TRI In The News

Unwarranted School Lockdowns a 'Dangerous' Trend

From One News Now

Original article available here

The Rutherford Institute is asking the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower-court decision upholding a Missouri school's unconstitutional lockdown policy.

Two Springfield parents are suing over the school's policy of locking down the school so officers can search students' personal belongings for drugs without probable cause. Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead says that sends youngsters the wrong message.

"School administrators here really don't understand the Constitution. They know very little about it, [and] they don't teach it well in their schools," he laments. "But … one thing that I've seen emerge -- it's a very, very dangerous trend -- is that they're teaching compliance and the fact that we really have no rights. And I think these kids, when they grow up, are going to believe that."

He says police officers invading classrooms in this manner, sometimes in SWAT gear and with drug-sniffing dogs, sets a "very dangerous" precedent.

"These are dogs coming into kids' classrooms, smelling their lunchboxes, their clothes, the police searching them -- when I see old movies, I see the Nazis doing this in Nazi Germany," the attorney relates. "So it's a very, very similar trend. It's very dangerous."

Since such lockdowns are common in schools all across the country, Whitehead believes this case could help shed light on this constitutional issue.