The Supreme Court in 1985 first addressed the issue of balance between a student's right to privacy as stated in the Fourth Amendment and school officials' need to maintain safety. This chapter summarizes the case, explores the meaning of the court opinion, and briefly discusses other issues. The case involved a 14-year-old girl (T.L.O.) whose purse was inspected for cigarettes by a vice principal, revealing marihuana. The girl argued that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that her confession was tainted by the search. The Supreme Court reversed the state court's ruling that the search was unreasonable, stating that discovery of the marihuana resulted from the reasonable search for the cigarettes. The "T.L.O." opinion brought attention to meaning of the "reasonable grounds" standard and to the scope of a search. The standard appears to allow searching if a school official concludes there are reasonable grounds to suspect evidence. The "T.L.O." standard appears to invite extensive strip searching in high schools, though officials will undoubtedly be reluctant to exploit this leeway. Other issues include whether sniffs by dogs constitute a "search," when a student has conclusively given consent to a search, and how the exclusionary rule is to be applied. (CJH)