Scanning Students’ Homes During Remote Testing is Unconstitutional, Judge Says

posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 24 2022, @06:05PM

from the thats-not-a-mirror-over-my-bed-officer dept.

Ars Technica is reporting on a recent (22 August 2022) ruling from an Ohio Federal Court that "room scans" prior to testing is considered an impermissible search under the Fourth Amendment.

As the pandemic unfolded in spring 2020, an Educause survey found that an increasing number of students—who had very little choice but to take tests remotely—were increasingly putting up with potential privacy invasions from schools. Two years later, for example, it's considered a common practice that some schools record students throughout remote tests to prevent cheating, while others conduct room scans when the test begins.
Now—in an apparent privacy win for students everywhere—an Ohio judge has ruled[PDF] that the latter practice of scanning rooms is not only an invasion of privacy but a violation of the Fourth Amendment's guaranteed protection against unlawful searches in American homes.
The decision came after a Cleveland State University student, Aaron Ogletree, agreed to a room scan before a chemistry exam, even though his teacher had changed their policy, and he did not expect it to happen before the test. Because there were others in his home, he took the test in his bedroom, where he says he had sensitive tax documents spread out on a surface. These confidential documents, he claimed, could not be moved before the test and were visible in the room scan recording—which was shared with other students.
After the test, Ogletree sued Cleveland State for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, and Ohio judge J. Philip Calabrese decided yesterday that Ogletree was right: Room scans are unconstitutional.

[...] Ultimately, because Cleveland State unevenly used room scans—they are optional by the teachers' discretion—and the school had various other methods to combat cheating, the judge said the room scans could not be considered a justified privacy invasion. He also said that because the pandemic, and Ogletree's family's health concerns, prevented the student from accessing other options like in-person testing, any student "who valued privacy" would have to sacrifice the right to privacy at home to remain enrolled. That benefit—unlike the loss of benefits from social support programs without agreeing to a home search by the state—does not outweigh the loss of privacy to citizens, Calabrese wrote.
[...] Calabrese cited one of the earliest slippery slope arguments in Supreme Court history in his decision supporting Ogletree's right to privacy. Ultimately, he wrote, although conducting room scans could be considered relatively harmless, its unconstitutionality represented "the obnoxious thing"—in this case, warrantless searches—"in its mildest and least repulsive form." That's how "illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing," the cited Supreme Court opinion reads, "by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure." In his opinion, Calabrese seems to suggest that universities conducting room scans may open the door for illegal searches and, therefore, cannot be condoned.

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