positive experiences whenever we can. After all, there’s no reason kids should be upset by these little safety precautions” (Dority, 1997, p. 39). Because they are using company-owned equipment and using company-owned facilities in which to work, adults usually recognize and grudgingly accept the inherent rights of an employer to engage in these types of surveillance practices in the workplace, even extending to the right to search an individual’s desk or other property, so long as it is located on company property — even the parking lots. There are not many adult workers, though, who would likely sit still for a random search of their desk just to keep them intimated and “in their place,” but Dority suggests that this is just what is being done in the nation’s high schools in the form of random locker searches. In the past, random locker searches were fairly commonplace in inner-city schools; however, these practices are being increasingly used in all high schools across the country. “These searches don’t often turn up drugs or ‘other contraband,’ primarily because students no longer leave any personal items in their lockers. But school officials know it is important to continue the searches anyway; students need to be reminded that zero tolerance means zero tolerance” (1997, p. 39). Some of the other methods being employed to keep illegal substances such as alcohol out of the nation’s high schools would also never pass muster in an adult setting, but are continued to be foisted upon the nation’s high school students. For example, school authorities have used bans on clothing with alcohol-related messages as well as the use of breath alcohol analysis machines. According to Dority, “A handy $500, hand-held device detects one’s level of alcohol. Any amount detected results in a suspension of a few days to a full semester, and most schools require offenders to undergo a ‘substance-abuse assessment and treatment program’ before returning to school. When asked what would happen if a student refused to take a breath test, the vice-principal at a Washington school replied, ‘That’s never happened. But if it did, my line would be, ‘I can do this or the police can do this'” (Dority, 1997, p. 39). Based on empirical observations, if this practice were in place in most American workplaces, half of the workforce would be on suspension and the other half would be in a rehabilitation program. In fact, in response to worker backlash against such practices into their private lives, a majority of states have now enacted some version of off-the-job privacy protection laws (Dworkin, 1997). There are some other similarities between the privacy issues in the workplace and those in place at many high schools today. For example, the U.S. Postal Service uses postal inspectors that are able to watch any employee in any facility at any time without the employee’s knowledge; however, such surveillance in the nation’s high schools has truly assumed Orwellian qualities. According to Dority, “Then there are the surveillance cameras. System manufacturers recommend that medium-sized campuses install at least twenty-five: in classrooms, hallways, gyms, cafeterias, parking lots; on football fields and on each school bus” (1997, p. 40). Surveillance systems are also being installed in many new school facilities during their construction phase; one student in a Texas district described the experience as being imprisoned, and Dority believes these considerations far outweigh any real security that is being achieved in the process: “Everywhere you go, there’s a camera right above you, watching. They’re invading our privacy. It makes it feel like jail.’ When he’s older, he’ll realize how much safer he was because of those cameras” (emphasis added) (Dority, 1997, p. 41). If an adult worker in the United States or the West in general becomes sufficiently dissatisfied with the conditions in a given workplace, he or she is free to seek other gainful employment; however, as noted above, high school students do not typically enjoy these same luxuries and are compelled for one reason or another to stay in school, and in many cases, a specific school. As an essentially “trapped audience,” then, high school students are at the mercy of these same surveillance systems, and they have been misused. According to Ralph W. Larkin (1979):

 

The fact is that students are forced to attend school, because of compulsory attendance laws, as in the case of most high school students, or there are no other viable alternatives, or nonattendance is an admission of failure in the status struggle, as in the case of most college students, contrary to the popular ideology that education is a privilege. This particular contradiction unnerves students, since they tend to believe the popular ideology and have feelings of guilt because they don’t really want to be there. They are caught in the double-bind of being coerced into a position which they believe is privileged. (p. 59)

 

Unfortunately, when students become trapped in a system that continues to exhibit signs of oppressiveness, there will be profound consequences. When that same system is used to exploit them even further, the consequences can be equally serious for the authorities responsible for their installation, even if they had no part in how such devices were misused for privacy invasion purposes. For example, in their essay, “Privacy and Negligence,” Paul Mick and Thomas H. Sawyer (1999) report that a hidden surveillance camera was placed in the locker room of an American high school to videotape females participating in a lifeguard-training session. A high school student not participating in the lifeguard training had hidden the camera and taped the exercises and circulated copies of a tape of the students undressing. Two of the female students who were videotaped brought suit against the high school, the school corporation, the organization sponsoring the lifeguard training, and the teacher who conducted the training; however, suit was not brought against the high school student who actually placed the camera in the locker room. “The plaintiffs felt that it was the responsibility of those named to ensure their security and privacy,” the authors noted (Mick & Sawyer, 1999, p. 12).

 

Furthermore, when inordinately restrictive security policies are in place that overly intrude into students’ lives, they cannot help but become resentful and distrustful of adults. According to Dority, an increasing number of high schools are hiring additional security staff to police student behavior and are arranging daily visits by police officers. As a result:

 

Kids say it makes them feel that the campus isn’t ‘theirs’ anymore. But they’ll soon realize that the police are their friends and adjust to their presence. Censorship of school newspapers and other student publications has become commonplace since the Supreme Court’s 1988 Hazelwood decision, which held that school officials may censor student publications as they see fit and this does not violate the rights of students. Student journalists and writers faced with this situation often call on organizations like the Washington Coalition Against Censorship. “But they’re just kids; they don’t know the real world. Experiencing forms of censorship teaches young journalists that success in their future careers will require that they accept the advice and correction of experienced editors. (Dority, 1997, p. 38).

