## Facts

- G.C., a high school student, attended Owensboro High School as a nonresident student under a reciprocal enrollment arrangement subject to administrative approval.
- Over several years, G.C. accumulated disciplinary incidents (including profanity, leaving campus without permission, tardiness, and fighting) and had documented mental-health concerns, including prior suicidal statements.
- In September 2009, a teacher caught G.C. texting in class in violation of the school’s cell-phone policy, confiscated the phone, and delivered it to an assistant principal.
- The assistant principal read G.C.’s text messages, stating she did so to determine whether he was planning to harm himself or others and to identify issues she could help him address.
- Shortly thereafter, the superintendent revoked G.C.’s out-of-district status, barring him from Owensboro High School; the school informed G.C.’s parents he could attend school in his home district.
- G.C. sued, alleging (1) denial of process required by Kentucky’s student discipline statute for expulsions, (2) an unreasonable Fourth Amendment search of his phone, and (3) a violation of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- The district court granted summary judgment to defendants on all claims; G.C. appealed on the three claims above.

## Issues

1. Whether revocation of G.C.’s out-of-district enrollment and resulting exclusion from Owensboro High School was, in substance, an “expulsion” requiring the procedures prescribed by Ky. Rev. Stat. § 158.150.
2. Whether school officials violated the Fourth Amendment by reading text messages on G.C.’s confiscated phone without reasonable suspicion that the search would yield evidence of wrongdoing or imminent self-harm.
3. Whether defendants violated § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by failing to identify G.C. as disabled and provide required protections.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit reversed summary judgment on the Kentucky due-process claim, holding the exclusion functioned as an expulsion from the school and triggered § 158.150 procedures.
- The Sixth Circuit reversed summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim, holding that reading the phone’s contents was not justified at inception under the school-search reasonableness test.
- The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the Rehabilitation Act § 504 claim.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings on the due-process and Fourth Amendment claims.

## Legal Principles

- For school searches under *New Jersey v. T.L.O.*, a search must be reasonable under all the circumstances, including that it is justified at inception and reasonable in scope.
- Confiscation of a phone for violating a classroom policy is distinct from searching its contents; a content search requires particularized, contemporaneous reasonable suspicion tied to the circumstances prompting the interference.
- A student’s general disciplinary history or past mental-health concerns, without a current, incident-related basis indicating present danger or misconduct, does not alone justify a new intrusive search of phone contents.
- Under Kentucky student-discipline law, an action that effectively removes a student from a particular public school as discipline may be treated as an expulsion requiring statutory procedural protections, even if the student can attend another district’s school.
- A § 504 claim requires proof that the plaintiff is disabled within the statute’s meaning and that the school failed to meet a duty to accommodate or avoid disability-based exclusion on the record presented.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that excluding a nonresident student from a public high school by revoking out-of-district status could constitute an expulsion requiring Kentucky statutory procedures, and that school officials lacked sufficient, incident-based grounds to read a student’s text messages after confiscating a phone for in-class texting; it rejected the student’s § 504 claim and remanded the remaining claims.


G.C. v. Owensboro Pub. Sch., 711 F.3d 623 (6th Cir. 2013)