Supreme Court Debates Strip Searching Middle Schoolers
Posted by: Olivia Allin
Filed in:
news
9:00AM, Thursday April 23rd 2009
The Supreme Court spent an hour yesterday debating, as the New York TImes put it, “what middle school students are apt to put in their underwear.” The case dealt with a 2003 incident in Arizona when then 13-year-old Savana Redding was strip-searched by school officials who suspected she was hiding prescription ibuprofen in her undies. [New York Times]
Ibuprofen? Don’t middle school officials have bigger things to worry about? Like weapons?
Highlights from the trial:
- Sweet Justice. Justice Stephen Breyer said adolescents hiding pills in their pantaloons seemed logical to him. “We changed for gym, O.K.? And in my experience, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear,” he said. The courtroom erupted with laughter. Who says Supreme Court justices don’t have a sense of humor?
- Say What? Lawyer Adam Wolf disagreed, saying that the male assistant principal who ordered the search was acting on a hunch. “If Savana was currently concealing ibuprofen pills underneath her underpants for others’ oral consumption ... there’s a certain ick factor,” he said. What kind of middle schoolers are taking recreational ibuprofen? Is that even illegal?
- The Wright Wrong. School district representative Matthew Wright ascertained that “intimate searches” should be allowed, even for over-the-counter drugs, but searches of students’ body cavities shouldn’t be, because school officials are not trained to conduct such searches. What did these poor kids do to deserve cavity searches? Are they dealing meth or kicking puppies?
- The Logical Song. David O’Neil, an assistant to the solicitor general representing the federal government, was more helpful. “Certainly there is no practice anywhere, that I’m aware of, of hiding ibuprofen in underwear,” he said. “On the other hand, if there is good reason to think a student is keeping contraband in her underwear, you could go directly to that location.” What would be a good reason to suspect? Pill bottle-shaped bulges?
- Crotch Pocket. Mr. Wolf agreed that strip searches might be appropriate, if the school has evidence that a student has a habit of “crotching” drugs. What a reputation that would be! And we thought having cooties was bad.
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shannac02
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:04 am: [report]
WTF? Perscription strength Ibuprofen???? What ever happened to the good ol’ days of smoking crack and carrying assault rifles? I guess the schools are SO safe now that they’re cracking down on Ibuprofen? I’m confused…
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:13 am: [report]
I’ve been following this story for a couple months now…
Nick at Night
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:14 am: [report]
These are just perverts looking for an excuse to abuse and humiliate children.
mdtobe
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:20 am: [report]
Taking drugs (of any kind) that are prescribed for someone else is illegal, as is giving other people drugs that are prescribed to you.
joyy
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:21 am: [report]
@NickatNight - read some more history on the story. While I think the stripsearch was TOTALLY uncalled for, I hardly thing this was an action driven by perversion to abuse children.
YES, it was wrong to strip search, but it seems the school went a little too ballz-out with the zero-tolerance thing and neglected to call in parents or take any other reasonable action on what was an unsubstantiated accusation (that was proved false).
shannac02
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:30 am: [report]
@mdtobe
Duh. But all “prescription strength” Ibuprofen is, is 800mg, which is 4 regular Ibuprofen.
mdtobe
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:33 am: [report]
@shannac02: then tell them to take 4 regulars, because taking the prescription one is illegal and taking 4 regular ones isn’t. They’re not going to do anything about it, but she asked if it was even illegal, and the answer is yes.
Little Lamb
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:34 am: [report]
I am a middle school teacher, and I cannot imagine my school ever letting a principal do anything like this.
Our school has an SRO (School Resource Officer-is a policeman assigned to our school). Many larger school districts have at least one that works for their district. It seems to me that this is a job for the SRO. If a school doesn’t have one, a regular police officer should be called to investigate.
mdtobe
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:36 am: [report]
Besides, trying to get high off of ibuprofen is stupid on so many levels. For god’s sake, no matter how much you take you’ll never get high from it, you’ll just get an ulcer.
PinkRanger
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 09:41 am: [report]
@Little Lamb: exactly! School officials have no business strip searching anyone, especially on the basis of another students word.
40yrolddad
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 10:24 am: [report]
I don’t know what disturbs me most about this story: that the school did it in the 1st place, that a lower court initially upheld them or that SCOTUS thinks there is anything to debate here! even _IF_ you believe non-law enforcement school personnel have the right to strip search students (which I don’t but for arguments sake) then the next ?s are:
a) is there a minimum threshold for what can be the target of a strip search? if another kid says my daughter’s hiding their eraser in her underwear is that serious enough? is it ANY “contraband”? I live in Cobb Co GA (notorious for lots of idiocy) where an elementary school girl was EXPELLED (yes, EXPELLED, not suspended) for a Tweety-bird nail-clipper - is THAT “dangerous” enough to strip search for?
b) is there a minimum threshold for probably cause? as I understand it the ONLY evidence against the victim was the word of the other girl who had already been caught - yeah, real credible witness there…
if the answers to these ?s is no then are children are no longer safe at school - FROM THE FACULTY/ADMINISTRATION! if the answer to EITHER ? is yes (I would certainly argue both are) then the ? is where should both lines be drawn? I don’t know if there’s a “one size fits all” answer to either but anybody who doesn’t think this case clearly fails both tests does NOT need to be in a position of power over children (& frankly any justice that thinks so needs to retire)!!!
Katrina
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 11:37 am: [report]
Why would kicking puppies require a cavity search?
I think this is ridiculous, honestly. And I agree, who’s going to have such an addiction to ibuprofen, something most people have at home anyway, that they’ll eat pills stored in someone else’s undies? That’s just icky.
shannac02
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 11:41 am: [report]
I’m sure its more of a problem with her carrying them around with her, rather than checking them through the school office or nurse, that is the big problem. I’m almost positive that even stupid teenagers wouldn’t think that you can get high off of Ibuprofen.
Anniekins
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 02:04 pm: [report]
As a teacher, I cannot imagine school personnel doing this! Were they (the school staff) high? They got waaaay too carried away with zero tolerance. I’m so tired of teachers/administrators doing **** that makes the all of us look like dirtbags.
Taurwen
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 02:48 pm: [report]
Um… I know Canada and the States are a little different, but this whole thing confuses me, my teachers (or any personnel at the school for that matter) weren’t allowed to even ~touch~ us, let alone do a trip search.
theattack
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]
The only way I can imagine justifying a strip search of a middle school girl would be if the girl was carrying around a deadly weapon in her pretty pink pearls. Even then, school officials are not the ones that should be doing it.
If I have a child, am I really going to have to worry about whether or not she’s going to be legally humiliated sexually by her school officials?
Taurwen
wrote on April 23 2009 @ 03:23 pm: [report]
***strip search