can someone tell me the guidelines or hopefully find a cite for the reason why some colleges/universities are allowed to check the bags of students for alcohol and drugs upon entering a dorm while some schools are not? this is needed for a question raised in one of my classes about alcohol abuse at schools that check/vs. schools that don’t check, and the only thing i can find so far is unlawful search and seizure.
IANAL, but I don’t believe it is unlawful search and seizure because the dorm security guys are not police officers. Also, when you agreed to go to that college and live in that dorm, you agreed to follow their rules, which may or may not require bag searches.
I think that covers the short and sweet version.
Heh… During a home football game towards the evening I had a bag with me full of beer cans, Not exactly incognito, which I took into the dorm… Some RA stopped me and asked to look in the bag… I said no and refused so I had to leave the dorm… Well I just put it in the bushes, went back in, and had a girl grab it for me via the side door… Dont go thorugh the front door if you can!!!
the school i’m in now is not a dry campus and the r.a.'s and secuirity staff are not allowed to look into people’s bags. there is no problem with basically carrying alcohol in a back pack or in a duffle bag right through the front door. what i was wondering and what i was hoping to get for this class that was questioning the alcohol policies of my school was how some school’s get away with requiring students to open their bags when they enter the building? is it simply an agreement one must make inorder to live there, a private university guideline, or something else?