KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! OR GO TO STUDENT LEGAL SERVICES AND LEARN THEM.
By: Emma Reed, Alexa Marcigliano and David Humphreys
On November 11 attorney Charles J. DiMare spoke to students about their Fourth Amendment rights, and how to balance the power between students and police. The event was sponsored by the University Programming Council in an effort with Student Legal Services to inform students of their constitutional rights.
For a group of people who have run-ins with the police on a regular basis, college students, although well educated, are not well informed. For this reason the film Busted: The Citizens Guide to Surviving Police Encounters, which was shown during DiMare’s lecture, was created by Flex Your Rights and narrated by retired American Civil Liberties Union director Ira Glasser. The film depicts the pressure and confusion of common police encounters, and was created to inform young people about their rights as citizens.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. 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.” Basically, if there is no warrant or consent police can’t search your person or property. This is a pretty important law when living the occasionally illegal life of the college student, and surprisingly many students have no clue what it entails.
When asked about the Fourth Amendment Kaitlyn Reed said, “I don’t know which one that is. It is the right to bear arms?” This lack of knowledge about the Constitution isn’t uncommon. UMass Dartmouth alum Andrea Ventola didn’t know too much about the Fourth Amendment either, “Well, I know I can plead the Fifth, but I don’t know what the Fourth is; I don’t think you can plead it.”
DiMare, who has been director of student legal services at UMass for 30 years, has been pushing efforts to make sure UMass students are aware of their rights. DiMare has been accused by university officials of teaching students how to break the law. “I am not here to teach students how to break the law. I am teaching students what the law is,” DiMare said. “There is an overwhelming majority of searches that are conducted on college campuses illegally, and an overwhelming majority of students wouldn’t know the difference.”
Student Legal Services Office offers community legal education services covering a broad spectrum of legal issues. In the past, the office offered CLE services on subjects such as landlord/tenant law, constitutional rights, the university discipline system, consumer law, sexual harassment, use of false ID’s and other issues. The SLS also offers the Student Rights Advocate, which discusses legal issues that concern people in the university community. According to DiMare, he and the SLS are simply leveling the playing field to inform the uninformed.
