Published March 4, 2026
BY THEODORA MILLER
When administrators conduct campus searches at Carmel High School, students are rarely taught what their legal rights are–or how those rights apply at the moment. As a result, some students say they feel confused, intimidated or unsure how to respond when they are called into the office and searched.
“It was uncomfortable,” says one freshman girl about her experience being searched on campus.
Two freshman girls who prefer to remain anonymous recall being searched in early November after an alarm went off in the restroom they were using before first period. They were not told the reason for the search and did not feel as if they could ask questions. The two girls say they, along with three of their friends, were taken to the main office, where they were told not to talk and forbidden to record. The girls say they felt confused and were not able to call an adult. One says she had no idea what was happening until she was taken into a room with an administrator and another staff member and was asked if she knew she was being searched.
“They didn’t tell us anything, they just [said] come with us,” one says of her experience.
Public schools are not obligated to educate students on their constitutional rights while being searched. Infographic by JOHANNA MELTON and THEODORA MILLER
In another situation, a freshman girl says she felt the power imbalance was exacerbated by the sheer number of administrators involved.
Reasonable suspicion, the precedent necessary to search on a public school campus, falls into a legal gray area, but there are examples of unconstitutional reasons for search. According to My Schools My Rights, schools cannot search based on a “hunch,” rumor or insubstantial reasoning.
“Reasonable suspicion means naming facts,” clarifies Carmel High School teacher Bill Schrier, a former New York State federal prosecutor.
Principal Libby Duethman clarified that searches are primarily to improve student safety: “We have the right as administrators of the school, if we have a safety concern, to search.”
In the student safety presentation all CHS students are given at the beginning of the school year, four slides are dedicated to searches and police involvement. In the presentation, administrators never mention what students can or cannot do in these situations, but they are also not required to educate students about constitutional search rights.
Duethman says that during searches, students get careful and specific instructions about what administrators are about to do and that administrators perform searches in a calm and controlled manner.
“We are very nice about it,” says the principal.
Schools can search if a student is caught breaking school policy or an alarm goes off in their vicinity. If a student is searched on campus based on an infraction, any search that takes place must be based on the infraction for which they have already been accused. For example, if a student is caught for a vaping infraction, the school cannot search their water bottle for alcohol, as that is outside of the scope of reasonable suspicion. They can only search for a furtherance of a preexisting infraction.
“Such a search will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction,” states the Supreme Court decision in New Jersey v. T. L. O., the case that established reasonable suspicion as the precedent in schools.
Students have the right to demand justification. Though the administrator is not always required to immediately provide an explanation, they must provide a more detailed explanation later according to My School My Rights.
School officials do not have the right to search a student’s phone unless a warrant is issued by a judge or it is an emergency case. The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act defines an emergency as a situation “involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person [that] requires access to the electronic device information.”
If students believe their rights have been violated, Schrier advises taking notes, documenting any evidence and talking to a trusted adult if students believe their rights have been violated.
Like many aspects of search rights, the permissibility of film documentation is at best unclear. In the case of CHS, students can film if a search is happening in the quad, where there is no expectation of privacy–so long as they are not interfering with the search–but not in a specialized location.
If there is not an adult besides the administrator present, a student has the right to demand one, says one local attorney.
“It is not the time to stand up for your constitutional rights at the moment unless it is an immediate violation of your safety,” Schrier says. “Your remedy for a constitutional violation is always a subsequent court case, and there are many, many cases where students have sued administrators and won.”
