The threat to students' liberty

New York schools are coming under fire for violations of students' Constitutional rights as they increase security, according to a column by writer Nat Hentoff:

One of the many stories in the report concerns Wadleigh, a Manhattan public high school, where "every student, in order to enter the building [as at other schools], was required to walk through the metal detectors [and be searched]."

Over an eight-month period last year, police confiscated more than 17,000 items at numerous schools, but only a tiny number could be considered weapons, and none were firearms. The vast majority "were cell phones, iPods, food, school supplies." A young girl with a pacemaker at Wadleigh said that she needed her cell phone in case of a medical emergency, but the phone was seized nonetheless.