Angry Appalachian State University students say their constitutional rights are being violated by a new policy that allows officials to conduct surprise searches of their residence hall rooms.

The new policy, which began in January, allows campus police and other university officials to search any residence hall room without a search warrant and without the student's permission.

Rick Geis, director of residence life, said the new policy was intended to curb campus drug use. "What we're saying is, if you use drugs at Appalachian and we locate it, we're going to send you home," he said.

"We don't feel like we're violating anybody's rights."

Maggie James, a freshman majoring in education had two violations -- both for marijuana -- within 24 hours under the new policy. For the violations, she has to go through counseling, do community service, pay a fine and will remain on probation for four months.

"It has lessened drug use in the dorm," James said. "They are doing their job, but they're also violating your rights."

For the three to five years leading up to the new policy, ASU officials had a hard time catching students with drugs because of the delay in obtaining warrants from a Watauga County magistrate, Geis said.

"By the time we'd get back to the hall after securing the warrant, the moment was lost," Geis said, explaining that students either swallowed or flushed the drugs down the toilet before officials returned.

Geis said the cases on campus mostly involved marijuana. Director of Campus Police Roy Tugman estimated that 1 percent of all cases involved drugs other than marijuana.

Tugman said the policy was for administrative searches, not criminal searches, and was therefore permissible under state law.

He said the university had not prosecuted any students who had been found in possession of illegal drugs because the method of obtaining evidence could only be used for administrative discipline. The Boone police department does not get copies of campus police reports, Tugman said.

Tugman said a "reasonable cause" was needed to search rooms.

"We base (the decision whether to conduct a search) on a call from a (resident assistant) or (resident director) or someone in authority," Tugman said.

But student Dana Sigman said the requirements weren't so rigid.

"The problem I have is they have an anonymous phone line. That's all the reasonable evidence they need. So if you have enemies, you can forget it," Sigman said. At press time, it was not possible to confirm that campus police respond to anonymous telephone tips.

Donny Macomson, a junior sociology major at ASU, said he thought it was bad that officials could come into students' rooms, but he was thankful for the administrative nature of the policy.

"The fact that they don't call the real cops almost makes it okay," Macomson said.

Sigman said she didn't feel any better that the policy was administrative rather than criminal. It bothers her that a female student could be, at any time, subjected to two male police officers searching the only space she had to escape from the pressures of school work.

"It's a matter of -- you bar the door or you allow them to search and not make a scene," Sigman said.

Students at ASU have circulated petitions and met with administrators. They are concerned that their rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure, are being violated.

A recent survey by the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education in Atlanta found that one of every five high school seniors smoked marijuana at least once per month.

Officials said they supposed there was no reason to believe that students weren't continuing their usage habits in college.

Although most courts have upheld the right of a university to conduct searches, some have not.

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