proper FR etiquette!
I can't respond at work except at lunch. No fair.
Posted on 04/02/2008 3:39:20 PM PDT by neverdem
There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it's perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible. The first group includes officials at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, who in 2003 forced eighth-grader Savana Redding to prove she was not concealing Advil in her crotch or cleavage.
It also includes two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, who last fall ruled that the strip search did not violate Savana's Fourth Amendment rights. The full court, which recently heard oral arguments in the case, now has an opportunity to overturn that decision and vote against a legal environment in which schoolchildren are conditioned to believe government agents have the authority to subject people to invasive, humiliating searches on the slightest pretext.
Safford Middle School has a "zero tolerance" policy that prohibits possession of all drugs, including not just alcohol and illegal intoxicants but prescription medications and over-the-counter remedies, "except those for which permission to use in school has been granted." In October 2003, acting on a tip, Vice Principal Kerry Wilson found a few 400-milligram ibuprofen pills (each equivalent to two over-the-counter tablets) and one nonprescription naproxen tablet in the pockets of a student named Marissa, who claimed Savana was her source.
Savana, an honors student with no history of disciplinary trouble or drug problems, said she didn't know anything about the pills and agreed to a search of her backpack, which turned up nothing incriminating. Wilson nevertheless instructed a female secretary to strip-search Savana under the school nurse's supervision, without even bothering to contact the girl's mother.
The secretary had Savana take off all her clothing except her underwear. Then she told her to "pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, exposing her breasts," and "pull her underwear out at the crotch and shake it, exposing her pelvic area." Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.
"I was embarrassed and scared," Savana said in an affidavit, "but felt I would be in more trouble if I did not do what they asked. I held my head down so they could not see I was about to cry." She called it "the most humiliating experience I have ever had." Later, she recalled, the principal, Robert Beeman, said "he did not think the strip search was a big deal because they did not find anything."
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a public school official's search of a student is constitutional if it is "justified at its inception" and "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." This search was neither.
When Wilson ordered the search, the only evidence that Savana had violated school policy was the uncorroborated accusation from Marissa, who was in trouble herself and eager to shift the blame. Even Marissa (who had pills in her pockets, not her underwear) did not claim that Savana currently possessed any pills, let alone that she had hidden them under her clothes.
Savana, who was closely supervised after Wilson approached her, did not have an opportunity to stash contraband. As the American Civil Liberties Union puts it, "There was no reason to suspect that a thirteen-year-old honor-roll student with a clean disciplinary record had adopted drug-smuggling practices associated with international narcotrafficking, or to suppose that other middle-school students would willingly consume ibuprofen that was stored in another student's crotch."
The invasiveness of the search also has to be weighed against the evil it was aimed at preventing. "Remember," the school district's lawyer recently told ABC News by way of justification, "this was prescription-strength ibuprofen." It's a good thing the school took swift action, before anyone got unauthorized relief from menstrual cramps.
© Copyright 2008 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Oops, now don’t tell anyone you have high speed. You might get strip searched and sent to the principal’s office. People with high speed are known to carry Advil in...secret places.
Good point TE. That’s what started this whole thread. See you tomorrow, buddy.
I’m sorry I missed out on Bob getting zotted. I hope he’s not gone for good. He and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, but he always kept me sharp because he did take it to another level; he was much more informed and a much better debater than most of his ideological fellows here.
I know mojave is roscoe, but could it be that mojave/roscoe is also robertpaulsen, too? Man, oh man!
Good thing you ping’d the subject of your post in your post. Otherwise 50mm would’ve sent you one of his dreaded horse beatings.
I’m sorry I missed out on Bob getting zotted. I hope he’s not gone for good.
RP's gerbil blowed up real good. He will have to get another one.
I just hope the 9th circus panel has gotten a hint of the ridicule that will be heaped upon them if they don't put down the Night Train, wake up, find a conscience --hint it's not that furry thing that looks like a gerbil -- and realize that this is something that shocks the conscience. If not, after we get done with their gerbils they will look like IT in post #1293
I wish there were a way to find out how many times the abuse button was hit on this thread and by whom. It also probably hit the 10,000 mark.
proper FR etiquette!
I can't respond at work except at lunch. No fair.
More fantasies!
It...hit..the...mark
Indeed! Indeed!
What with? A bullet? You've got bullets?
Strip search. Probable Cause.
Indeed! Indeed!
See, you agred to it and it was not forced.
Hit
Your fantsy. There was no physical contact.
I would agree that he was better informed and more capable of making a ludicrous argument sound rational. He would actually address questions put to him and defend his assertions about 30% of the time. The other 70% was just lunatic hand waving. Which beats being a lunatic 100% of the time like his pups.
Yes he could be at times...But once he thought he was right there was no arguing with him. There were things he & I agreed on although I don’t quite remember just what. I doubt he is gone for good either. This was one of the times I just could not & would not see his point. I don’t care what the courts said or how the school handled this IMHO it was just not right.
11,148+ views
Please click the button to report my abuse!
Learn to debate, poophead.
Last night I had pretty much finished off the Night Train Express before checking into your latest ourtrage. Tonight I did not even get started on it yet. I was still on my first bite of dinner and spit the mouth full of asparagus across the room. Mrs Jackson was really not amused. How do I know Mrs. Jackson was not amused? The flying side-kick to the solar plexus (my solar plexus) was a subtle hint. Then came the whithering look which means I am dead.
There is an entire genre of gerbil youtubes. Who knew?
Please stop abusing Andy. He's innocent!
Thank you.
Richard Gere, RP and IT.
Next question. Keep up!
I thought gerbils were ITs abuse.
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