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The School Crotch Inspector - Fighting the Advil menace, one strip search at a time
Reason ^ | April 2, 2008 | Jacob Sullum

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: advil; arth; ashredux; authoritarianism; healthnazis; homeschoolingisgood; nannystate; publicschool; schooldiscipline; stripsearch; teens; twoequalsthree; wod; wodlist; zot
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To: 50mm

I found out last night that if you carefully pour the Night Train off the keyboard back into a cup, there is very little wastage. Asparagus is different. The threads get under the keys and they start to stick.


1,561 posted on 04/07/2008 7:12:24 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: 50mm

Have you gerbils in that flower pot?


1,562 posted on 04/07/2008 7:13:17 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Howe many days before “IT” will be back do you think? And how many hits are there now?


1,563 posted on 04/07/2008 7:15:17 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: AndyJackson

Asparagus causes your keyboard to uh, well kinda, ahem.....smell?


1,564 posted on 04/07/2008 7:18:53 PM PDT by yorkie (God Bless our Heroes in Iraq and around the world)
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To: yorkie

I thought it was the Night Train. Now you tell me!


1,565 posted on 04/07/2008 7:21:17 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

I’ve been watching. Good thing I’m not in the habit of eating or drinking while FReeping. More than one person would owe me a new keyboard. I don’t have them in stock to replace them that fast, you know.

Our computer is in the front porch and there’s a door I can shut so I don’t have to worry about keeping anybody up.


1,566 posted on 04/07/2008 7:27:47 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: pandoraou812

Depends. It’s still not banned yet, but not posting either.


1,567 posted on 04/07/2008 7:29:54 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

I keep a bunch of them in the house. My friend gets me a few each time he goes to a computer convention. It sure comes in handy. The nice rubber one my son got me for a present since I tend to type loudly the H got stuck on so now I suppose I annoy everyone. Oh well.


1,568 posted on 04/07/2008 7:31:44 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: metmom

Maybe we should post an open invite?


1,569 posted on 04/07/2008 7:35:26 PM PDT by yorkie (God Bless our Heroes in Iraq and around the world)
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To: metmom

I meant the banned one...I wonder how long a time out he will get. You really don’t think he will be gone for good do you?


1,570 posted on 04/07/2008 7:41:03 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: yorkie

By the way, this asparagus, ahem, thing, it turns out is genetic. Some people don’t have that gene, and so don’t produce that enzyme, so they don’t ahem, this, uh, asparagus thing. Capish?


1,571 posted on 04/07/2008 7:41:22 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: pandoraou812; yorkie

It’d be nice, but if it comes back we can have more fun. We’ll just make it an open invite to THAT party, too.


1,572 posted on 04/07/2008 7:42:22 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

11,385 views.


1,573 posted on 04/07/2008 7:43:30 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Wow!


1,574 posted on 04/07/2008 7:47:26 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: AndyJackson
Aiyeeeeeeee, that's not good. The kick to the solar plexus, while painful as all getout, if it doesn't stop the heart you'll get over it. But the withering look? Welllll, you should wish you were dead. I'd empathize with you but then I'd have to imagine it. (shiver) I, I, I just can't go back to that place in my mind again.
1,575 posted on 04/07/2008 8:11:51 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye
But the withering look?

QQ

1,576 posted on 04/07/2008 8:21:33 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: TigersEye
if it doesn't stop the heart you'll get over it. But the withering look

Sympathy not needed. He's dead TE. xxx Mrs. J.

1,577 posted on 04/07/2008 8:27:53 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: AndyJackson

Oh no. Well...Umm.. Its very nice to meet you Mrs J & I hope you had lots of insurance on AJ.


1,578 posted on 04/07/2008 8:32:41 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: metmom
Your family makes you FReep out on the porch? ha ha ha ha ha (ahem, cough)
Well, if my mother wasn't 80 and a foot shorter than me I suppose she'd put me out on the FReeping deck ... I mean, I'd be out on the deck FReeping. In the swirling snow.
1,579 posted on 04/07/2008 8:48:51 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: pandoraou812
But the withering look?

In Tae Kwan Do it comes right before the Hayyahhhh!!!!

But the HAYYYAAAHHH is just bluster and bravado to scare off the opponent, sort of like a lion roar. It's when you don't get the hayyaahhh that you need to be afraid. Really afraid. Sort of like when the lion is hunting prey.

1,580 posted on 04/07/2008 8:49:20 PM PDT by AndyJackson
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