Seventh Circuit Issues Landmark Decision for Parental Rights Against Abusive Social Workers

AFA Center for Law & Policy ^ | 4/17/2003 | American Family Association

[Remedy]

Chicago --Yesterday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision upholding 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 force their way into a private school, Greendale Baptist Academy, 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 the school principal, 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, 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.

"This is a tremendous victory for parental rights," said Steve Crampton, Chief Counsel for the Center for Law & Policy, which represented the parents. Mike Dean, counsel for the school, commented, "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."

[Remedy]

ED : The real reason the state opposes homeschoolingYes, government has an obligation to ensure that children receive an adequate education. But in several states, such as California and Illinois, educrats are threatening parents with court action if they don't allow officials to intrude into their homes and evaluate their programs beyond the authority of state law. The game gets rough. In Illinois, according to the Chicago Tribune, truant officers arrive in police cars, bearing letters telling parents to come to "pretrial hearings" At least one officer told a parent "we can take your children away."

SODOMY : He has no mama nowCounty governments' subtle antagonism toward religious and conservative families also aggravates the backlog of homeless children, according to social workers like Larry Phillips, who recently won a lawsuit against the Missouri government after being fired for refusing to place children with homosexuals because of his religious beliefs.

[John Lenin]

It takes a village, at it's finest.

[narses]

Ping.

[Mr. Lucky]

The Court's Opinion is available on the Sevent Circuit's website. I don't have a clue how to post the link, but the opinion was issued April 16 , 2003, in Doe v. Heck,, case #01-3648.

This makes a very worthwhile Sunday afternoon read for those interested in individual liberty.

The opinion is lengthy, but very well written and expounds at length on the most fundamental right of a man and woman to marry, have children and raise them without intereference from the government. The court did, however, find that the case workers had "qualified immunity", which means that the law was sufficiently unsettled in this area that the court would not impose a penalty in this instance. At least in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, the law is now very well settled and the next government welfare worker who thinks the United States Constitution doesn't apply to her behavior is fully exposed to liability.

[Always Right]

What a great ruling. Social workers deal with some horrible problems, but the ends doesn't always justify their means. Too often social workers have an anti-Christian bias and with their extra-Constitutional powers, this ended up being a nasty combination.

[ThreePuttinDude]

The Article from the Wisconsin Law Journal

[WaterDragon]

The ruling is so very welcome. While I don't like corporal punishment, I do think parents have the right, no -- the responsibility -- to make those decisions...NOT the state. There are perfectly adequate assault laws against battering children or anyone else.

Well, clearly we need to do more grassroots work to pressure Congress to okay Bush's court nominees. We need MORE judges who follow the law.

[webstersII]

Does this ruling have national implications or does it only apply to the state?

[jimtorr]

The ruling only applies to the 7th district (MN, IL, IN), yes. However, it can now be cited as precedent by attorneys nation-wide.

Courts outside the district are not bound to follow the precedent, but the fact that there is such a ruling makes it more likely that appeals courts will aggree.

[nothingnew]

Excellent decision...take that Neo-Nazi-Nannies!

FMCDH

[raybbr]

Here it is. It's in PDF format which means your computer should launch Adobe Acrobat when opened. It's kind of long and written in a lot of legalese. If you take the time to read it, you'll note that they totally support the school's policy vis-a-vis the parent's giving permission to the school to pass out punishment.
"http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op3.fwx?submit1=showop&caseno=01-3648.PDF"

[kitkat]

BUMP EXCELLENT NEWS

[agitator]

bump for later

[TxBec]

Good news ping.

[raybbr]

I'll try again.

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op3.fwx?submit1=showop&caseno=01-3648.PDF

[Calvin Locke]

IMO, social workers are the new breed of fascists. Extremely intolerant of whatever the quack and charlatan prevailing view of "the norm" is.

Never mind the law. Never mind the facts. It is a shyster business that feeds off of creating and maintaining problems
where there were none or few previously.

[2Jedismom]

Ping!

[Always Right]

Never mind the law. Never mind the facts. It is a shyster business that feeds off of creating and maintaining problems where there were none or few previously.

I am not gonna argue that social workers aren't fascists, as many of them are, but there are also many real cases of abused and neglected children.

[supercat]

I am not gonna argue that social workers aren't fascists, as many of them are, but there are also many real cases of abused and neglected children.

Unfortunately, many [not all] social workers would rather nose in on cases where they don't belong than intervene in cases where they do. Much like many other government agencies.

[Carry_Okie]

I am not gonna argue that social workers aren't fascists, as many of them are, but there are also many real cases of abused and neglected children.

My wife managed a newborn nursery at a hospital whose customer base was heavily represented by illegals and other lower lifeforms. It was not uncommon that she would see a drug mom on her third kid (and sometimes fifth pregnancy) before the age of eighteen. The State would do nothing. The system doesn't help those kids because they are hard to adopt.

CPS gets an extra $40,000 if they adopt a child quickly. So they consequently focus upon confiscating kids who are easy to adopt. In addition to their ideological predispositions (here in Santa Crux, CA, the CPS office is reportedly dominated by lesbian women), that's why they raid upper middle-class, white Christian families.