[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 119 (Thursday, September 21, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 STUDENT AND TEACHER SAFETY ACT OF 2006

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. ROBERT C. SCOTT

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 19, 2006

  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, Maintaining school safety is an 
important objective of school administrators and communities around the 
country, but this bill will only serve to complicate the lives of 
school officials and probably violate students' Constitutional rights 
in the process.
  In 1969, the Supreme Court stated in Tinker v. Des Moines 393 U.S. 
503 (1969) that students do not ``shed their constitutional rights when 
they enter the schoolhouse door.'' While Tinker was a free speech case, 
the principle applies here as well. The vague legislative language of 
H.R. 5295 would lead school officials to believe that they have the 
authority to conduct searches that could be at odds with the standards 
set out by the Supreme Court in the 1985 decision of New Jersey v. TLO, 
469 U.S. 325 (1985), the 1 guiding case on this issue, in which the 
Court attempted to strike a balance between student privacy and school 
discipline and safety.
  While this bill correctly requires that school officials have 
``reasonable suspicion'' before conducting a search of a student, it 
describes too broadly the purpose and the scope of the search that 
school administrators can conduct. The bill incorrectly suggests that 
school officials can conduct random, wide scale searches of students 
without having any individualized suspicion that a particular student 
to be searched is participating in criminal activity or breaking the 
school rules.
  When schools officials do not focus student searches on individuals 
who are suspected of violating the law or school rules, the results of 
the searches are often fruitless. School administrators will do more to 
improve children's safety by concentrating on suspicious behavior and 
credible information from teachers and students that school rules or 
criminal laws are being broken, than by conducting widespread 
unsubstantiated searches.
  While this legislation is well intentioned, it nonetheless 
constitutes bad policy and is constitutionally unsound. Even if the 
language in the bill accurately reflects today's constitutional 
standards, Court decisions are often modified by subsequent decisions. 
School officials may therefore find themselves in the future caught 
between complying with an obsolete statute or obeying the modified 
Court decision and risking the loss of funding under this bill.
  School districts have a long history of abiding by search and seizure 
policies that are consistent with court rulings. This legislative 
directive is unnecessary and will only serve to further complicate the 
lives of students and teachers. This is the reason why the American 
Federation of Teachers, National School Board Association, the Council 
of the Great City Schools, the National PTA, the American Association 
of School Administrators and the ACLU all oppose the bill. I urge my 
colleagues to vote no.

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