1. Unit 4-2 Extra Credit: You Decide the Case
Directions:
Here are four cases involving schools and students that have gone before the United States Supreme Court. Read all four cases, and complete the following:
Find the Constitutional amendment being challenged in each case.
Write a persuasive response to the question written for each case. You should show how the Constitutional amendment related to the case supports your opinion. Be sure to use facts and examples to support your point.
Read the Supreme Court’s ruling on the case, and compare or contrast its decision with your response. Focus on 2-3 details from the Supreme Court’s ruling that either support or oppose your position.

2. Question: May school officials legally search a student’s purse?
Case 1: Purse Search
Case Summary
In 1983, a teacher in a New Jersey high school suspected a student of breaking the no smoking rule. When the student denied she had been smoking, a vice-principal searched her purse. The purse contained marijuana, a pipe, and other items that confirmed the teacher’s suspicion.
School officials turned the evidence over to the police, who charged the girl as a delinquent. The girl’s lawyer asked to have the so-called evidence thrown out of court because it was an “unreasonable search and seizure”. The judge denied this request and declared the girl a delinquent. She was sentenced to a year’s probation.
As the case moved through the courts on appeals, the school argued that the teachers have to enforce discipline. To do this, they said, teachers must be able to search students’ purses and lockers.
Question: May school officials legally search a student’s purse?

3. Case 1: Purse Search Constitutional amendment being challenged:
Write a level 3 reasoned judgment to the question written for this case. You should show how the Constitutional amendment related to this case supports your opinion. Be sure to use facts and examples to support your point.

4. Supreme Court’s Ruling
Case 1: Purse Search
Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Supreme Court of the United States, in a 6-3 decision issued by Justice White, between the individual's—even a child's—legitimate expectation of privacy and the school's interest in maintaining order and discipline, said that New Jersey won the case. According to school officials, they do require a "reasonable suspicion" to perform a search.
Therefore, her possession of any cigarettes was relevant to whether or not she was being truthful, and since she had been caught in the bathroom and taken directly to the office, it was reasonable to assume she had the cigarettes in her purse. Thus, the vice-principal had reasonable cause to suspect a school rule had been broken, and more than just a "hunch" to search the purse. When the vice-principal was searching for the cigarettes, the drug-related items were in plain view. Plain view is an exception to the warrant requirement of the 4th Amendment. Thus, the reasonable search for cigarettes led to some of the drug related material being discovered, which justified a further search (including the zippered compartments inside the bag) resulting in the discovery of the cigarettes and other evidence including a small bag of marijuana and cigarette rolling papers.
The Court also stated that states have a duty to provide a safe school environment. Striking the balance between schoolchildren's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain a good learning environment requires some easing of the restrictions on searches in school. Thus, school officials need not obtain a warrant before searching a student who is under their authority.

5. Case 1: Purse Search
Compare or contrast the Supreme Court’s decision with your response. Focus on 2-3 details from the Supreme Court’s ruling that either support or oppose your position.

6. Question: May a school discipline a student for using vulgar speech?
Case 2: Vulgar Speech
Case Summary
On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a student at Bethel High School in the state of Washington, delivered a speech during a school assembly. Fraser made a speech nominating a fellow student for elective office. In his speech, Fraser used what some observers believed was a graphic sexual metaphor to promote the candidacy of his friend. Two of Fraser's teachers, with whom he discussed the contents of his speech in advance, informed him that the speech was "inappropriate and that he probably should not deliver it," and that his delivery of the speech might have "severe consequences.“
As part of its disciplinary code, Bethel High School enforced a rule prohibiting conduct which "substantially interferes with the educational process including the use of obscene, profane language or gestures." The day after the speech, the assistant principal told Fraser that his speech had violated a school rule against obscene language. Fraser was suspended for two days, and his name was removed from a list of candidates for graduation speaker.
Fraser and his father sued the school district. They claimed that his right to “free speech” had been violated because of the punishment. The school officials argued that they had to uphold fundamental values of education and reminded the court that the teen had fair warning not to give the speech.
Question: May a school discipline a student for using vulgar speech?

7. Case 2: Vulgar Speech Constitutional amendment being challenged:
Write a level 3 reasoned judgment to the question written for this case. You should show how the Constitutional amendment related to this case supports your opinion. Be sure to use facts and examples to support your point.

8. Supreme Court’s Ruling
Case 2: Vulgar Speech
Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Court had earlier held, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School Board, that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school gate. In that case, the Court said that the First Amendment gave students the right to wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War.
In the Bethel case, however, the Court upheld the school district. The Court held, by a 7-2 margin, that school officials acted within the Constitution by disciplining Fraser. Chief Justice Burger wrote for the majority. He pointed out that there was a huge difference between the protest in Tinker, which dealt with a major issue of public policy, and the lewdness of Fraser's speech. "The purpose of public education in America is to teach fundamental values," he wrote. Burger concluded that the First Amendment did not prohibit schools from prohibiting vulgar and lewd speech since such language was inconsistent with the "fundamental values of public school education."
Burger conceded that the First Amendment might permit the use of an offensive form of expression by an adult making a political point, but "the same latitude of expression is not permitted to children in a public school."

