Because the student in New Jersey v. T.L.O. was caught smoking, the Supreme Court ruled that

The Court ruled that school officials may search a student when they have reasonable grounds to suspect a rule has been broken, and that the search must be reasonable in scope. Since T.L.O. had been caught smoking and denied having cigarettes, searching her purse for them was reasonable. The ruling did not remove students’ Fourth Amendment protections; it applied a less demanding standard than the one used for police searches.

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