In contrast to the general sense among school administrators that they are besieged by lawsuits, it turns out that courts tend to rule in favor of schools over both parents and teachers, the two groups most like to sue schools or districts. Since the 1985 Supreme Court case New Jersey v. T.L.O., writes Marjorie Coeyman in the Christian Science Monitor, when the Court ruled that school officials needed only a "reasonable suspicion" of wrongdoing to search a student's personal possessions, the nation's highest court has consistently ruled in favor of schools on a broad number of issues, including censorship and student conduct. The pattern also holds in lower courts, where schools have won more than half the time and parents and teachers only a third of the time. (The rest of the results are mixed.) Cases involving special education and religion are more complex but, even there, schools will usually prevail. The article suggests that "those who complain that schools must worry so constantly about student and teacher rights that they cannot do their job are simply not looking at the facts."
"Are schools more afraid of lawsuits than they should be?" by Marjorie Coeyman, Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 2003