 

“And here’s a truly innovative idea: let’s take away students’ drivers licenses if they drop out of school before age eighteen! Why didn’t we think of this long ago? It’s already being declared a success in West Virginia, and similar laws have been adopted in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas” (Dority, 1997, p. 38). Since the most frequently cited reasons for dropping out of school are the need to earn money and to care for a child, this plan might seem cruel and unfair now, but they’ll thank us for it when they realize it was for their own good. The list of safety measures being employed in America’s public schools goes on and on: paying kids cash rewards for turning in fellow students suspected of using drugs, narcotics agents posing as students, searches of students’ cars in school parking lots, and the like.

 

For kids, school isn’t preparation or rehearsal for life. School is life. We know their experiences there leave a profound impression upon their young, developing minds. That’s why their secondary school years are the ideal time to help them make the adjustments necessary to be successful in our society. They may resist, but it’s natural for youths to rebel against authority. Only by being firm and consistent can we assure that the next generation of Americans will become model citizens (Dority, 1997, p. 38).

 

Although these surveillance and search tactics have been challenged in some localities, the lower courts have generally held them constitutional based on the need for added security measures given the risks of these dangerous times and the need to protect students from these dangers. Scott notes that, “In fact, in some jurisdictions, there are moves to make carrying a concealed weapon into a school a felony, and in some states (such as California) it now is a felony for both adults and juveniles” (p. 272). At the same time, there have been a number of initiatives introduced throughout the country to make juveniles more accountable for what they do, including no longer sealing the juvenile’s record. For example, in California, following the Polly Klaas murder and Richard Allen Davis’s conviction, Mike Reynolds, another California father whose daughter was raped and killed, received renewed support for the more severe “three strikes and you’re out” measure that he proposed 2 years previously. These incidents compelled lawmakers to pass this law quickly, and it was the first of several similar proposals signed into law by Governor Pete Wilson. One of its provisions allowed juvenile records to be unsealed and allowed convictions as a juvenile to count toward the “three strikes”; according to this law, life sentences are mandated for three-time offenders who have previously committed at least two violent crimes (Scott, 1995).

 

As a result, popular opinion is calling for increased vigilance on juveniles in general, as well as in the schools; this popular opinion, has in turn, added to existing concerns about juvenile crime which has served to justify the crackdown on juvenile privacy because of the need to protect the general public and juveniles from one another. In addition, beyond the need to protect students from danger, school officials maintain that they need this added surveillance and control to keep the school environment conducive to learning (Scott, 1995). The “four main fronts” for adolescent privacy compare in some approximate ways to those covered by adult privacy considerations as well. An analysis of these various dimensions of privacy and how they apply to high school students today is provided below.

 

Privacy and High School Students Today. High school is a unique place in society; adolescents are at a crossroads in their physical, emotional and sexual development, and virtually all high school students are in a hurry to grow up and join the adult world, perhaps in not all of its responsible roles, but at least as far as the fun things go. In this rush to join up with the adult ranks though, high school students frequently exercise the same type of poor judgment that plagues all of mankind, but which is amplified in the young. This is why juvenile offenders are treated so differently in most cases than their adult counterparts in criminal cases (although the line between adults and juveniles is becoming increasingly blurred); however, this uniqueness of situation also translates into some grey areas when it comes to how much and when the same types of privacy protections that are guaranteed to all American citizens (high school students are citizens, aren’t they?). According to Black’s Law Dictionary (1990), “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside” (p. 244). By virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, then, the Bill of Rights would naturally apply even to high school students — but it does not in its entirety, and in the cases where it is applied, high school students continue to occupy some type of “quasi-citizenship” status that remains better described in the literature than it is defined. According to Rodney A. Smolla (1999):

 

Under the rubric of substantive due process, U.S. constitutional law shelters certain aspects of privacy and autonomy from governmental interference. In the 20th century, the doctrine was once often invoked to strike down government legislation that interfered with property rights and entrepreneurial liberty, treating the Due Process Clause as the embodiment of laissez-faire economic theory. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and others rebelled from this constitutionalization of laissez-faire economics. This rebellion would ultimately prevail during the New Deal when the Supreme Court repudiated the invocation of substantive due process principles as a legitimate vehicle for overturning economic regulation. However, substantive due process theory has had considerably more staying power regarding the regulation of non-economic aspects of life and has been the principal doctrinal device for the protection of individual privacy. (1999, p. 113).

 

As a result, substantive due process principles may thus be invoked to challenge infringements of certain fundamental fights on the theory that such rights are protected against most forms of governmental interference by the direct force of the Due Process Clause (Smolla, 1999). The aforementioned need to ensure the safety of students in a day and age characterized by an increased incidence of violence and school shooting, drug dealing in the hallways and electronic monitors at the school doors, though, has meant that high school students are somehow stripped of their Constitutional rights when they step onto school property. Their basic rights to free speech, to assemble and discuss, to pray, to bad-mouth the principal and other school officials and to generally engage in the same types of behaviors seen in any adult political convention are somehow magically whisked away, not to be seen again until 3:00 P.M. And they leave school property, or they reach the age of majority, whichever comes first. According to Kaminer (1999), “The landmark 1969 Supreme Court decision Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District upholding the right to wear a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War has not been overruled, but its assertion that students do not leave their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door has not been honored either” (p. 11). Given this dichotomy of treatment, there must be some highly compelling reasons beyond the need for student safety to continue to regulate student newspapers or to promulgate overly officious dress codes, for example. Some authorities, in fact, point to several such reasons for continuing to treat high school students differently than their adult counterparts when it comes to privacy issues.

