EDUC 432

Dan Ash, Elo Comfort, and Tom Farrell

May 5, 1999

James Randall Willis II v. Anderson Community School Corporation, United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit. No. 98-1227.

The Anderson Community School Corporation felt that drug and alcohol abuse by students was increasing in their high schools. The Corporation tried to deter abuse by implementing new policies. The new school rules stated that any student suspended for fighting was to undergo a mandatory drug test upon their return to school. A freshman named James Willis was suspended for fighting and refused to give a urine sample when he returned to school. He was suspended again and told that if he refused a drug test again that he would be suspended a third time pending expulsion proceedings. Willis sued in the district court on the grounds that the corporation's policy violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

The district court decided in favor of the corporation. The district court established that students were protected from unreasonable searches by New Jersey v. T.L.O. 469 U.S. 325(1985) and that taking a urine sample was considered a search by Chandler v. Miller 117 S.Ct. 1295(1997) These facts were undisputed and fell under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court ruled that the search was legal because Willis' conduct created an individualized suspicion by fighting and the special needs of the Corporation outweighed Willis' right to privacy. Willis appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court. The Seventh Circuit Court reversed the decision. The reversal was based on the two points that the district court called out; individualized suspicion and special needs.

The first issue that the circuit court discussed dealt with individualized suspicion. It is stated that school officials are not required to establish probable cause to justify the search of a student. Rather, a student search is permissible if it is both justified at the time of the incident and reasonably related to the factors, which initiated the interference in the first place. This principle stems from New Jersey vs. T.L.O. In order to satisfy this requirement a student's conduct must "create a reasonable suspicion that a particular regulation or law has been violated, with the search serving to produce evidence of the violation." (Cornfield vs. Consolidated High School District)

The circuit court questioned the Dean of Students at Anderson high school, Philip Nikirk, about the appearance and behavior of Mr. Willis directly after the altercation. Mr. Nikirk was asked if Willis appeared to be under the influence of an illegal substance. Nikirk responded, "I had nothing at that time that would give me reasonable suspicion, no." Furthermore, Nikirk revealed that Willis was only required to submit to a drug test solely because he got into a fight, because the school policy required him to submit to a drug test. This point contradicted the very definition of individualized suspicion, which is supposed to be conducted on a case by case basis. The Corporation merely said that since Willis was involved in a fight, then it was policy to submit to a drug test. School authorities did not spend the time to analyze Willis to properly determine whether there was enough suspicion to take further action.

The circuit court discussed why the "causal nexus" between fighting and illegal substance use was not strong enough to presume suspicion. The Corporation used data obtained from its two high schools to attempt to establish this supposed "causal nexus.", The Seventh Circuit Court stated that the data was not strong enough to presume a reasonable suspicion of illegal substance use.

The second issue examined by the court was that of special needs. The Corporation's urine screen could have been found to be acceptable if it fell within a "closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches," which are searches that are warranted by special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement. To do this, the court examined closely the competing private and public interests advanced by the parties. Veronia School District v. Acton 516 U.S. 646(1995) stated that the reasonableness of a suspicionless search depended upon the balance between two aspects: (1) the nature of the individual's privacy interest and the character of the intrusion; (2) the nature and immediacy of the government's concern, as well as the efficacy of the means for meeting that concern.

The circuit court could not conclude that the nature and immediacy of the Corporation's concern was meaningfully less than that of the Veronia School District. However, the court found a sharp distinction between the efficacy of the policy in Veronia in that in this case, the Corporation's counsel was pushed to explain why individualized suspicion was impracticable in this context. The court questioned that the corporation's "special need" was based on the fact that a suspicionless regime casts a wider net than a suspicion-based regime. The court agreed that the most effective means of preventing substance abuse among children may be to require them to provide a urine sample each time they pass through the schoolhouse gate. However, the court emphasized that the Supreme Court had not sanctioned blanket testing, nor had it renounced the proposition that the Fourth Amendment normally required individualized suspicion.

Finally, a child could not be suspended until he or she first met with the school principal or similar official, as stated under Indiana law. The meeting had the purpose of providing an opportunity for the designated school official to observe the child and determine whether there was reasonable suspicion of substance use. The records showed that in Willis' case, the Dean of Students at Anderson High School evaluated Willis without any apparent difficulty and determined that "nothing at that time created reasonable suspicion."