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.
I grew up in a time when we thought the Berlin Wall would never collapse. It did though. Please consider the following:
* All that is needed is for enough parents to remove their children. Private school enrollment is growing, and homeschooling continues its 15% to 7% increase **every** year. Do the math.
* Also,,,please remember that those parents who are privately are politically very savvy. Homeschoolers, especially, are very, very highly networked.
* Then add to the mix the THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of children desperately languishing on waiting lists for charters. Do you really think that legislators will be deaf to their cries. I don't think so.
* Do you honestly think that having the homosexual agenda pushed in the government schools will help increase enrollment? I don't think so.
* We now have the Internet, talk radio, and Fox. Government school outrages and abuses are now getting the publicity that they deserve.
* Finally, homosexuals are moving into government teaching and administration. Homosexuals hire homosexuals. Parents will take note of this.
Conclusion: I am very hopeful. The cracks already exist in the government school citadel foundation, and the cracks widen every year.
For students? Surely you jest.
"In a 6-3 decision issued by Justice White in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the search and seizure by school officials without a warrant was constitutional as long as the search was deemed reasonable given the circumstances. The Court reaffirmed that there is a balancing between the individual's--even a child's--legitimate expectation of privacy and the school's interest in maintaining order and discipline. Accordingly, school officials do not need a warrant to search the belongings of students, but they do require a "reasonable suspicion"."
"This reasonable suspicion test, meaning the reasonableness of the search under all the circumstances, is a lesser standard than the Probable Cause standard. Such reasonableness is based on two criteria: 1, whether the action was justified at its inception; 2, whether the search as actually conducted was unreasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place."
Then you very well might not be playing with a full deck.
So THAT'S where it went!
The search turned up nothing, so everyone gets on their high horse about the injustice of it all. Cry me a river. My question stands - what if the search had turned up drugs?
Uh-huh. Then it would be, "Move along, nothing to see here". You KNOW Reason would never in a million years have even run the story.
It is difficult to respond to personal insult. What am I do say? That my “deck” is “full”?
By the way...I never contact the moderator about personal insult. I feel it is better to allow it to stand. It says soooo much more about the poster than it does about my “full deck”.
However the statement stands:
“There really comes a time when NO education is better that attending the government indoctrination camps. “
Can you describe for us the limits of mental and physical abuse and danger that is tolerable for a child in a government school before considering removing him?
Interesting choice for a metaphor. The Berlin Wall was some silly construct meant to keep people from being free; it was doomed to fall from the start. Public schools are public accommodations meant to bring education to everyone; they have been around---in my neck of the woods, anyway---from practically the very founding of the New World.
All that is needed is for enough parents to remove their children. Private school enrollment is growing, and homeschooling continues its 15% to 7% increase **every** year. Do the math.
I have no issue with those who choose to homeschool their children.
Also,,,please remember that those parents who are privately are politically very savvy. Homeschoolers, especially, are very, very highly networked.
That sort of blanket statement is very easy to make, and it may very well have some semblance of truth to it, but quite honestly, the sword cuts two ways. I know people who homeschool who are complete dimwits; they have no business at all educating a dog, let alone their own children. It's quite sad, actually, when one's political agenda so blinds that person to the cold, hard, truth---and the child suffers for it.
Do you honestly think that having the homosexual agenda pushed in the government schools will help increase enrollment? I don't think so.
Finally, homosexuals are moving into government teaching and administration. Homosexuals hire homosexuals. Parents will take note of this.
Homos don't frighten me. Not in the least.
Conclusion: I am very hopeful. The cracks already exist in the government school citadel foundation, and the cracks widen every year.
You see what you want to see, I guess, and this is what I see: I see the problem not so much as one with the concept of "public schools," but rather, the "mission creep" of public schools.
Well, let's be reasonable. The drug they were looking for was Advil, man---not kitty tranqs, not LSD, not meth, not coke, not horse, not smack, not booze, not even the Devil's Weed itself---but Advil. You do know the law, as I saw your post to another Freeper, and you're exactly right---the full force of the Fourth Amendment does not necessarily apply in a school setting or environment. But they weren't looking for anything more than Advil.
Don't you think having a 13-year-old girl drop her knickers and shake out her bra over Advil is a tad over the top?
