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.
If the law agrees with you then NJ legislators should be embarrassed not me. : )
No worries when? Before this incident? Before searching Marissa? After searching Marissa? Before searching Savana? After searching Savana?
"If it really was just Advil that the school was looking for, was it necessary to immediately strip search a 13 year old girl?"
It was prescription strength Advil. 400 mg. tablets that you can only get by prescription. That's what they were looking for. Those are against school policy. Yes, it was necessary. Are you saying maybe they should have waited a week or so?
I happen to live here in NJ. I asked all the now adult children of mine that live home if this would have happened in high school. Each said that if the school believes there is drugs on a student they do the following. They take the student to the office and ask if they have or are on drugs. They ask them to willingly submit to a urine test. The school calls the parents. The parents come down & talk to the child & decide if they want to urine test their child. If they don’t the cops are called in. The school will not search the student, a cop is called in. So thats how it is in my town which has zero tolerance on drugs.
And that should tell you everything you need to know about the source of the article.
Libertarians denigrating child molesters. Now that's funny.
New Jersey v. T.L.O. is a court case that defined the fourth amedment right of students. The New Jersey legislature had nothing to do with it.
Get off your lazy a$$ and educate yourself.
Given your vigorous defense of the child molesters here that statement says more about you than anything I could ever come back with. : )
No worries about LSD or Ecstasy before they searched Savanna. You know, at the time they had reason to be believe she had "done something wrong, not illegal".
It was prescription strength Advil. 400 mg. tablets that you can only get by prescription. That's what they were looking for. Those are against school policy. Yes, it was necessary. Are you saying maybe they should have waited a week or so?
Oh, the ones that are equivalent to two regular Advil. I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure hiding those on your person isn't going to put your life or health at risk. So I think the school probably had enough time to notify her parents.
New Jersey v. T.L.O.
Wow. You favor strip searching little girls just because they might be suspected of carrying contraband like Advil that would disrupt order and discipline?
Would you allow a school nurse to strip search you based on suspicion alone? Or your workplace nurse?
Do you seriously think like the principal that just because nothing was found that it wasn’t traumatic or humiliation for her?
Just what do you do for a living anyway that you can justify this? Are you an educator?
Some kid at our local high school supplied some names to the administration of those who he claimed were doing drugs..... to deflect the attention off himself. The kids he accused were innocent.
So the girl found with the medicine said that she got it from someone else. Big deal. The girl allowed a search of her backpack, showing she had nothing to hide. Emptying her pockets MIGHT be justified. A strip search? No way.
The kind of society that would permit a strip search of a young girl on unreliable accusations and suspicion alone. At that point a cavity search is not far down the road.
And of course, this kind of society is getting the full support and blessings of nanny-staters.
Who would want to take Advil stored there anyway?
If she’s going to stash it, a trash can or toilet would be a better bet. It’s not like you can’t get more Advil easily enough anyway and it’s not that expensive, not like hard drugs.
Thats kinda my point. If it were hard drugs like meth I could understand it that someone would do something desperate. But advil?
Public schools are a farce
My daughter said that’s about what she’d do if someone tried to pull something like that on her.
I taught all my children to be polite but that they have rights too. If they are asked to do something they don’t want to do tell the school to call me or call a cop. I think this story is sick. I seen no reason that this child was forced to strip down to her underwear. Over another girl’s word? This school needs to be sued & its principal fired along with any other adult who went along with this .
And your kids are perfect, no doubt....
Based on what, exactly? An uncorroborated accusation---an accusation in which the accuser herself admitted she didn't know if the accused had any of those prohibited drugs on her person---let alone stashed in her underwear or bra. The administrator made that leap all by himself; he's the one who decided to conduct a strip search when he could find nothing otherwise.
Once again, a questionable accusation from a person with a motive to lie is not exactly the kind of probable cause or reasonable suspicion you would expect one would need before conducting a strip search. Even you admit further up on the thread that there are other ways to handle this---involve the cops, for instance. The kind of person who would go from uncorroborated accusations straight to strip searches should be parking cars for a living; he should not be in any sort of position of authority.
You're really not fighting the good fight here.
Good on you on having such smart kids. I hope I’m as lucky, even though I probably won’t home school.
Even if this were true, how does this prove your allegation that all public school teachers are “dimwits?”
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