Has
this case been decided upon yet?
That's actually the topic of discussion.
Also, I don't believe that the
Tinker v. Des Moines School should be applied here. Wasn't it dealing specifically with the first amendment while we are arguing about the 4th amendment? So, how would the first amendment being allowed in school affect the limitations of the 4th amendment?
While it dealt with the first amendment, the only point that was important to establish from that case was really this phrase: "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years."
If you check
the case, you will find it in the holding.
So, while the court's reasoning towards the first amendment is applicable, it lays out rather explicitly that students are entitled to their constitutional rights. After that point (until limited by later case law), technically all constitutional case law would apply to students, except that dealt with explicitly in the case, in other words, all warrantless searches would've been illegal.
As for
Bell v. Wolfish, does it not deal with adults in prison? And as far as I know, adults and kids do not have the same rights, especially inmates and school children, as established by
Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser
The thing is, that shows that strip-searches are legally speaking an extraordinary measure, which tied into my later argument.
Meanwhile,
Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Ac-ton has recognized that deterring drugs is "important—indeed, perhaps compelling" which might allow for strip searches to be placed as "reasonable" under New Jersey v. T.L.O. This is further supported by
MORSE ET AL. v. FREDERICK
So, under certain circumstances, the need to keep a school drug free can be reasonable enough for schools to strip search students. *Shudders*
I like your line of reasoning, however, "compelling" on it's own is not enough to justify a government action.
You still have to prove that the action taken is inherently reasonable, and if you read the Vernonia decision, certain important things stick out.
There is an additional respect in which school athletes have a reduced expectation of privacy. By choosing to "go out for the team," they voluntarily subject themselves to a degree of regulation even higher than that imposed on students generally. In Vernonia's public schools, they must submit to a preseason physical exam (James testified that his included the giving of a urine sample, App. 17), they must acquire adequate insurance coverage or sign an insurance waiver, maintain a minimum grade point average, and comply with any "rules of conduct, dress, training hours and related matters as may be established for each sport by the head coach and athletic director with the principal's approval." Record, Exh. 2, p. 30, 8. Somewhat like adults who choose to participate in a "closely regulated industry," students who voluntarily participate in school athletics have reason to expect intrusions upon normal rights and privileges, including privacy.
Here it says rather explicitly that students going out for athletics have less of an expectation of privacy because of the nature of what they volunteer to be part of.
We noted, however, that the degree of intrusion depends upon the manner in which production of the urine sample is monitored. Ibid. Under the District's Policy, male students produce samples at a urinal along a wall. They remain fully clothed and are only observed from behind, if at all. Female students produce samples in an enclosed stall, with a female monitor standing outside listening only for sounds of tampering. These conditions are nearly identical to those typically encountered in public restrooms, which men, women, and especially school children use daily. Under such conditions, the privacy interests compromised by the process of obtaining the urine sample are in our view negligible.
This deals with how the actual physical invasion of privacy is negligible.
This brings about the overall point that the test is only invasive the medical information sense, not physically invasive.
For their own good and that of their classmates, public school children are routinely required to submit to various physical examinations, and to be vaccinated against various diseases. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, most public schools "provide vision and hearing screening and dental and dermatological checks. . . . Others also mandate scoliosis screening at appropriate grade levels." Committee on School Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, School Health: A Guide for Health Professionals 2 (1987). In the 1991-1992 school year, all 50 States required public-school students to be vaccinated against diphtheria, measles, rubella, and polio. U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, State Immunization Requirements 1991-1992, p. 1. Particularly with regard to medical examinations and procedures, therefore, "students within the school environment have a lesser expectation of privacy than members of the population generally."
However, the case that we are dealing with is a physically invasive search for a medical necessity, and something that schools are not shown to normally have heightened access to. Therefore, this does not illustrate the reasonableness of a strip search in general.
Who runs the legal system? The government. Who runs the government? Humans. What are humans capable of? THINKING. What is a major part of thinking? LOGIC.
