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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: TNdandelion
You are fast. And you have proven yourself to be very strong. Now for the ultimate test.
1,661 posted on 04/07/2008 10:12:30 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TNdandelion

Just hit the @#$% $@%#^#^ button you #@$@$% gerbil noob!


1,662 posted on 04/07/2008 10:12:31 PM PDT by 50mm (Kill the gerbils!)
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To: TigersEye
You mean there are married folks, here?
1,663 posted on 04/07/2008 10:13:34 PM PDT by yorkie (God Bless our Heroes in Iraq and around the world)
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To: 50mm
Sorry about that. But I did send her to your post. It's not like I tried to steal credit.

Those are the facts. Check the transcript. See the case file!

1,664 posted on 04/07/2008 10:14:11 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye

Oh, man! That hurt! lol


1,665 posted on 04/07/2008 10:14:53 PM PDT by TNdandelion ("I'm down to my last toilet paper tube!")
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To: metmom
Maurice
1,666 posted on 04/07/2008 10:15:34 PM PDT by 50mm (Kill the gerbils!)
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To: TigersEye

See post 1666. Out of earshot of the spouse, of course.


1,667 posted on 04/07/2008 10:16:41 PM PDT by 50mm (Kill the gerbils!)
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To: 50mm
Hey, cool! I got you so shook up you chewed yourself out.

You're not getting ready to call me a domestic fowl excrement, poofter and get yourself zotted are you?

1,668 posted on 04/07/2008 10:17:11 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye

Nah the mad look is Q Q


1,669 posted on 04/07/2008 10:17:28 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: metmom

You went to bed...I just got back. shaking head...


1,670 posted on 04/07/2008 10:19:19 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: yorkie
You mean there are married folks, here?

Not happily. Why else would they be spending so much time on this thread?

Arghh. I think that is the first time I have ever insulted myself....hmmm

1,671 posted on 04/07/2008 10:19:22 PM PDT by 50mm (Kill the gerbils!)
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To: 50mm

Because they hate horror movies & are sick of the news & you make us laugh maybe? Duh 50mm!


1,672 posted on 04/07/2008 10:21:17 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: TNdandelion; 50mm
But you have survived. You have been gerbiled into the gang. You can never leave now or storm troopers will come to your house and strip you down, demanding to know where you're hiding the non-steroidal anti-imflammatories. On the bright side you need never answer a post with a direct response and may challenge any FReeper's assertions with "Reading is fundamental" no matter the subject. Welcome to the club!

50! A shot of Night Train for TNdandelion how 'bout?

1,673 posted on 04/07/2008 10:23:30 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye
Have you seen this one
1,674 posted on 04/07/2008 10:24:44 PM PDT by TNdandelion ("I'm down to my last toilet paper tube!")
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To: 50mm
"Why else would they be spending so much time on this thread?" Maybe 'they' need to laugh, and be silly, and share the fun with others, at the end of the day?
1,675 posted on 04/07/2008 10:25:42 PM PDT by yorkie (God Bless our Heroes in Iraq and around the world)
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To: yorkie
There's some that claim to be married, yorkie. I think it's just an excuse to turn down my offer of the good life in a rustic cabin miles from civilization without plumbing. It's lame.
1,676 posted on 04/07/2008 10:25:50 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: pandoraou812

I thought the mad look was more like ... Q%Q


1,677 posted on 04/07/2008 10:28:02 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye

Nah its just the wider space Q Q = mad , QQ =just looking. You have to know these things really TE!!!!


1,678 posted on 04/07/2008 10:30:19 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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To: TigersEye; pandoraou812
You're not getting ready to call me a domestic fowl excrement, poofter and get yourself zotted are you?

No, but how's this poophead:

Thou shall stand in fire up to the navel and in ice up to th'heart, and there th'offending part burns and the deceiving part freezes.

1,679 posted on 04/07/2008 10:30:31 PM PDT by 50mm (The Two Noble Kinsmen)
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To: 50mm
Arghh. I think that is the first time I have ever insulted myself....hmmm

lmao somehow I kinda doubt that!

1,680 posted on 04/07/2008 10:33:30 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot......OUT ..)
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