Introduction:

Big Brother is watching. In an era of school shootings and stoked-up concerns that critical race theory will enter classrooms, public schools across the country are levelling up their surveillance capabilities to monitor their campuses with a thorough eye. And as these methods become more and more pervasive, they are finding their way into the classroom itself. Much has been written about the privacy concerns of students, but what about those of teachers? Does our Constitution permit state and local governments keeping track of their every move while at work? That is the question this Article seeks to answer. First, it traces the policy rationales for state-sponsored school surveillance, including how new technologies are being used for surveillance. Then, it offers an overview of the relevant Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Next, it discusses whether in-classroom surveillance constitutes a search in light of the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision, likening the question to a percolating circuit split regarding pole-camera surveillance. Finding that such pervasive surveillance likely is a search under the mosaic theory espoused by Carpenter, the Article then considers whether that search violates the Fourth Amendment. This analysis is guided by parallel student- and public-employee-focused privacy precedents, and it ultimately concludes, regrettably, that teachers likely do not carry a reasonable expectation of privacy into the schoolhouse gate. 

. . .

Details: