High School Strip Search Case goes to Supreme Court

[richlevy]

From here.

So basically, a girl with no prior record was strip searched based on hearsay from a fellow student. The drug in question was ibuprofin. The girls parents were not consulted. The school is saying that minors have about the same rights as prison inmates.

The 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the student. The Supreme Court may be set to overturn completely, allowing schools unimpeded right to strip and possibly even body cavity search students at will.

That being said, the tone of the questions does not always indicate how the justices will vote.

Instead, most of the justices voiced concern that students could hide dangerous drugs such as crack cocaine or heroin in their clothes.

The case before the court concerns a 13-year-old Arizona girl who was strip searched in a nurse's office after a school friend said the girl, Savana Redding, had brought white pills to school. The pills were extra-strength ibuprofen, which is commonly taken for headaches and cramps.

Last year, a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search of Savana Redding was unreasonable and unconstitutional since the pills were ibuprofen. And the court held that the school officials who ordered the search were liable for damages.

But in their comments and questions, most of the justices signaled they are inclined to overturn that decision.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the school officials should be shielded from being sued since the law governing school searches had not been clear. In the past, the court has said public officials cannot be held liable for damages unless they violate a "clearly established" right.

Better background here.

Imagine how f**cked up this country could be if the cops could break down the door of anyones house just because their neighbor made up a story.

[Aliantha]

She was searched by a nurse. Presumably a woman. What's the problem?

Something needs to be done about drugs in school. So it turned out to be nothing this time, but how bout next time when they do find cocain or heroin? Will there be any uproar then?

I don't agree with cavity searches. I think kids that're that serious about dealing drugs would do it outside of school hours, plus most school kids wouldn't want to buy something that came out of another students arsehole would they? (I'm sure there'd be a few though)

The issue here is dealing rather than users from what I can tell. If the school gets a report that a student came to school with 'pills', how should the school react? Let the kid have time to flush them or simply dump them on the floor when no one's looking? You know that's the common way to avoid a conviction right? If no one saw you drop the drugs you're standing on, ie. they can't prove you were the one holding them, they can't convict you.

If they thought my son had drugs in his posession I'd have no objection to a same sex teacher doing a strip search. If he had drugs on him, I'd be glad they found out because there's no way in hell I'd knowingly have my kid take drugs to school and he'd cop holy hell when he got home on top of whatever punishment the school and authorities could come up with too.

eta: The issue here is not about private property. It's about schools which are a public domain. Even if it's a private school, members of the public frequent the area making it a public place.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Something needs to be done about drugs in school.

Welcome to The War On Drugs, ladies and gentlemen. Extremism in defense of loss of liberty is no vice.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

So it turned out to be nothing this time, but how bout next time when they do find cocain or heroin? Will there be any uproar then?

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that this specific case was not about any illegal drug, yeah, I'd still have a problem with it. If they really have reason to believe the kid has drugs hidden on their body, then I expect them to call the police. I also expect them to call me.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I don't agree with cavity searches. I think kids that're that serious about dealing drugs would do it outside of school hours, plus most school kids wouldn't want to buy something that came out of another students arsehole would they? (I'm sure there'd be a few though)

So... you don't think the cavity search is wrong, you just don't think it would yield results often enough to be worth the trouble?

Originally Posted by Aliantha

If they thought my son had drugs in his posession I'd have no objection to a same sex teacher doing a strip search.

More power to you. In this country, however, we have, or had, something called the Fourth Amendment. And I've had it up to here with moronic "zero tolerance" policies. If your son really were dealing heroin out of his jeans, would it really make a difference to have him cool his heels for an hour or two--yes, supervised, with somebody keeping an eye on him at all times--to do things RIGHT, you know, with due process and all that other lame shit, instead of somebody deciding they know how to handle it because they saw Law & Order?

[classicman]

I agree with SD on this one. (Contrary to the bag search at the mall thread) If someone strip searched MY DAUGHTER at school based solely on another MINOR's say so.... for ibuprofen????? There would be major issues for THAT person. I'd show how we do a strip search. effin asshats.

[richlevy]

I think that taking a 13-year-old honor student and destroying her faith in how the system is supposed to work is a heavy price to pay for supposed safety. If you read the second article, you will note that schools now have more powers than the police. Students in schools, which they are forced to go to by law, seem to have about the same rights prison inmates.

We used to have civics classes in school to instill respect for law and a regard for the Consitution. Now we are getting our students used to the idea that they must give up their rights to remain safe.

We are not talking about subduing a violent student. We are not talking even about a weapons search, or even a search for a 'controlled substance'. We are talking about a strip search for prescription strength ibuprofin based on hearsay.

By that standard, any citizen could be searched at any time just by having someone point to them and say 'I think he is holding drugs'.

Now if someone wants to cordon off a slice of country and make a reservation where people who wish to sign away most of their constitutional rights and those of their children in exchange for 'safety' can go, then do so. Until then please do not try to water down my constitution in exchange for a false sense of security.

BTW, just out of curiosity, what would they have done if the girl refused to be strip searched?

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Students in schools, which they are forced to go to by law, seem to have about the same rights prison inmates.

Sure seems that way, doesn't it?

A few years ago, our older son was "written up" at High School. The charge? Coming to school under the influence ... OF NICOTINE.

That's right, a legal substance which the kid was old enough to smoke. They couldn't pop him for having tobacco on him (tobacco-free campus) so they tried to say that since he had smoked a cigarette on the way to school (in his own private vehicle) that he had come to school "under the influence".

These are strange times we live in.

