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.
Which “fact” did I invent?
I would have to agree with you. Each one of these adults should be sued & fired.
Projection.
Why don’t you answer my questions? Shall I repeat them again?
The civil suit failed. You really should read the decision.
Finally, despite all of your illogical and empty bloviating, you have still to make a single apostrophied expletive deleted point.
We all want to know? Do you approve of the actions of these school officials? Why do you think it is ok to go searching the skivies of a teenage girl for an Advil? Is it ok to do this if she "volunteers?"
Public schools or full of adult child predators, both male and female.That's a statement, not a question. Or did you mean to append a question mark?
Ya can't leave out what isn't there.
"Public schools or full of adult child predators, both male and female. This is well documented daily and weekly in this country. You haven't' heard?"
The doctrine of "Loco Parentis"Britannica.com:
[teachers] [...]
The doctrine of in loco parentisWhen minor children are entrusted by parents to a school, the parents delegate to the school certain responsibilities for their children, and the school has certain liabilities. In effect, the school and the teachers take some of the responsibility and some of the authority of the parents. The exact extent and nature of this responsibility and power vary from one society to another and from one school system to another. This is spelled out to some extent in the law, but much of it is determined by local custom and practice.
There is, of course, a relation between the age of the child on the one hand and the teacher's responsibility and liability for it on the other. The young child must obey the teacher, and the teacher may use the methods expected and tolerated in the community to control the child's behaviour. Furthermore, the child's physical safety is entrusted to the school and to the teacher, who thus become legally liable for the child's safety, insofar as negligence can be proved against them.
Now we know your personal standard of "local custom and practice." Other than you only the late great pervert robertpaulsen considers the actions that took place in this school as examples of "methods expected and tolerated in the community to control the child's behaviour." You have the "facts" of an untried case on your side. The ones you pick and choose. What you don't have is any sense of decency or propriety that anyone else on this board agrees with. That is a fact. You are viewed here as a repugnant, immoral zealot for authoritarian control of the population. That is also a fact. You have your "facts" and we have ours. Good day to you, slug.
That was your question?
That's so sad.
You need to read it. The Civil suit did not fail. It was dismissed in summary dispostion, plaintiff appealed and that is the subject of the appeal. The COA 3 judge pannel upheld the dismissal. On application for leave to the COA en banc, leave was granted, oral arguments heard, and the full court can reverse. If they did not see grounds that might cause them to reverse they would have denied the en banc appeal.
A reversal by the COA en banc means that the case goes back to trial, i.e. the lawsuit will go ahead.
We already said all of that and you ignored it. Don't kick up more dust by distracting folks as to what is going on here. This lawsuit is very much alive, and some publicity, of the kind you are bringing, might cause some of the judges to concentrate on the seriousness of the issues before them.
“Public schools or full of adult child predators, both male and female. This is well documented daily and weekly in this country. You haven’t’ heard?”
Do ya see the question mark freddy?
I wonder if this was your child would you be so agreeable to have her clothes removed? You may want the school to have total control over children but clearly almost everyone disagrees with you. In fact only robertpaulsen sounds just like you. Are you related by chance?
Even suspended, you're afraid to ping him.
I find your fantasy about my children disturbing.
We are waiting for you to put your shriveled up excuse of a manhood on the table and tell us what YOU think. But you are too much of a snake in the grass to come out in the light of day.
Read the article again.
Apparently you have reading comprehension issues and it didn’t sink in the first time.
Yes. Why do you ask?
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