Phone-A-Phobia: Is Banning Cell Phones in High Schools Really Constitutional?

Today, I fell victim at my high school to such a ridiculous rule that I felt the need to address it here on my blog.  During lunch before leaving for my state speech competition, I realized that I had forgotten my swimming trunks.  Therefore, I responded by calling my mother, a sensible thing that any teenager that forgot something would do.  However, after doing this, a teacher approached me, informing me that I had broken a school rule: I had committed the utter crime of using a cellular device.

My school has a zero tolerance policy on cellular devices, which I believe to be unfair, and it is only a matter of time before someone feels the need to address this issue at a higher court.  When I called my mom, I "broke" this rule.  However, can a school really tell you that you cannot use a mobile device during your free lunch period?  As made evident by this incident, they currently can.  My phone was taken until my parents were informed, and I received an academic detention.

Furthermore, this is what I find to be just ridiculous; I received the same punishment as someone using drugs, vandalizing property, or engaging in truly illegal activities.  For the record, I am an upstanding student and citizen, even helping to raise $3500 to bring a speaker and $2000 to fund a senior project.  However, when I used my device to communicate with my mother, I was insulted and put on the same level as those that commit real crimes, which actually affect the welfare of another person.

This is all the result of what I call phone-a-phobia.  Phone-a-phobia is a fear that school board officials drive into teachers, staff members, and even students, making them believe that the use of a cellular device is actually a crime.  This is what I witnessed first-hand when I was making a call, and students around me looked in shock.  Phone-a-phobia has resulted in teachers becoming more shocked when a student's phone accidentally rings than when a student is openly using illicit drugs in the classroom.  I have witnessed this many times, as I have seen victims who accidentally have their phone ring get verbally attacked by teachers.  Today, I was the victim.

Phone-a-phobia has resulted at a time when electronic devices should be embraced.  Some schools are choosing to enact bring-your-own-device policies; however, some are shunning them, as if they are an evil that cannot be reckoned with.  I am not a normal protestor of rules, but this one is too large to be silent.  As a future computer engineer, I find it terrible that our classrooms are still living in the 1950s.  No one actively speaks of the terrible shape that our schools are currently in, though it continues to rank as one of the worst systems in the developed world.

Have we forgotten the words of our country's most important document?

Schools are clearly violating several rights of the Constitution by enacting these "no phone" rules.  For example, the Tinker v. Des Moines case, which occurred during the Vietnam War, ruled that a school may only take those Constitutional rights that may affect the welfare of other students.  A boy was suspended for wearing an anti-war bracelet, and the Supreme Court stated that the school bared no right to take his First Amendment rights.

This brings my to my next point.  Police officers may not confiscate electronic devices from citizens unless they have a warrant to do so.  This is because the Fourth Amendment protects the privacy rights of the citizens.  Are we putting high school staff members above the law?  If there is a just reason for confiscating a device, such as disruption of class or inflicting damage on another student, I understand that this is required.  But in a day and age where schools embrace phone-a-phobia, has it become just to revoke students' Constitutional rights when they are simply calling their mother or checking the time during lunch?

I am posting this because it is time that we questioned how high schools treat their students.  This education is not granted for free to Americans; it is paid for by the people, for the people.  If we raise our students in a totalitarian environment, it can be expected that when they become of age, many of them will embrace a totalitarian society, in which the government protects people from the harm of themselves.  High school education is the building block of our society.  By making the authority in it so powerful that they begin to protect students from themselves, we can expect that young adults will continue to seek protection from a higher power throughout their livelihoods.

"I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law."

This quote by Martin Luther King can greatly paint the picture of the situation that many other students and I have been put through by school rules that unfairly inflict on the rights of the student body.  I do not consider myself a rule breaker, but rules such as this one are broken by the best of us.  Perhaps I will spend my Monday detention with a drug dealer... or maybe someone that put a kid in the hospital.  Nonetheless, I have been labeled today as a troublemaker at Rockwood Area High School, by a simple phone call to my mother.  If you have been negatively affected by unjust rules such as this one, I encourage you to share your feedback in the comment section below.  I do not advocate the breaking of rules, but I am by no means an advocate of falling victim in silence to an unjust rule.

If you are a member of the Rockwood Area School District and hope to bring change to the atmosphere and decrease the oppression of the student body, I encourage you to contact them at (814) 926-4631 or bring an active voice to the next school board meeting, held every third Tuesday of the month.  The school board was elected by the people to represent them and if enough parents whose children have fallen victim to this unjust rule take an active stance, together we can bring civil rights and technology back to the school.  Rules have gotten so strict in our school that not even the teachers support them.  Between the hall pass planner system, the no electronics policy, the banning of Day of Silence, and many other attacks on students’ rights, no time has been better than now to share your voice.

UPDATE: For further information on why I published this, please read this post.  My intent was not to act like I was above the rules.  It was to prevent future students from being negatively affected by this unjust policy.