 

From a privacy intrusion perspective, for example, high school students are at an inordinate risk for sexual harassment. In 1992, Strauss and Espeland studied sexual harassment in high schools in Minnesota and observed that “many students say that sexual harassment is the norm in their schools. There have been numerous reports of sexual assaults and rapes on school grounds and in school buildings. In an environment that condones sexual harassment, everyone is a victim, not just those who are direct targets of the harassment. All students come to see school as an unsafe place, hostile and intimidating. They may alter their own behaviors in an attempt to decrease their sense of vulnerability” (p. 7). This point is also made by Susan Fineran and Larry Bennett (1998) in their essay, “Teenage Peer Sexual Harassment: Implications for Social Work Practice in Education.” There, the authors report that peer-on-peer sexual harassment is a problem for both girls and boys in American’s high schools, and the effects from this experience can have adverse effects on students’ lives into their adulthood. “Many students report school performance difficulties as a result of sexual harassment,” the authors add, “including absenteeism, decreased quality of schoolwork, skipping or dropping classes, lower grades, loss of friends, tardiness, and truancy” (p. 55). These symptoms can result in ineligibility for specific colleges or merit scholarships and loss of recommendations for awards, colleges, or jobs; further, all of these factors can result in fewer career choices and decreased or lost economic opportunities and possible job failure that can affect a student for the rest of her or his life (Fineran & Bennett, 1998). The very nature of the high school experience is part of this problem. As noted above, high schools in the United States occupy a unique niche that creates a legal limbo of sorts for students; nevertheless, most students find their high school experience crucial to their personal development and readiness to become part of the adult world. “Peer sexual harassment interferes with and inhibits this important developmental process,” the authors note. From a social worker perspective, “Social workers who are able to clearly identify the problems associated with peer sexual harassment strengthen their positions as advocates for improved school environments, and perception of the problems allows them to define hostile school environments as a serious social problem with negative mental health and legal ramifications” (p. 56). In the past, incidents of sexual harassment were generally regarded as being just “teasing” or “good-natured fun”; however, this “typical adolescent behavior” needs to be reassessed today as being what it actually is: “behavior that hurts both boys and girls in the educational setting and continues the discrimination of women in society at large” (Fineran & Bennett, 1998, p. 56).

 

According to a study by Kay Deaux, Carren Loredo, and Anne Reid (1995), there has been much attention directed to sexual harassment in the workplace and college campuses; however, sexual harassment is certainly not restricted to these settings. “One of the least studied environments, and one often not recognized as a locale for sexual harassment,” the authors report, “is the high school. Students in high schools are often excluded from studies of sexual harassment, possibly because they are assumed to have limited exposure to such behavior” (p. 29). The results of a nationwide survey of students in grades eight through eleven, though, determined that the majority of students (85% of girls and 76% of boys) have experienced some type of unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature at school. The typical experiences have included being the target of sexual comments or looks (reported by 76% of girls and 56% of boys) and being touched, grabbed or pinched in a sexual way (reported by 65% of girls and 42% of boys).

 

Based on their experiences with such encounters, many of the students in this study reported that they did not want to go to school or talk in class, that they found it hard to pay attention, and that they had even considered changing schools (Deaux et al., 1995). These findings on the frequent occurrence of sexual harassment need to be considered from the unique perspective of the high school and its place in society: “First, high school students have less personal mobility than other targets of sexual harassment. “Teenagers, in general, do not have the sole voice in deciding whether or not to attend high school. Furthermore, they are often not free to choose the high school that they attend” (Deaux et al., 1995, p. 30). What types of behavior constituted harassment was a matter of some disagreement among the respondents; for some students, sexual harassment was restricted to a quid pro quo exchange; for one student, physical force was also a criterion.

 

Still another student said, “This situation is not really that harassing because he is not forcing, or threatening, or imposing his position on her.” From this perspective, jokes, even if they are sexual or scatological in nature, are still regarded as being casual or playful rather than constituting harassing behaviors. Statements reflecting this position include “Joking around among friends is generally okay as [long] as it’s done in an innocent way;” and “I don’t think it’s very serious; it’s just part of our culture today, and it’s not meant personally” (Deaux et al., 1995, p. 31). Other students in this study indicated that any type of behavior that treats a person as a sexual object can be considered harassing; included in this definition were jokes, as well as comments on a person’s body, the display of degrading pictures, and personal questions about one’s sexual activities (Deaux et al., 1995).

 

This position can be found in student statements such as “Directly commenting on one’s body is outright harassment” and “he is degrading her by making her a sexual object”; any repetition of the behavior was also considered important by some students. Deaux and her colleagues found that if the behavior happened occurred once, students were willing to excuse it; however, future recurrence constituted harassing behavior. Thus, the authors concluded that “one comment is not sexual harassment, but if it continues and Bill tells Lorna to stop, it is” (1995, p. 31). In addition, a number of the students in this study used the target’s reaction to the behavior as the “acid test” for making evaluations as to the extent of harassment. According to the authors, harassment was said to occur if the target was put in an uncomfortable situation, if he or she was embarrassed, felt ashamed, or was subject to an invasion of privacy; some examples of this criterion include the following statements:

 

“It is sexual harassment if it imposes or embarrassed her. However, if this inquiry doesn’t embarrass her, then it is not sexual harassment.”

 

Also, “he’s making her feel unsure of herself. He is being very intimidating.”

 

More broadly, echoing the legal standard of a “hostile work environment,” one student judged an incident to be harassing because the teacher was “making the classroom an uncomfortable environment for the student.”

 

Even without the emotional expression, some students believe that harassment occurs whenever a person does not wish to be subjected to some behavior. For example, ‘This is harassment because Alice says she does not want to hear the joke'” (Deaux, Loredo & Reid, 1995, p. 31).

