Via Howard Bashman:
“We hold that there is no clearly established law holding that a student in a public secondary school has a privacy right under the Fourteenth Amendment that precludes school officials from discussing with a parent * * * matters relating to sexual activity of the student.” So holds the majority on a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a ruling issued today.
Previous coverage of this case on this blog can be found here and here.
In this case, the school personnel were not school psychologists, and parents may welcome the ruling that nothing in the Supreme Court’s rulings or Fifth Circuit precedence bars school personnel from discussing concerns about a student with the student’s parent(s). But can this case have a negative impact on the willingness of students to disclose personal and sensitive concerns to school psychologists? I would think so, but then, I don’t imagine most high school students will even be aware of this ruling – at least, not until it’s too late for them to guard their privacy from their own parents.