The AFA Center for Law & Policy (CLP) won a monumental case in April, after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the constitutional rights of parents and private schools against social workers performing child abuse investigations.

The court held that social workers violated the Fourth Amendment when they forced their way into a private school, Greendale Baptist Academy, in Greendale, Wisconsin, to interview students in a child abuse investigation involving no emergency. The court also held that the social workers violated the rights of parents when they threatened to remove the children from the home when they “had no reason whatsoever to suspect that Mr. and Mrs. ‘Doe’ were abusing their children.”

The case arose when social workers, acting on stale information several months old, forced their way into a private Christian school without a warrant, over the objections of school principal Troy Bond, seized a 10-year-old boy with police assistance, and interviewed him about the school’s policy of administering a “swat” as discipline in certain cases. Parents of the students had given written approval of the disciplinary policy.

Based on the information obtained from the child, the social workers then proceeded to target the parents’ disciplinary practices in the home, questioning their own use of corporal punishment. Eventually, the social workers opened files on numerous families in the school, and even sought to remove the school’s accreditation simply because it practiced corporal punishment.

The court found these actions violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The court also held the statute under which the social workers acted unconstitutional as applied to the parents and school.

Mike Dean, counsel for the school, said, “All too often, social workers don’t think the Constitution applies to them, and they run roughshod over parents and other citizens. This ruling underscores that even social workers are not above the law.”

“This is a tremendous victory for parental rights,” said Michael J. DePrimo, litigation counsel for the CLP, which represented the parents. “Even though the 7th Circuit encompasses only Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, the ruling will be read throughout the rest of the nation, because there is not a lot of case law on this issue.”

DePrimo added, “This ruling addresses a gap in the law regarding the precise limits on social workers who investigate child abuse cases.”

The CLP will also be sending letters to all 50 state attorneys general informing them of the legal reasoning in the case. “We will be highlighting the constitutional rights of parents, children and private schools, so there will be no excuse for not protecting those rights in the future,” he said.

“This ruling will serve as a warning for social workers who overstep their authority.”