 

These authors emphasize that it is clear that sexual harassment is a serious problem in the high schools, as it is in other organizations in the society. Young women, in particular, are at risk of harassment from both teachers and fellow students; young men may experience a lower incidence of such behaviors, but the perception of the seriousness of the transgression is just as great: “Not included in the present study, but of obvious importance, is the interpretation and incidence of same-sex harassment, directed toward both women and men. Sexual harassment respects no boundaries of age or gender” (Deaux, Loredo & Reid, 1995, p. 32). Although the level of awareness of sexual harassment has improved significant from just a few years ago, the results of the Deaux et al. study suggest that a substantial amount of work remains to be done in educating people about the conditions of harassment, particularly in terms of the line between attraction and harassment among high school peers. High school appears to represent an excellent place to begin this process: “The priority of interpersonal concerns among people of high school age make the high school an especially important setting for exploring this demarcation line” (emphasis added) (Deaux, Loredo & Reid, 1995, p. 32). Legal authorities, though, may not demarcate the line at all as a result of Megan’s law; today, pedophiles are sometimes classified the same as high school students who have been convicted of statutory rape by having sex with their underage girlfriends or boyfriends (Solove, 2003).

 

Therefore, high school students are in a fairly nebulous class of citizens; by virtue of their juvenile status, public officials are precluded from publishing any information about them; on the other hand, also due to their lack of majority, high school students do not enjoy many of the same Fourth Amendment guarantees to privacy as their adult counterparts. According to Samantha Elizabeth Shutler’s essay, “Random, Suspicionless Drug Testing of High School Athletes” (1996), in the case Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, the United States Supreme Court decided whether a school district could impose random and suspicionless urinalysis drug testing on high school student athletes. In this case, the Court found that such testing did not violate students’ Fourth Amendment rights and was therefore constitutional. “In so deciding,” Shutler says, “the Court vastly expanded the permissible realm of drug testing contexts beyond the limits defined in two earlier decisions, Skinner v. National Railway Labor Executives Ass’n and National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab. In those cases, the Court previously stated that the government could only transcend the Fourth Amendment requirement of individualized suspicion where it had a compelling interest at stake, namely a threat to public safety or national security.

 

The Vernonia Court argued that, because high school athletes have decreased expectations of privacy by virtue of their participation in extracurricular athletics, the suspicionless drug testing was constitutionally justified. Shutler maintains that the Supreme Court overstepped the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment in two fundamental ways in deciding Vernonia:

 

1.

 

By finding the interest of the Vernonia District in promulgating the drug testing to be “compelling” given the paucity of the evidence of athletes using drugs; and,

 

2.

 

By holding that student athletes have diminished privacy expectations solely due to the structure and requirements of the athletic program.

 

The author concludes that the Supreme Court arrived at this decision based on policy considerations (specifically the eradication of drug use among America’s children); however, although this reason is a well-intentioned one, it does not justify the consequence of eroding constitutional privacy rights of high school students (Shutler, 1996). In her essay, “Public School Drug Testing: The Impact of Acton,” Irene Merker Rosenberg (1996), writes that “When the rights of children in the public schools) and the safeguards of the Fourth Amendment intersect in a case before the United States Supreme Court, it is no surprise that both lose. So it was that in Vernonia School District v. Acton, the Court reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling and upheld a public school district’s policy authorizing random urinalysis drug testing of grade school and high school students who voluntarily participated in interscholastic athletic programs” (p. 349). Writing for the six-person majority, Justice Scalia continued the Court’s previous expansion of administrative searches that do not require individualized suspicion because the purpose of the search was to achieve an objective other than enforcement of the penal laws.

 

Rosenberg notes that at the same time, the Court narrowed the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of students and their parents by building on its finding in New Jersey v. T.L.O. As well as other cases that dealt with the rights of students in the nation’s public schools. According to Rosenberg, “While T.L.O. dispensed with the need for either a warrant or probable cause in searching students for evidence of wrongdoing, Acton went farther, eliminating even the need for the individualized suspicion that was present in the T.L.O. case” (p. 350). While Justice Ginsburg concurred in the decision on the understanding that the holding was restricted to students who voluntarily participate in interscholastic athletics, a careful review of the majority opinion suggests otherwise (Rosenberg, 1996).

 

According to this author, if the ruling is not so restrictive, millions of high school students may be forced to urinate into test tubes while being monitored, conditions that Justice Scalia characterized as being “typically encountered in public restrooms” (p. 350). In Justice O’Connor’s dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stevens and Souter, there was criticism for majority for failing to adhere to either history or precedent. Justice O’Connor maintained that, for the first time, the Court allowed a random search of innocent persons even though a suspicion-based program would have been feasible. Rosenberg points out that, “Justice Scalia’s majority opinion is susceptible of varying interpretations. On the one hand, even if it is not as limited as Justice Ginsburg suggested — that is, to interscholastic athletes and no others — the ruling may at least be confined to public school students” (p. 350). From this perspective, the result in Acton was that the tests in question were being performed on school children rather than adults; given that, Acton would be following an established judicial trend of using the selective invocation of the unique status of childhood only as a basis for diminution of constitutional protection and never for its enhancement. This perspective of Acton is based on the Court’s past narrow interpretation of the privacy rights of students in general (Rosenberg, 1996). In administrative search cases, though, the standard is one of reasonableness, and, in arriving at that determination, the Justices used a multi-factor balancing test, only one element of which is the individual privacy interest. According to Rosenberg, the Acton court’s analysis of the intrusion on that interest and its assessment of the government interest were reliant only in part on considerations that were specifically related to children. By engaging in a reasonableness inquiry, the issue was completely separated from the warrant and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment; therefore, the dissenting Justices suggested that the majority manipulated the constituent factors in the balancing test, thereby relaxing the government’s burden of establishing appropriate ends and means and minimizing not just the individual privacy right but also the intrusion on it; this analysis could potentially have implications in the future for adults as well as children. Rosenberg concludes that, “Because the entire balancing test for reasonableness is fluid and highly subjective, and because only one of the balancing factors in Acton relates exclusively to children, it is not possible to write the decision off as merely another case limiting the constitutional rights of minors. Read this way, Acton is a far more ominous development in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence” (p. 351). Besides the surveillance crackdown to control violent crime, high schools are increasingly implementing stricter controls designed to deal with discipline and drug problems; these policies have, in turn, resulted in the other erosions of student privacy (Scott, 1995).

 

For example, most of the students in a study group analyzed by Albanes, Armitay, Fisher and Warner (1998) reported that they tend to be more circumspect in where and when they use marijuana than they are when using alcohol, and that this caution, in turn, tended to reduce the odds of their coming into contact with the police as a result of their criminal behavior. “This was especially true of female participants,” they say, “who reported that they tend to use marijuana in settings that offer privacy and, with it, a certain degree of security from exposure and possible arrest” (p. 404). High school students, too, are in another type of legal limbo between federal and state laws concerning invasion of relevant privacy protections. According to Deckle Mclean, in the case, Stern v. New Haven Community Schools, the court held that the privacy interests of a high school student who had been observed by a school employee buying marijuana in a restroom were derived from state tort law, not the federal Constitution.

 

Current and Future Trends. Today, people absolutely need reliable and timely information in order to make judgments about others, and these judgments are important for how people will live their lives and whom they trust; however, in many cases, people’s judgments are inaccurate and people are frequently judged inappropriately based on erroneous information. According to Daniel J. Solove:

 

The manner in which the law regulates the disclosure of personal information is of profound importance. Privacy, in the form of protection against disclosure, regulates the way people relate to others in society. Among other things, it promotes one’s ability to engage in social affairs, form friendships and human relationships, communicate with others, and associate with groups of people sharing similar values. Social judgment and social norms can impede these practices. (2003, p. 968).

 

These considerations are assuming new levels of importance among young people today as they seek alternative social relationships in various computer-mediated online forums. Personal considerations of privacy today may well relate to the ability to “be online” with others in an externally driven environment while protected from the potential implications of such interactions by virtue of their seclusion at home or elsewhere, interacting with others solely through an online medium.

 

The term “Internet addiction” describes the compulsive need to log on to the Internet in an effort to ward off loneliness or complex feelings and emotions. “Sufferers often become moody or restless when unable to log online. People who grow greatly dependent on the Internet, who increase online usage and suffer from mental and physical pain when deprived of Internet use, can be categorized as Internet addicts” (Alarming Number of Teens Addicted to the Internet, 2001, p. 3). A survey of students in 2001 found that a total of 44.2% of male students exhibited early stages of online addiction, while 4.4% were in critical stages; by contrast, female students were relatively less addicted, but 31.6% were still found to be somewhat addicted and one percent were shown to have serious levels of Internet addiction (Alarming Number of Teens Addicted to the Internet, 2001). Those students who played online games exhibited the highest levels of compulsive Internet use with 51.8%, while 43.4% of those who pursued personal relationships through the Internet were found to be addicted. The study showed that the average time that students logged onto the Internet was 2 hours and 26 minutes; however, more than half of the students (55.1%) spent one to three hours online, while 25.1% spent three to five hours. “Students who used the Internet for at least five hours totaled 10.8%, and only nine percent hooked up for less than an hour” (Alarming Number of Teens Addicted to the Internet, 2001, p. 3).

 

Given the growing number of Internet users in the United States since that time and the proliferation of teen-based forums online, it is reasonable to assume that these trends have continued today. To prevent Internet addiction, some experts suggest establishing a set amount of computer usage that is allowed, as well as make efforts to log online after finishing other pressing tasks. In addition, “Erasing unnecessary game files on the computer and also trying to expand your scope of relationships in real life, rather than in cyber space, can be other ways to effectively control compulsive Internet use” (Alarming Number of Teens Addicted to the Internet, 2001, p. 3). In academic settings, though, Internet skills will provide students with an improved ability to master the subject matter. In a study by Wasylik (2003), a high school science teacher, it was reported that using different types of technology enabled the educator to reach his literacy objectives much more easily. According to Wasylik, “I used to teach this information in a very traditional manner — lecture and tests — and had great difficulty reaching my curriculum goals because I teach nonhonors and challenged students. When I captured the students’ interest with cable TV, technology, and Internet applications, I surpassed my objectives, and the students retained the information long after the project was over — a key factor in science literacy” (p. 10). Clearly, while increasing social transparency and the ability to take advantage of the technologies that support it can play a significant role in facilitating a free society, so too can privacy.

 

People must feel that they have a right to privacy that is enforceable in order to be secure in their thoughts and beliefs; furthermore, the right to privacy appears to be right up there with other natural laws such as the right to protect oneself and one’s property. Solove suggests that the benefits of privacy transcend these private considerations though: “In fact, privacy can improve people’s judgments about others,” he says, “or at least prevent certain flaws in the judging process. Privacy can prevent harms to individuals, as well as provide people with freedom for self-exploration and room to change, grow, and rehabilitate themselves. Too much information, as with too much of almost anything, can be more detrimental than beneficial” (emphasis added) (p. 968). Privacy policies as they are typically applied in virtually every other setting can also have some unintended negative consequences at the high school level that may be challenged in the future.

