UPD should be required to have a warrant to enter on-campus housing
Correction at 4:18 p.m.: UPD and other law enforcement agencies already have to obtain a warrant to enter and search a student’s dorm room or on-campus housing facility.
Students who live on campus should get the same rights as normal citizens.
Our federal and state constitutions grant us a certain amount of privacy from law enforcement. In all states, law enforcement officers are required to have a warrant to enter a home.
Getting a warrant is conditional on the premise that the officer has a reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed, or what’s called probable cause. This isn’t true in regards to on-campus housing.
Law enforcement officers such as the University Police Department (UPD) don’t require warrants to enter dorms or on-campus apartments. If UPD or the Vermillion Police Department (VPD) wants to enter a dorm or on-campus apartment, they only have to knock, announce their presence and can then enter.
This is a violation of our rights as citizens of the United States and our respective states.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution states:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Though it’s true we don’t own the dorms or on-campus apartments, we should still consider them our homes because our personal belongings are inside and we live in them.
The people of South Dakota, to whom the dorms and on-campus apartments technically belong, would agree that while we are there, the dorms and on-campus apartments are our homes because we pay for them and hold our things in them.
There’s no reason we should consider it any different from renting an apartment from a private renter. Under these terms, the way UPD is allowed to enter our dorms and on-campus apartments is a direct violation of the Constitution.
This is just another case of the older members of society denying young members rights they deserve. They fail to trust us with ourselves, sometimes perhaps rightly so, but treating members of a population like they can’t handle themselves will make them more inclined to act like they can’t handle themselves.
Most people who live on campus are young adults, so law enforcement can get away with this activity because they’ll always have public opinion on their side.
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Young people also have accepted this in that we have a tendency not to question situations like this, where our rights are taken away on the premise of our age.
People like to feel superior, so they make rules like this one to deny young people their rights. UPD should have to have a warrant to enter any dorm or on campus apartment.
