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.
Some balancing is required between the nature of the offense and the appropriateness of the intrusion to investigate the offense. Some offenses we could put in the category of being offenses only if they are in plain sight. Someone getting drunk in the privacy of his home or club and not causing immediate offense causes no offense to the state. But I have never liked the "conservative" view of search and seizure, and Scalia's views of the power of the state here, I think, will tarnish his reputation as an originalist in the long term.
That 9th decision was bad. Reminded me of the "turn in your neighbor" policies. This isn't a bomb or gun threat or anything with imminent danger. This isn't "Special needs," as far as I can see. This is at worst and advanced form of over the counter medication - 2 Advils. What I liked about the dissent, is that it never lost sight of that fact. This is less severe than even smokin' in the girls room.
If this happened in a state university version of Princeton, there would be hell to pay, and I think would have been tossed out.
My worry is that too many conservatives are so worried about "special needs doctrine" for emergencies that they'll put up with this type of stuff to reserve that power. That's what balancing acts do. I've seen the attitudes change just here on FR over the last 7 years, and that includes among lawyers.
Clearly not. What’s a young girl’s right count for anyway to perverts like that. They’ll use any excuse to molest someone, or support it.
I still think his job is being a principal. Only another principal is brain damaged enough to see nothing wrong with this.
That he will never do. He hasn’t done so yet. All he’s done is approved of child molestation and abuse and projected his perverted fantasies on everyone else accusing them of thinking like he does.
Not based on statements or actions by school staff.
But feel free to try produce any.
He can’t get a clue. Like an object falling into a black hole, it’ll get lost forever in the space that should have been occupied by his brain.
No quote, of course.
The folks who want "special powers" ought to understand the clear distinction between the need for dealing with incursions of terrorists and this sort of thing. Confuting the one with the other to justify strip searching girls to see if they are carrying Advil, demonstrates that the untrammeled powers of the state are a greater threat than terrorists ever could be.
You already supplied it.
You can't support your assertion. Dude.
I think you would be a poor student.
Nope the average principal has more problems and responsibilities than any reasonable human being can cope with. Clear guidelines on where to draw the line is his/her friend. This guy is clearly a power-hungry assistant deputy administrator for BS. That is the sort of person who lusts after the instruments of authority.
It's not just kids. Parents are the same way.
Somehow this mentality that the schools have the authority to tell you what to do with your private, personal life has cropped up (no doubt aided by the teachers unions and other mindless jack booted thug perverts who want absolute control over others) and parents have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Now they can't think or make decisions for themselves without looking for the schools permission. Just the way some people like it.
But strangely you can't quote the "demand".
That doesn't matter.
You certainly aren't responsible for anything having to do with education, since you don't even understand what a dictionary is for.
I know. All that matters is what you feel.
It depends on who’s on the receiving end of the strip search. The principal should be subject to one in front of a school nurse and another teacher.
You are basing your defense of these jack-booted thugs on the splitting of a semantic hair that won't split.
Your deranged fantasies. That's what you've been arguing for all along.
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