 

For example, one of the rules of the National Association of Secondary School Principals’ Contest and Activity Committee prevents student organizations from collecting student names and addresses to avoid intrusions into their privacy now and in the future. This rule was introduced in an effort to prevent organizations from selling their lists to vendors and political parties; however, the rule also makes the creation of a support group for educational programs next-to-impossible. According to Fine, “Ironically, such a rule has the unintended consequence of preventing additional financial support for education. With appropriate limits on the privacy of information, such a rule should be overturned” (p. 239). Fine makes the point that this rule prevents various organizational support groups from following up on high school students — at least those who have demonstrated exceptional abilities — after they have graduated to provide professional support to those who deserve or need such assistance.

 

Another, and potentially even more disturbing trend, is the use of military recruiters in the nation’s high schools in support of a costly war on terrorism that has made recruiting extremely difficult for all of the armed services, as well as the manner in which these recruiters are prosecuting their cases on the nation’s high school campuses. According to Katha Pollitt’s report, “Can You Spell Cannon Fodder?,” the No Child Left Behind legislation has funded some potentially harmful practices that are highly invasive not only to student privacy but to their parents as well. For example, Pollitt points out that the New York City public school system did not have enough money, time or organizational skills in 2002 to ensure that every student has a dictionary, or even a desk; however, in Fall 2002, “it found something like $50,000 to send the parents or guardians of all 250,000 high school students a letter informing them that if they didn’t want their child’s name, address and phone number to be given to military recruiters they had to fill out a form (enclosed) stating they did not consent to the release of the data” (p. 9). Because of the manner in which the recruiting opt-out materials were framed, many parents may not have noticed the requirement to return the right form in time to avoid having their child called upon — without their permission otherwise — by a military recruiter. Pollitt says, “I’m sure I’m not the only parent who misplaced the letter before it was even opened, and almost missed the final deadline for sending in the form. Had it not turned up at the last minute, the military would have my 15-year-old daughter’s contact information and GI Joe and Jane could be interrupting dinner nightly to urge her to be all that she can be — Sergeant Sophie!” (2002, p. 9).

 

One of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act was that military recruiters were added to a provision that requires schools to provide students’ contact information to “institutions of higher learning”; Pollitt notes that this provisions is entirely unnecessary since high school students can already elect to do this when they take the SAT or the ACT. Nevertheless, when combined with the Solomon Amendment (which denies funding to colleges that ban military recruiters), the provision provides armed forces recruiters with virtually unlimited access to the nation’s high school student population. “Why the stepped-up effort?,” the author asks. “You might not know it from the constant barrage of patriotic propaganda and a few highly visible post-9/11 enlistments — Doris Kearns Goodwin proudly announced on the Jim Lehrer NewsHour that her son had joined up — but interest in the military is quite low: Kids would rather get jobs, if they can find them, or go to college” (p. 9). Today, the situation has become even worse, with many recruiters being unable to complete their mission box requirements for suitable graduate candidates. Certainly, there is nothing new about military recruiters on the nation’s high school and college campuses; however, today, because of the combination of unrestricted access and a growing recruitment need, there are bound to be abuses and it is not a matter of if but when. According to Pollitt:

 

Of course, military recruiters have long been active around high schools. But it’s one thing for them to make their pitch to kids who stop at a booth or a table, and quite another for the schools to deliver to the military the names, home addresses and phone numbers of a huge captive pool of teenagers. Even hawkish conservatives — the ones like William Safire who worry about the amassing of personal data by government, credit card companies, Internet merchants and so on — should be able to spot the invasion of privacy here. (2002, p. 9)

 

The current opt-out model of consent requires parents to take action to keep their children out of an activity; Pollitt notes that this approach is useful for the recruiters because many (most, in fact), do not return them. The military recruiters are not going to try to change things either. Having received such a communication herself, Pollitt says there is nothing about the envelope that indicated anything required action or returning, with no sense of a deadline or urgency being communicated either. The author describes it thusly: “Nothing about this envelope marked its contents as urgent or requiring a response (the letter about military recruitment was wadded in with the discipline code and the principal’s list of rules intended to improve ‘school tone’ — no headphones during class, no cell phones ever). Some parents are too busy, or are uninvolved in their kids’ school lives. Many don’t speak English. Some can’t even read” (p. 9). In response, Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, called for New York City schools to adopt an opt-in policy on military recruitment:

 

People should have the right to control their contact information, which may even include unlisted phone numbers. Sure, they can hang up, but it’s still an invasion of privacy, and potentially more than that. We’ve had reports of Muslim and Southwest Asian immigrants afraid to report crimes and fires for fear of being detained by the INS. Do we want to make them afraid to send their kids to school too? In any case, why should the schools bend over backward to sacrifice students’ privacy in order to help the military meet its recruiting goals? (emphasis added) (Pollitt, 2002, p. 9)

 

Today, military service is frequently being promoted, particularly among low-income and otherwise marginalized youths, as a viable path to good jobs and a college education. High school students are not blind to world events, though, and most recognize that the war on terrorism is taking its toll on enlistees and many may not feel as strongly about Islamic insurgents in Tikrit as their adult counterparts in Washington, D.C. Even before the death toll topped 1,500, this author suggested that the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act and its provisions for military recruitment would have profound consequences for the nation’s high school students, a dire prediction that has been borne out by the facts. “As the Bush Administration hustles the nation toward the next one, the schools should be teaching young people to be skeptical about hard-sell recruiting tactics that paint military service as Outward Bound in uniform, not serving their charges up on a plate. Otherwise, we might as well call the No Child Left Behind Act the No Child Left Out of the Military Database Act” (p. 9). When people are confronted with such invasions to their privacy, their responses will likely be varied, and may assume voice, private and third-party responses (Hoy & Sheenan, 1999). According to these authors, people voice concern with their privacy when they ask the entity to remove their name and address from a mailing list. Studies have shown that 46% of those respondents concerned about threats to personal privacy had previously requested removal from a mailing list, compared to just 31% among the unconcerned responses, a finding that suggests increased privacy concerns were the motivating factor for this action. Although a growing number of opt-out services are being provided, including so-called “do not call” lists, and Hoy and Sheehan report that there has been a gradual rise in the number of individuals who belong to these lists, they still represent a low percentage of the total population in the United States (less than 2-3%). More and more people — including high school students — are responding to invasions of their online privacy in this manner as well (Hoy & Sheehan, 1999).

