school rules under the circumstances. A profile match on a student tells the school official nothing regarding the presence of contraband or whether a student is violating school rules in a specific instance, so it should not be the only basis for the search or detention of a student.

Locker Searches

Generally locker searches are permissible as a function of the orderly administration of a school. Schools should adopt and carry out a policy informing students that the school owns the locker and may search it from time to time. A locker search should not extend to a student’s private articles, such as jackets, purses, and backpacks, within the locker. The student rightly considers these items private and a school official must possess individualized reasonable suspicion to search them.

Metal Detectors

Metal detector searches also appear permissible under constitutional standards. Although individualized suspicion is normally required for a search, general searches are permissible where the search is minimally intrusive and the individual has a low reasonable expectation of privacy, such as at the entrance to a school. Metal detector searches are valid where notice (a posted sign, for example) has been given stating that such searches will be conducted at that school, and where a school policy governing such searches is in place. It is not required that the actual date of the metal detector search be provided.

Threats of Violence

Students sometimes will threaten to hurt fellow students out of frustration, fear or a genuine intent to harm. Distinguishing between mere bravado or destructive impulses, constitutionally protected speech or threats, is a delicate matter.

Threats of violence and protected speech may be separated, however, and genuine threats met with discipline for the students uttering them. Whether a school may discipline a student for a threat rests on whether it can reasonably be assumed

(Article continues on page 7. See "Case at a glance" in next column.)

Case at a glance:

Turner v. South-Western City School District (Ohio).

In September 1999, school and safety officials at Westland High School in Galloway, Ohio, noticed a partially concealed Smith and Wesson 9mm gun protruding from under the front driver’s side seat of a car owned by Stephen Koser, a seventeen year old student at the school. Subsequent investigation by school officials and a sheriff’s deputy, accompanied by Koser, revealed the gun to be a plastic toy gun that had a bright orange tip which had been concealed from view.

When Koser was asked to return to the Assistant Principal’s office, he became belligerent and hostile, and refused to return to school. Eventually, he was persuaded to return to the building, but on the walk back, he began to use profanity, was disruptive and started to make veiled threats. During the time he spent in the office, Koser made threatening statements such as: “this is how I solve my problems,” “if I wanted to bring a real gun to school, I would have brought a gun and blown holes in this mother,” “you’re my problem and I get rid of my problems,” and “every dog has his day and you’ll get yours.” Koser said to the Deputy, “if you take your gun and badge off, you want to get froggy, leap,” which was interpreted a direct threat and an attempt by Koser to instigate a fight.

Koser was suspended and subsequently expelled for the remainder of the academic term based on possession of a “look-a-like gun” on school property, use of repeated profanity, disruptive behavior, and threats directed at school officials.

The suspension and expulsion was challenged by Koser’s mother, Jerrie Turner, but subsequently upheld throughout appeals to school authorities, the local school board, and the courts.

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