9. Case 2: Vulgar Speech
Compare or contrast the Supreme Court’s decision with your response. Focus on 2-3 details from the Supreme Court’s ruling that either support or oppose your position.

10. Question: May a school board set up prayer time during a school day?
Case 3: School Prayer
Case Summary
In 1951, New York State’s Board of Regents suggested that each school day begin with the following prayer: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country”. Any student who did not wish to say the prayer could remain silent.
When New Hyde Park’s school board introduced this prayer, Stephen Engel and other parents sued the board’s president. They argued that he and the board violated the rights of their children by the “establishment of religion”. William Vitale Jr., the board president, pointed out that 49 state constitutions expressed belief in a Supreme Being. The school board, he said, was following such traditions. It was not trying to impose religion on students.
Question: May a school board set up prayer time during a school day?

11. Case 3: School Prayer Constitutional amendment being challenged:
Write a level 3 reasoned judgment to the question written for this case. You should show how the Constitutional amendment related to this case supports your opinion. Be sure to use facts and examples to support your point.

12. Supreme Court’s Ruling
Case 3: School Prayer
Supreme Court’s Ruling
In an opinion delivered by Justice Hugo Black, the Court ruled that government-written prayers were not to be recited in public schools and were an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause. This was decided in a vote of 6-1 (two justices did not vote due to health issues)
The Court explained the importance of separation between church and state government by giving a lengthy history of the issue, beginning with the 16th century in England. It then stated that a school's prayer is a religious activity that has the government promoting such religious activities for all school children. This action violates the Establishment Clause in the Constitution’s 1st Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. As a result, the school prayer program, created by government officials to promote a religious belief, was constitutionally impermissible.
The Court rejected the defendant's arguments that people are not asked to respect any specific established religion; and that the prayer is voluntary. The Court held that the mere promotion of a religion is sufficient to establish a violation, even if that promotion is not coercive. The Court further held that the fact that the prayer is vaguely worded enough not to promote any particular religion is not a sufficient defense, as it still promotes a family of religions (those that recognize "Almighty God"), which still violates the Establishment Clause.

13. Case 3: School Prayer
Compare or contrast the Supreme Court’s decision with your response. Focus on 2-3 details from the Supreme Court’s ruling that either support or oppose your position.

14. Case 4: School Admissions Policy
Case Summary
Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. Affirmative action is the process of a business or governmental agency giving special rights of hiring or advancement to ethnic minorities to make up for past discrimination against that minority. It was believed that white men have had unfair advantages for hundreds of years, so the Affirmative Action system was developed to help minorities, even if they are less qualified, to enter into professions mainly held by white males. Bakke's qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke's applications were rejected. Bakke contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race.
Bakke claimed that Davis’s admissions policies violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination. Bakke also sued, saying the Constitution guarantees “equal protection for all persons”.
The university claimed that African Americans had been held back by centuries of discrimination. It said that these minorities would not enjoy racial equality unless they were offered special opportunities.
Question: Did the Davis admissions policies break the law?

15. Case 4: School Admissions Policy
Constitutional amendment being challenged:
Write a level 3 reasoned judgment to the question written for this case. You should show how the Constitutional amendment related to this case supports your opinion. Be sure to use facts and examples to support your point.

16. Case 4: School Admissions Policy
Supreme Court’s Ruling
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the UC Davis Medical School should be required to admit Bakke. Justice Powell as the deciding “swing” vote.
Four of the justices contended that any racial quota system supported by government violated the Civil Rights Act of Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., agreed, casting the deciding vote ordering the medical school to admit Bakke. However, in his opinion, Powell argued that the rigid use of racial quotas as employed at the school violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The remaining four justices held that the use of race as a criterion in admissions decisions in higher education was constitutionally permissible. Powell joined that opinion as well, contending that the use of race was permissible as one of several admission criteria.
Justice Powell concluded that excluding a candidate from consideration solely on the basis of race was unconstitutional, no matter what the purpose. Even though he believed race could not be the basis for excluding a candidate, he did believe that race may be one of many factors when considering admittance.
So, the Court managed to minimize white opposition to the goal of equality (by finding for Bakke) while extending gains for racial minorities through affirmative action.

17. Case 4: School Admissions Policy
Compare or contrast the Supreme Court’s decision with your response. Focus on 2-3 details from the Supreme Court’s ruling that either support or oppose your position.