 

According to Hoy and Sheehan, “Online users adopt similar voice responses when they directly contact online entities that have sent them unsolicited e-mail. A recent study showed that 19% of online users contact mailers to request that they not receive additional mail. A small percentage (5%) retaliate with something like a mail bomb (a large file of data designed to crash a user’s system or network) to mailers” (Hoy & Sheehan, 1999, p. 37). In other instances, online users have ganged up to voice their dissatisfaction to companies concerning privacy issues. This has been the case with the online concern about P-Trak, an online database of information that is published and maintained by Lexis-Nexis, and with an e-mail spam of immigration law practice (Bolt, 1997). The authors report that consumers in both the P-Trak and the e-mail spam situations took private actions to voice their concerns about invasions of their privacy. “In both these situations,” Hoy and Sheehan say, “online users communicated with each other via newsgroups and e-mail (a private action) to discuss the situation, and then bombarded the offending companies with e-mail and other communications (a voice action)” (p. 37). Other groups concerning about privacy issues discussed using a boycott of Intel because of that company’s decision to embed personal identification numbers in new chips, a process that would allow identification of individual level information during Internet activities (CNN, 1999). Although Intel maintained that the identification numbers would increase security in online transactions, they finally agreed to alter the chips so online users would have to “turn on” the identification feature themselves before they would become operational (CNN 1999).

 

According to Liza Featherstone’s report, “Hot-Wiring High School: Student Activists across the Country Experiment with Organizing by Internet” (1999), high school student groups have increasingly turned to the Internet to help them in this regard. When Galen Price, then a freshman at Mount Tabor High in Winston- Salem, North Carolina, was confronted with a potential new drug testing policy for high school students, he learned a lesson that was not included in his high school’s civics curriculum: “If you’re 15, the Constitution may not apply to you” (p. 15). The Winston-Salem School Board had been contemplating requiring all high school students to take drug tests if they wanted to participate in extracurricular activities. This student’s reaction was not uncommon, but it was clearly more informed than most:

 

What about the Fourth Amendment? Price wondered. Don’t random pee tests figure under the rubric ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’? But there wasn’t much Price could do as a lone objector. ‘People would say, “Do you do drugs? If not, why do you care?” he recalls. I don’t do drugs and I don’t plan to. That’s not what this is about.’ (Featherstone, 1999, p. 15)

 

In response, Price wrote a letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU put him in touch with Ben Smilowitz, another high school student from West Hartford, Connecticut. At the time, Smilowitz headed the International Student Activism Alliance (ISAA), an increasingly popular student organization that is using the Internet, among other tools, to develop a national political network of teenagers, many of whom are situated in highly isolated schools and environments. According to Featherstone, the International Student Activism Alliance is operated by and for high school students; since its founding in 1996, the organization has grown to include 160 chapters (with at least one in nearly every state) and has around 1,200 members. While the majority of the problems the group addresses, such as school administrations that do not allow gay student clubs, lack of federal college loans, censorship and repression in schools, are domestic, the group refers to itself as “International” because, as Brattleboro, Vermont, state coordinator Abby Krasner noted, “the [power] issues [involved] are international” (Featherstone, 1999, p. 15).

 

Price and Smilowitz collaborated on this issue by researching relevant case law; the drug-test requirement passed their analysis, but the group was just getting started in their organizational efforts. Price subsequently founded another chapter of the ISAA and had it formalized as an official school club. According to Featherstone, “When he moved to West Forsyth High School in the same district, he started a chapter there as well. Although the clubs have so far been unable to stop drug testing in Winston-Salem, Price is currently looking for plaintiffs for a court challenge, and his efforts have provided the basis for anti-drug testing campaigns elsewhere” (1999, p. 15). The group is having some effect as well. For example, in New Jersey, the State Board of Education was considering a nearly identical law and the Edison, New Jersey, ISAA chapter began is efforts at a national lobbying and public education campaign on the constitutionality of random drug testing. The group, and others like it, will continue to have their hands full in the future. In a report from Wendy Kaminer (1999), the point is made that America’s public schools becoming “militarized” at the expense of student civil liberties and privacy. Across the nation, Kaminer notes that the ACLU has received hundreds of complaints about cases such as these:

 

In Ohio a third-grader was suspended after writing a fortune cookie message, “You will die an honorable death,” which he submitted for a school project. (A terroristic threat? Or an innocent, well-intentioned remark by a child who watches martial-arts videos

 

Eleven high school students in Ohio were suspended for contributing to a gothic-themed Web site.

 

In Virginia a 10th-grader was suspended for dying his hair blue.

 

In Missouri, high school junior Dustin Mitchell was suspended and required to perform 42 days of community service with the local police department for offering a flippant opinion on school violence in an Internet chat room (when asked if a tragedy like the Littleton shootings could happen in his school, Mitchell responded “yes”).

 

In Louisiana a 12-year-old boy was suspended and held in juvenile detention for over two weeks after uttering a “threat” in a lunch line: “If you take all the potatoes, I’m gonna get you,” the accused terrorist said (Kaminer, 1999, p. 11).

