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guys, we all agree that this sort of behavior by school officials is an outrage. That may or may not mean that it necessarily is a federal tort. I don't know one way or the other because I don't know enough about this area of law, but having read through the stuff that's posted here, I think people are approaching this from an entirely wrong vantage point. It seems to me that the analysis of the issue would look something like this: (1) does the constitution prohibit what happened; (2) if it does, is there an authorizing statute to permit a lawsuit, and if it doesn't, is there another statute that prohibits it; (3) is there some form of official immunity and if there is, how broad is it and does it apply here; (4) what qualifies as a cognizable injury for the claimed violation? (5) is there a state law remedy available that needs to be availed of first, before going to the federal remedy if there is one?
Even if the answer to any of these questions is that there is no current federal remedy in this case, that's not an endorsement of the underlying behavior, it could be simply a statement that, say, Congress hasn't acted or that the remedy is elsewhere. In other words, it may be a "who gets to decide" question rather than a "what gets decided" question. Most of what the Supreme Court rules is of a "who gets to decide" nature, and people are making a big mistake by confusing that with the substantive underlying decision.
I'll reiterate my caveat from above, which is that I have only a spectator's familiarity with this area of law and I haven't read the briefs, so I can only give you general impressions. But that's how it looks to me.
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