After a teacher overheard one student tell another student, J.S., to “send him that picture,” the principal found J.S. in the cafeteria and took him to his office where he proceeded to search the student’s cell phone.  The principal eventually located an Instagram account that J.S. confessed he and other students maintained that “contained negative memes of a student reported to have been bullied.” J.S. received a two-day in-school suspension and the parent sued.

The issue was whether the cell phone search violated J.S.’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.  The court observed that the principal only needed reasonable suspicion to search J.S. and his phone. The first step in analyzing whether he had reasonable suspicion is to determine if the search was justified at its inception.

The parent alleged that the principal searched the phone after a teacher “heard J.S. tell another student to ‘send him that picture.’ ” The superintendent later sent J.S.'s father a letter stating that “several other students indicated to the administration that [J.S.] had participated in or sent pictures/memes of the [bullied] student to them at various times that were unflattering or mean in nature.” According to the court, those facts alone were not enough to establish that the principal had reasonable suspicion J.S. was engaged in cyberbullying before he searched J.S.'s cellphone.  In fact, there was no indication when the administration was alerted to J.S.’s cyberbullying.  There were also allegations that the principal had a custom of searching student cell phones without reasonable suspicion.  The court, therefore, declined to dismiss the Fourth Amendment claims against the principal.

While the superintendent did not participate in the actual search, the court ruled that he could be held liable if the evidence later showed that the superintendent knew about the principal’s propensity to search cell phones without reasonable suspicion, facilitated it, approved it, condoned it, or turned a blind eye toward it.  The suit alleged that he did and, therefore, the court declined to dismiss the suit against the superintendent as well.

The case is Simpson v. Tri Valley Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 3, No. 117CV01340JESJEH, 2018 WL 3354878 (C.D. Ill. July 9, 2018)

DAWG BONE:  DON’T SEARCH CELL PHONES WITHOUT A “REASONABLE SUSPICION.”

Tomorrow:   A Thirteenth Amendment claim.  Now, that’s a new one.