Abstract

In the years following New Jersey v. T.L.O., there has been a heightened law enforcement presence in our nation's public schools, due in large part to violence on school grounds and particularly because of certain tragic incidents that have captured nationwide attention. Some cities place police officers in schools through liaison programs between schools and local police departments. Other cities participate in the School Resource Officer program, which places officers in schools to perform a wide range of functions, sometimes even extending beyond law enforcement to teaching and counseling students. Perhaps the most formalized relationship exists in New York City, which in 1998 witnessed the transfer of responsibility over school security from the Board of Education to the New York City Police Department. While school officials in many states have long been required to report all crimes to law enforcement authorities, new policies and programs in many jurisdictions now impose broader reporting requirements on school officials.

This Article explores the Fourth Amendment ramifications of this increased law enforcement presence in public schools. It sets forth the increased interdependence between school officials and law enforcement authorities in the years following T.L.O., and examines lower federal and state court decisions that have analyzed the relationships between law enforcement personnel and school officials in determining the legality of searches that have led to criminal prosecutions. The Article critiques the standards courts utilize to assess the extent to which law enforcement personnel are involved in student searches, and explores the policy implications of their decisions in light of zero tolerance policies and the disproportionate effect these various policies have had on African-American and Latino/a students. The Article concludes by offering some Fourth Amendment standards to employ when law enforcement authorities participate in school searches, either through their actual physical involvement or through policies that transfer discretion from school officials to law enforcement authorities.

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