[footfootfoot]

Re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

Reason #11,795,322 to homeschool.

[Alluvial]

I did homeschool our second son. No way was I going to send him to that HS. The place is weird ... during the day all of the outside doors are locked. There is a panel in the office which monitors each door. There is one door by which one can enter the school; it opens into an office where you must transact your business. You aren't allowed into the school itself.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that this specific case was not about any illegal drug, yeah, I'd still have a problem with it. If they really have reason to believe the kid has drugs hidden on their body, then I expect them to call the police. I also expect them to call me.

Who knew it was not about illegal drugs till they discovered it was ibuprophen? I'd guess the school had no idea what 'drugs' the child had till they'd found them.


So... you don't think the cavity search is wrong, you just don't think it would yield results often enough to be worth the trouble?

I don't think it's appropriate, but I also don't think it'd yield anything 99.9% of the time.


More power to you. In this country, however, we have, or had, something called the Fourth Amendment. And I've had it up to here with moronic "zero tolerance" policies. If your son really were dealing heroin out of his jeans, would it really make a difference to have him cool his heels for an hour or two--yes, supervised, with somebody keeping an eye on him at all times--to do things RIGHT, you know, with due process and all that other lame shit, instead of somebody deciding they know how to handle it because they saw Law & Order?

I don't think it's anything to do with who watched what TV show. It might just have been a school trying to save a child from having to deal with police and other authorities. Perhaps this whole situation has been blown out of proportion by the usual suspects screaming about rights being violated when all they were trying to do was protect the child herself and the rest of the student population. Why didn't she just turn the pills over rather than needing to be strip searched?

[Alluvial]

From the article:

In the case before the court, a vice principal at an Arizona middle school in 2003 told a nurse and an aide to take student Savana Redding to an office and to search her and her underwear to see if she was hiding the pills.

She had nothing to hide, and she and her mother sued Safford school officials on grounds that they had subjected her to an "unreasonable search."

It looks as though it wasn't a case of "turn the pills over" but hearsay that she had some hidden in her underwear.

Also:

The vice principal in this case had been told that some students had pills, and that they were to be passed around at lunchtime. Based on that report, "he was entitled to search anyplace where contraband might reasonably be found," said Matthew Wright, the district's lawyer.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked if that applied to a "body-cavity search."

Wright replied that no school official would undertake such a search, but he insisted that it would be legal.

That makes me uneasy.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Something needs to be done about drugs in school. So it turned out to be nothing this time, but how bout next time when they do find cocain or heroin?

I just told my local police that you have kiddy porn. Your police will arrest you, take your family away, strip search you looking for porn in body cavities, and ... well something must be done about kiddy porn. Meanwhile, reality:

Originally Posted by richlevy

... a girl with no prior record was strip searched based on hearsay from a fellow student. The drug in question was ibuprofin.

She was a kid. Therefore she must be hiding drug in her cunt? After all, something must be done about humans taking ibuprofen. We must protect the Tylenol industry?

There's got to be more to this story to get to the Supreme Court.

[xoxoxoBruce]

"How is a school administrator supposed to know?" Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked. "He sees a white pill and doesn't know if it is something terribly harmful, even deadly, or if it's prescription-strength ibuprofen."

If he saw the pill he should know what it was, but from what I've read he saw nothing and was working on hearsay.

She won last year before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the strip-search of an eighth-grader was unreasonable and unconstitutional and said that school officials who ordered the search were liable for damages.

That's how it got to the Supremes.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by tw

I just told my local police that you have kiddy porn. Your police will arrest you, take your family away, strip search you looking for porn in body cavities, and ... well something must be done about kiddy porn.

They can do whatever they like looking for whatever illegal contraband they might think I have. I have nothing to hide.

[Alluvial]

It strikes me that the authority of the school should be for educational matters, not police matters. If the vice principal was concerned that the girl was carrying something illegal, he should have involved the police.

I was surprised to find out that "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to minors WRT drug crimes. One kid can claim another was using drugs and the first kid can be arrested based on that. I found that out a few years ago.

[DanaC]

Fucking disgraceful. How dare they treat that child in such a cavalier fashion? There is no justification for this. None whatsoever. Can you imagine if an employer attempted to enforce an on the spot strip search of an employee because a co-worker said they'd seen them with some white pills? What would you do, as said employee? Would you go off quietly to be strip searched on the basis of an unfounded allegation, or would you refuse?

Wtf do you do if you're 13? Stand up for your civil liberties against people who have legal power of enforcement over you, in a place that you are legally obliged to attend?

Why, if they had suspicions, did they not contact the girl's parents and wait for them to attend? Why, when confronted with such an accusation against a girl with no previous record of trouble, did they not look for another explanation first (such as headache pills, ffs) and leave strip searching this young woman for a last fucking resort.

I am slightly shocked to hear anybody say this is in any way acceptable, justifiable, or proportionate to the situation.

There's a high incidence of drug use amongst healthcare workers. Should nurses be expected to submit to strip searches (or body cavity searches? ffs) on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations, and with no recourse to legal protection? It's high time we started treating children as full humans. They should have exactly the same rights to privacy and due process that any adult has.


[eta] Just as an aside, and stepping away from this girl's rights, what kind of educators treat their charges like this? Every single one of them should be ashamed of themselves. When did they allow themselves to cease being educators and become prison wardens? Where's their compassion, and regard for children? That they could leap so ungraciously to aggression and force, with a kid that's never caused them trouble...were they even seeing her? Did they even fucking look? Or have they just merged the whole student body into one big mass of trouble?