Campaigns
Dorm Privacy
Talking Points
- Colleges should not barge into students’ on-campus homes and rifle through their belongings. How would administrators like it if we went through the desk drawers in their offices or looked in their closets at home without their permission?
- The relationship between dorm residents and colleges should be a landlord-tenant relationship, not a parent-child one. While dorms are university property, landlords are generally not allowed to enter their tenants’ apartments or homes without prior notice. Colleges shouldn’t have special privileges to search dorms.
- Colleges shouldn’t be able to search dorms based solely on rumors or whims. The standard of evidence needed to search a dorm room should be the same as that needed for a landlord to search their tenants’ home.
- Random suspicionless dorm searches are unacceptable and run contrary to the great privacy rights we should enjoy as Americans. Dorm searches should only be conducted when there is probable cause to assume that students’ physical safety or university property is in jeopardy.
Helpful resource: WHOSE ROOM IS IT ANYWAY? LAWFUL ENTRY AND SEARCH OF STUDENT DORMITORY ROOMS
Campaign Materials (please download these templates and edit as you see fit)
- letter-to-the-editor
- petition
- press release
- phone script
- student government resolution
- Campus Change Campaign Grassroots Guide (HTML) (PDF)
