School and the Fifth Amendment
Over the years the use of cell phones in high schools have become more and more controversial and school technology use policies have come into question as a result. Teachers and administrators can confiscate student cell phones, if they believe that the student has violated school policy. However, the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states that citizens shall not “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” But, schools must maintain the right to confiscate cell phones when students are not in compliance with school policy because students might use the cell phones to cheat on test, and cell phones in schools increase cyber bullying opportunities. Students can use their phone for a lot of ill intentioned activities and schools should be able to take the phones up if the students are misusing them. At Stuyvesant High School in New York City seventy students were caught using cell phones to cheat on a state language test. The New York Times said, “Sixty-nine students had received the messages and responded to them” (BAKER). In a survey to find how many students use their cell phones to cheat on tests On Education Magazine reported that “More than one third of teens with cell phones admit to having stored information on them to look at during a test or texting friends about answers” (Miners). On the other hand, some people think that schools shouldn’t be able to confiscate cell phones under any circumstances, but I disagree because some students use their cell phones to cyber bully other students, and this can be serious. Parry Aftab, a cyber-law expert thinks that bulling is a pandemic, and it getting worse. One US News reporter wrote that “an estimated 40 percent of high school students have been cyber bullied while in high school and that that figure is nearly double among middle school students.” She goes on to say that “any use of digital technology by a minor against another minor that is intended to hurt is cyber bullying, and it happens to almost all students” (Koebler). Cyber bullying is serious, and can even cost the victim his/her life. For example, Phoebe Prince was found hung in a stairwell at her house after she’d been cyber-bullied by her classmates and couldn’t take it any longer. As