 

When students attempted to defend their rights to free speech and voiced protests to these invasions of their privacy and violations of their civil liberties, their were routinely meted out severe punishment. For example, in Texas, 17-year-old high school student Jennifer Boccia was suspended for wearing a black armband to school in protest of the restraints on free speech that followed the shootings in Littleton, Colorado; Boccia was also reprimanded by her school principal, Ira Sparks, for telling her story to the media. The principal advised this high school student that if she wanted to clear her record, she would have to refrain from speaking to the media before discussing her remarks with school officials. In response, Boccia took her case to federal court and won a settlement from her school that confirmed her First Amendment rights. According to Kaminer, “Sometimes schools back down when threatened with lawsuits, and many students willing to challenge their suspensions should ultimately prevail in court if their judges recognize the Bill of Rights. But repression is becoming respectable, and some federal judges are as wary of free speech as school administrators are” (p. 11). Much like the constraints on American civil liberties in general that followed by terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, student rights have also been diminished for the past several years.

 

Here again the strange-but-true quality of America’s high schools comes into play. It would seem that school authorities, law enforcement officials and the judiciary alike can play fast and free with the Constitution when it is applied to high school students with no further basis for such lassitude than the fact that these American citizens have not yet reached their majority, and are not attending private schools or being home schooled. Kaminer makes the point that, “Students’ press rights have been severely restricted, as has their right to express themselves sartorially. Unhampered by logic, judges have ruled that clothing choices are not expressive (and so are not protected by the First Amendment), but they’ve given schools the power to prohibit clothing when it conveys what administrators consider inappropriate messages” (p. 11). Citing as a good example the Utah case where a federal district court judge upheld the suspension of a high school student who wore a pro-vegan T-shirt to school and started a petition protesting a ban on vegan symbols, Kaminer notes that the school officials associated veganism with the militant branch of the animal rights movement and characterized the T-shirt as being a “gang symbol” (the author adds that in Alabama and Mississippi, the Star of David has also been banned as a gang symbol). The author states in no uncertain terms that such policies are simply capricious and arbitrary: “Schools need to run, and administrators need to make rules,” the judge in the vegan T-shirt case explained idiotically. “That’s the only reason they exist” (p. 11). What is even more disturbing though, are the cases where school authorities takes this totalitarian approach in students’ off-campus and home-based activities. Not only do high school students in particular appear to forfeit some fundamental constitutional rights when stepping over the schoolhouse doors, they are not able to get them back one they leave. According to Kaminer:

 

School administrators take an expansive, totalitarian view of their own jurisdiction. They’re punishing students for after-school and out-of-school activities or remarks. Numerous suspensions of students for the things they say in Internet chat rooms and other instances of cyberspeech exemplify this disturbing trend, but administrators have also targeted more traditional forms of childhood play. In a recent Massachusetts case, two-12-year-old boys were suspended for playing war with toy guns in the woods adjacent to their school after school hours. (Never mind that at the time the U.S. military was bombing Yugoslavia.) (Kaminer, 1999, p. 11)

 

This is truly a frightening trend, but the fact remains this is where America is heading today. Recent attempts by the current Bush administration to manipulate public opinion on the No Child Left Behind mandates through a paid television endorsement are just a tip of the right-wing iceberg, and even a casual glance at the headlines suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with a country that can invoke national interest at the expense of the Constitution when it is convenient to do so; certainly, such invocations are not new. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, and Roosevelt interred tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Today, though, things have assumed a chilling quality in America’s high schools as a result of these trends. Kaminer makes a final point that these trends are highly ironic in view of what is taking place in high schools in the United States today:

 

While students are being suspended for playing with toy guns, police officers armed with real guns are being deployed in some schools in order to provide security — or the appearance of it. In Houston, officers wearing bulletproof vests, trained in assault tactics, and equipped with dogs as well as guns, are patrolling middle schools, high schools, and school neighborhoods. Students in the Houston schools will soon be subject to random, bimonthly searches for drugs and weapons. It’s Giuliani time in many public schools. In Georgia, an entire class of fifth-graders was strip-searched by school officials and police officers looking for a missing $26 (1999, p. 11).

 

In a “tail wagging the dog” fashion, the war on terrorism is being used to justify a wide range of constraints on civil liberties that most Americans have simply taken for granted over the years. Many high school students, though, cannot remember enjoying a period in American history that has not been characterized by increasing intrusion into their private lives based on one rationale or another. Unfortunately, it would appear that things are going to get worse before they get better.

 

Conclusion

 

The research showed that high school students occupy a unique niche in society. Not quite adults and not quite children, high school students are increasingly being subjected to inordinate invasions of their rights to privacy in their schools. These invasions have assumed the form of random locker searches, random urinalyses, surveillance cameras, metal detectors and more. If these same techniques were applied to any but the most sensitive of employment position in the private or governmental sectors, adults would likely balk at continuing their employment; however, also by virtue of their lack of majority, high school students are forced to stay in school until an age certain, and in many cases to remain in a specific school no matter what. Taken together, the trends are alarming enough; however, when they are combined with the new access granted to military recruiters to the nation’s high schools, the trends assume even more troubling aspects for high school students and their parents alike. High school students in America have always been in the position they are in today, caught between the world of childhood and becoming an adult, and are increasingly being subjected to the regulations that affect both. While the courts have largely defending these invasive initiatives to date, civil liberties, even for high school students, are a cherished part of the nation’s legacy and notwithstanding the PATRIOT Act and No Child Left Behind, American citizens will not stand still for long if they believe their privacy, and their children’s privacy in particular, is being trampled on in the name of a transient political goal.

 

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