Can you describe for us the limits of mental and physical abuse and danger that is tolerable for a child in a government school before considering removing him?
Is markedly different from the one you made to which I replied:
There really comes a time when NO education is better that attending the government indoctrination camps. I **seriously** mean this.
Do you really think it's better that a child be completely ignorant than attend a public school? Your statement was so ridiculously loaded with charged language that it was quite ridiculous, and therefore, it deserved to be ridiculed. Get a grip.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes! There **are** government schools that **are** so dangerous and culturally toxic that it would be better for the child to get *NO* education whatsoever than to ever go near them.
My kids were admitted to college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. Since they couldn't drive, I had plenty of opportunity to see what was going on around campus. I personally witnessed several examples of youth who were nearly completely illiterate and innumerate. These illiterate and innumerate youth were **graduates** of county government schools. Along with these illiterates and innumerates were **armies** of government high school grads who were in somewhat more advanced by still sorely lacking.
What I witnessed at the community college was **amazing**! They were able to prepare kids and adults who were essentially illiterate and innumerate for college level work. It took about 2 years. Imagine that! The community college could accomplish in 2 years what the government school failed to do in 13. (Same kids. Same intelligence. Same rotten family lives. Same poverty. Same motivation. ) Amazing!...The community college could teach these kids but 3 months early their government school couldn't. Go figure! ( sigh!)
So...It is time that we disabuse ourselves of the NEA talking point that a child without a government sponsored indoctrination is permanently condemned to ignorance. We have too many community college remedial courses and GED grads to prove this notion false.
By the way...I noticed that you did not respond to my comment that thousands of children are on waiting lists for charter schools. Do you really believe that legislators will be deaf to their cries?
What college?
Safford Middle School - 928-348-7040
She supplied prescription strength Advil and nonprescription naproxen to another student. You're saying you'd be surprised if she also had other drugs? C'mon.
"Don't you think having a 13-year-old girl drop her knickers and shake out her bra over Advil is a tad over the top?"
Well, I'm against zero tolerance. It should be left up to each school principal to run the school as they see fit and be judged by that. In this case, a warning to both students would have sufficed.
BUT, the school does have a zero tolerance policy. In my opinion, they could be in worse shape NOT searching the girl -- what if she WAS dealing drugs in the school?
For some parents those gov’t schools are just for babysitting .... but wouldn’t it be great if a lot of kids were pulled out of gov’t schools - think of all the money the schools would loose - shut down, administrators laid off, etc .....
According to the story:
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.
Based on the above, yeah, I'd be surprised if she were carrying around other drugs, especially on her person: (1) The search was based on nothing but an accusation, made by a girl who was already "busted" with "illegal" drugs (kind of analogous to a no-knock raid based on nothing but an informant's word). (2) The girl willingly submitted to a search of her backpack---the most likely place for her to be carrying drugs.
Your average pre-pubescent girl thinks spiders are icky . . . do you think there would be a large market for pills smuggled around in another girl's underwear or bra?
Geesh, I am not a girl, but, I would never consent to a pocket, much less a strip search from anyone but a police officer. “Suspended for refusing a strip search by a high school secretary” would not be too hard to explain later in life, if it ever came up.
The fallout would boggle the mind.
“And when your child ends up in the emergency room because of the Ecstasy pills they got from Savana,” blah, blah...
Then call the police, geesh!
If she was called to the office, she may have had time to transfer the drugs from her backpack to her bra. Her willingness to allow them to search her backpack was, therefore, meaningless.
So your objection to this whole incident is that she shouldn't have been searched at all because, at best, all they would have found would have been more Advil. But the Advil was against school policy. Which means you're saying they should have the policy (to please the parents) but not enforce it (to please the students).
I'm speechless.
You bet!
Right after I call my lawyer and tell him to start the paperwork to sue the school for $20 million for allowing a suspected drug dealer to roam the school hallways unimpeded by any search.
One wishes you had been speechless before you unsheathed your fangs and spit this noxious venom.
You are a damnable depraved lout with no sense of decency if you cannnot see how over the top the entire conduct of this school is. Your fascist notion of what is acceptable under a zero-tolerance policy just ran headlong into what is completely intolerable to a civilized society.
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