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.
Oops. Forgot to ping you here, Bobby.....er....Mojave.
Time to call the VK’s for an investigation.
Happened yesterday, or last night.
See posts 388 and 389.
But it’s so much fun when we get to play with the trolls before they get zotted.
Thanks to the mods....
I missed something here, robertpaulsen rode the lightening, but other than being a complete jackass in the same vein, why do people seem to believe that him and this dipwad Mojave are one and the same? I mean, I’ve never seen them in the same place together, but that doesn’t mean anything...does it?
Bad attitude mostly. Mojave says he's only suspended.
Just a hunch at this point.
Oh they’ve been on the same threads before but that means nothing. People can have 2 computers etc. Its just how strange it is one was removed & then one just like it came on..Just a bit odd.
Or Cultural Jihad?
It is illustrated here quite clearly that some know very well that this legal confusion exists and gives them great confidence that they can do almost anything with a child under their authority and fear no legal repercussions. There is a definite sense in these posts of a gleeful excitation that this is so. Knowing a little about your husband I recommend that he doesn't put himself in a position where he is faced with having to accept that the authorities have found refuge in this legal confusion and used it to play with your daughter.
Justice would be served I have no doubt. But the reaction by the state that followed it would only bring more suffering to all of you.
BTW, since you are a veteran FReeper, what's an "ash alert?"
Well said!
Yep, that would do it. Good riddance, RP.
Michael Frazier
“Just a hunch at this point.”
Probably a good one. I’ve not had many dealings with trolls but this one seems to believe that what was done to a little girl was just fine and dandy.
I have daughters.
I’d be in prison for what I’d have done to the people that tried this with my kid.
How would he know?
Hmmmm.....
You have FReep-mail.
I’d guess “ash alert” would refer to what is left over from a zot.
See post 605. Mojave is avoiding that one like the plague. RP didn’t like the jist of it either...hmm!
Very true & thats another very good reason to get her away from the govt schools. There is no point in sending my child to a place where she can be terrorized & her rights be dismissed as though she is nothing. And without my permission as her mother her clothing removed for a ADVIL.. I wonder how comfortable were the adults who did this? If I were the asked to be a part of such a search without the mother being present I would have said no. I am going to call my BOE & ask if this is part of a nurse’s job or any school employee’s.
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