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.e. the answer is obviously a lot less tax money. “
Less money and fewer liberals in charge. IMO
Several years ago I read a story about LA County schools. How they laid off 3 teachers to fund a study on why they didn’t have enough teachers.
And these same school officials probably wonder what motivates children to bring weapons to school and slaughter teachers and administrators.
“It’s humiliating and OTT, but comparing it to sexual abuse trivialises the genuine article, which this was certainly not...”
Its not physical rape but it is sexual abuse. Forcing a child to strip meets the definition of sexual battery. It was certainly traumatic for this young girl.
I say we strip search the Supremes and see how they like it! Especially Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the little rat.
If they had taken pictures, it would have been a Federal felony.
This case was made for you.
nanny state/health nazi gone mad ping
Just wait... edu-nazi's in schools all across the country are banning the possession, consumption and sale of sugar and "junk food" by students. One more incremental step toward taking away parental control and training kids to accept a totalitarian state.
breasts and crotch ARE sexual, ya can’t deny that......
Not really, I just lump them both together.
Had at one time instructed my kids that if anything like this started they were to resist with all their might.
Then Dad was gonna bring armageddon down on the school's ass.
Ping for all your lists it looks like. Somebody would die if I found out they did this to my daughter.
Public schools are getting more and more like prisons, and treating students like criminals. It is insanity. I am so happy that my children are all out of public schools- I would not be a popular parent. We can thank zero tolerance for this; zero tolerance means zero common sense in many schools.
I think if a school ever feels it is necessary to treat a student like a criminal, they need to call in law enforcement to handle the situation. I do not think it is the place of administration, teachers, or school nurses to strip search students. I also think parent notification should be mandatory before things ever get this far.
I know I would have ended up in jail if that had happened to one of my daughters. I would have had to put a serious hurt on someone that did that to one of my children.
Better for me to homeschool my kids than spend time in jail for ripping the persons who did this limb from limb.
PRINCIPAL MOSS: According to the school board's zero-tolerance policy, anything that can be used as a weapon is a weapon.
HANK: Well, that's just asinine!
PRINCIPAL MOSS: Hey, my hands are tied. If I showed even a little bit of tolerance, we couldn't call it zero-tolerance.
HANK: Damn zero-tolerance. Using a saw as a weapon makes about as much sense as using a gun to cut a two-by-four. That's how my dad built my treehouse. How he cleaned it, too.
“That principal is extremely lucky that was not my daughter.”
Amen to that.
No laws broken in strip search
Yamhill County district attorney bases his decision on a state police report
March 28, 1998
By Dana Tims and Inara Verzemnieks of The Oregonian staff
McMINNVILLE - Yamhill County District Attorney Brad Berry said Friday that no laws were broken in the Jan. 29 strip search of girls at Duniway Middle School, although mistakes in judgment were made.
Forty-five girls between the ages of 12 and 14 were detained after thefts were reported in a third-period gym class. Forty-four were students in the class, but school officials also pulled a girl out of another class who had been in the locker room during the gym class period.
All but seven of the girls were strip-searched by women police employees. A school district official halted the process an hour after it began.
"I don't feel there was sufficient probable cause to search these girls," Berry said. His decision not to press charges was based on his review of a 1,000-page report the Oregon State Police compiled on the Duniway incident at the McMinnville Police Department's request. "Mistakes have been made," Berry said. "Now we need to learn from those mistakes and move on."
The two adults who oversaw the search have already faced some consequences for their roles. McMinnville Police Officer Kent Stuart, who was the school resource officer, was transferred to patrol, and Pat Jenkins, Duniway vice principal, resigned.
Berry said there was no evidence of criminal intent underlying the actions of Jenkins or Stuart.
According to the findings of the state police investigation, this is what happened at Duniway that day: About 11 a.m., the girls discovered that their locker room had been ransacked. Money, a compact disc player, compact discs, candy, jewelry and makeup were missing.
They told their gym teacher. She told Jenkins, who summoned Stuart to come with her to the gym.
Stuart asked the guilty party to come forward. No one did. After consulting with Jenkins, Stuart told the girls, "If you don't come forward you will be strip-searched," Berry said.
-snip-
The women police employees patted the girls down and asked them to shake out their bras, unbutton their pants and quickly pull their underwear down and up to see whether any of the stolen items might fall out.
-end excerpt-
From the Oregonian via http://harbaughboyz.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
FR EXCLUSIVE: Did a $1 Million Clinton Library Donation Come from a Scam Against a Chicago Bank?
Gun Legislation in the U.S. By State This has a convenient map. I can't vouch for accuracy.
http://www.nraila.org/GunLaws/ N.B. Most states had pdf links when I last looked.
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