And people are capable of arriving at differing conclusions using logic depending on their preconceptions, experiences, genetic heritage, and what the constraints of the issue at hand are.
That's why we have law in the first place, to provide a reasonably consistent manner by which we can interpret what should be punishable by law, because everybody and their mom has different ideals on that topic, making it totally impossible to rule on each and every case based on logic alone, nobody would ever know what is a crime, and people would be subject to capricious justice resulting in one man losing his head for standing there and being quiet (I've seen students get detentions for this btw) and another getting off scott-free for mass murder. Often times this might relate to personal connections.
Really, if you want to see how this type of justice works, go to 4chan, "no rules" but mods can ban you for anything.
Your recourse if you really WANT anarchy, is to try to change the rules to be like that. But currently, we're debating on the laws on the books, AS THEY STAND, not what the best laws would be.
1+1 will always equal 2. Does it not? It's that sort of thinking that will always be used in the system. The jury uses logic to declare a person innocent or guilty. The House of Legislation uses logic to declare whether a bill should become a law. Simple as that. The whole legal system revolves around logic and ethics. Evidence is there to spark, sway, and change the logic and ethics of the people that matter, but no matter how much evidence is there, it will still come down to the decision of the person(s). And what does that decision rely on? Logic and Ethics. That is that. 
*redefines "1" to equal 4*
You may think that this is just a little trick, the thing is, law is fundamentally different different from ethics or pure logic due to it's nature as being define not by acceptance of a single philosophy, but consensus from a variety of influence. In essence, you could redefine "1" to equal 4 and have the same net effect, for a person who understands, it's reasonable and debatable. For a person who does not delved into the process, they have no understanding of even the most basic tenants and it seems like an utterly arcane process. A person such as you. Overall, it's most akin to literary analysis.
No then, but judges and juries do not use logic on it's own to figure out whether somebody is innocent or guilty, they reference to the law itself, and in doing so substitute it for their own preconceptions except for the evidenciary ones that the law asks for.
And though something may be used to create something else, that thing created is often quite distinguishable from what it's created from.
Law is very obviously one such case, it is perfectly distinguishable from ethics because when you apply law and ethics to the same situation, you often come up with very opposite conclusions. I can provide many counter-examples if you desire.
Now, here's a little taste of evidence since you guys seem to need everything slapped right in front of your face without any use of thinking.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9908/18/columbine.manes/index.html
Columbine High School shootings case in 1999. A bunch of commotion with all the details in that article. Go on, read it for yourselves if you have the time. Anyway, know one new exactly what was going on and all "accounts" of the story came from students and teachers. The accounts are all different, yet it was evident that there was a problem. Did people need concrete evidence? No, all anyone needed was a few screams and jumble up messages on cell phones to get what was happening. Guess what? There was a bloody killing spree in the High School. Now do you think that if the police said "Hmmmmmm....but there's no evidence..." that more people wouldn't have been killed? I don't think so! ^__^
I never said "without thinking", that's what you're doing.
If you actually read, you'd realize that what you presented is not evidence for your assertion.
"Evidence" is law, case law, and only information about the event(s) itself(themselves) that satisfies the test(s) provided within law and case law.
Where the logic comes in is understanding and interpreting case law.
Again, I reference to above, without any law, depending on one's political philosophy and ethical ideals, one could come to a wide variety of conclusions using the merely an event or events as evidence.
One could conclude that civil liberties are too great a deterrent to protecting the people and must be done away with.
One could conclude that a more libertarian society would not have this problem and we need wider civil rights.
One could conclude that the kids killed were unjust tormentors, and the jobs of the kids who did this was not finished, so somebody else should finish it.
From there, grounded in different ethical systems and political philosophies, these points take shape, but none are the law on the books, voted upon and enacted by our duly appointed representatives. What we are talking about is that.
There is obviously room for thinking and debating, why else would people debate about law. But the substance is not derived from understandings of right or wrong, but instead from written law and case law, with outside evidence where it's applicable.
