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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: yorkie

There is an awful lot of drinking on this thread. All I wanted was an Advil. ;^P


1,701 posted on 04/07/2008 10:58:07 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: 50mm

Oh now you are thanking heaven for little girls? Or big girls? I thought I was going to see more gerbils! I want gerbils! roflmfao!


1,702 posted on 04/07/2008 10:59:06 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: All

It is PANDY's BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthday, dear Pandy!

1,703 posted on 04/07/2008 10:59:35 PM PDT by yorkie (God Bless our Heroes in Iraq and around the world)
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To: yorkie

Aww thanks yorkie...Big hugs!


1,704 posted on 04/07/2008 11:00:31 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: 50mm

I’m sorry. I was watching the hamster play the piano. Could you ask me that again?


1,705 posted on 04/07/2008 11:00:41 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: pandoraou812; TigersEye; 50mm
Can’t trust the women here! sarc?

Except, Pandy, Animal! She's okay! Honest!

1,706 posted on 04/07/2008 11:01:31 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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To: 50mm

Hes watching tv feeling sorry for himself....


1,707 posted on 04/07/2008 11:02:37 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: TigersEye

Etiquette! PING! Courtesy! What’s with you tonight, T f’n E?


1,708 posted on 04/07/2008 11:03:01 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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To: pandoraou812

That’s why the text is so big! I wanted to be sure he could read it from where he is.


1,709 posted on 04/07/2008 11:03:53 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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To: yorkie
Ohhhhh, she's so cuuuuute.

What do you do with a birthday pandy?

What do you do with a birthday pandy?

What do you do with a birthday pandy?

Earl eye in the mornin'!

1,710 posted on 04/07/2008 11:04:11 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye

All I wanted was an Advil. ;^P

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

TE the only way you can get an advil is to be a prev & do perv things to get one don’t you know that yet? Better to want a Aleve. Safer for you in the long run


1,711 posted on 04/07/2008 11:05:08 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: 50mm
I dunno. I guess I ran out of things to do with an old dead gerbil.

I'm in kind of funk now.

1,712 posted on 04/07/2008 11:07:00 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: 50mm

No No No then I will have to leave & go to bed. I don’t want to go to bed...Its my birthday! Pouting


1,713 posted on 04/07/2008 11:07:29 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: TigersEye
Happy 30th birthday, Pandy!
1,714 posted on 04/07/2008 11:07:53 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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To: TigersEye
I'm in kind of funk now.

Hmm I the one whose 50 I should be in the funk not you...

1,715 posted on 04/07/2008 11:08:51 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: pandoraou812; 50mm; yorkie
In the old days did they make bad girls shake the willow bark out of their panties? Not that you would know what they did in the old days. I mean, oh crap, here comes the evil look again.

I pinged you, 50. Maybe you can take the blame here.

1,716 posted on 04/07/2008 11:09:20 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye
Try a different rodent.
1,717 posted on 04/07/2008 11:09:41 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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To: pandoraou812

I’m 53. Save it, kid. Q Q


1,718 posted on 04/07/2008 11:10:21 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Beijing 2008. Olympic Games for murdering regimes.)
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To: TigersEye

STO@TE! Q Q


1,719 posted on 04/07/2008 11:11:17 PM PDT by pandoraou812 (Out, damned spot........I mean gerbil....OUT ..)
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To: TigersEye; pandoraou812

Pandy told me she was 30. I messed up the BD wishes upthread.


1,720 posted on 04/07/2008 11:11:28 PM PDT by 50mm (Three blind gerbils. Three blind gerbils. See how they run? See how they run?)
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