New Barriers for Native American Indian Youth

While other high school teens in the U.S. encounter Fourth Amendment lessons on what constitutes "unreasonable searches and seizures" of lockers ^[1][2] and "invasions of privacy" from
random drug tests^[3][4][5], the 320 high school students at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon discovered an unexpected and unwelcome invasion on campus, a barbed-wire fence, courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Without advanced warning or coordination with the school or its advisory board, the U.S. federal government installed a $63,000 fence topped with barbed wire around the high school. The spokesperson for BIA said that the barbed wire was intended to be “temporary” and that fence was constructed to improve security, allegedly by keeping unwanted visitors off school grounds.

The indignant students immediately protested the construction of the 8-foot fence with razor-sharp wire surrounding them. They saw it as an attempt by the U.S. government to keep them from getting out. The Bureau of Indian Affairs halted the construction and agreed to get rid of the barbed wire but not the fence. David Harding, a tribal judge on the Coeur d’Alene reservation in Idaho, continues to urge the students to protest the fence and to call for its removal.

The administrators at Chemawa feel that there are other ways to improve the safety and quality of the educational environment while retaining a sense a personal dignity, privacy, and equality. Next year, the school will become a college preparatory academy.
The Associated Press reports, “Chemawa administrators are embarking on the latest change without a guarantee of new federal money.” Not surprising given that the federal government might decide unilaterally next year to allocate the school’s federal educational funds to mandatory video surveillance, biometrics monitoring, and radio frequency identification badges (RFID).

Given that Chemawa earned the “Oregon Green School” commendation for recycling efforts, maybe the school can recycle the fence and use the proceeds to improve the educational environment – books for the library, additional student computers, teachers’ salaries for the extended school year, and stipends for professors from the community college to teach dual-credit courses.

1. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed. 2d 720 (1985)
2. State v. Jones, 666 NW.2d 142, 2003 Iowa Sup.(Iowa 2003)
3. Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton et ux., Guardians ad litem for Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed. 2d 576 (1995)
4. Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Lindsay Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 122 S. Ct. 2559; 153 L. Ed. 2d 735; (2002)
5. Martins, Elissa Faye, Secondary School Student Drug Testing: Protection or Invasion? Criminal Justice Policy Foundation (23 May 2004)