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.
You really need to go read the case. First the facts were about the search of girl's bags for cigarettes after she was found smoking. I personally believe that even this is going too far. She was smoking, it is against the rules and an appropriate disciplinary measure should be taken (raking leaves on the week-end, extra hour of homework or some such used to be usual for petty infractions like this.).
Second, however, we would all argue that even under this standard, a strip search for Advil is never "justified at its inception." NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.
Those who are attacking him did so to his face earlier. It's not our fault he lost his cool and hurled invectives that got him ZOTted. If and when he comes back, we'll continue the debate, assuming he can watch his tongue. My guess is he won't be back. His posting history may prevent that.
Which is why you're running from them. Nothng new there.
Who stripped her?
[crickets]
Just like with Mojave, it is not a debate. Neither of them make an argument, i.e. a set of facts and a set of logically drawn deductions leading to a conclusion. It is all mud-slinging, like this coward Mojave who will not stand up and make his own point so that we can debate it.
The decision included both conclusions of law and a presentaion of the facts in the case. You've been unable to address either.
The rest of us know the answer to this question. Apparently you cannot read and don't since you keep asking it.
Now what is your point, coward.
Projection, irony, hypocrisy...
If you actually have a point, make it.
But you can't type the "answer".
Fascinating.
“Who stripped her?”
She was forced to strip by those in authority over her. Try that in a work environment and see what happens to you.
He replied with the invectives to your post 278.
I have a couple of other targets in mind.
Would some of those targets be on this thread? ;-|
And then reverted to form when they couldn't address the facts he posted.
Since you claim to have such an overwhelming command of the facts, please for the sake of advancing this cause, outline the facts that you find persuasive in this case, and what conclusion you would reach. Double dare you sissy coward.
Thank you for your sourceless assertion.
From the actual decision:
The search of Redding’s person was conducted by two employees who were of the same gender as Redding, and the search took place in the privacy of the school nurse’s office with the door securely locked...Redding was not physically touched in any way during the search, and she was not asked to remove her bra or underwear.
What facts man? What facts? State some facts, you little sissy. Dare you you little whimp. Not cut and paste. Bullets. Key facts that you rely upon and the conclusion that you draw from them. Get a spine. Argue your own case man. Facts. Facts. You keep hammering on the facts.
State one "fact" just to prove that you even know what a fact is.
Merely reading the decision is sufficient to take your fantasies apart.
We listened to his arguments and disagreed as do the vast majority of FReepers. He lost his temper and got the ZOT.
Fascinating. Orwell would love you.
Got spanked and reverted to form.
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