Strip Searching a 13 Year Old Girl

Strip Searching a 13 Year Old Girl

Gee, what were they looking for that could justify such an intrusive search? From the June 26, 2009 Washington Post:

Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on the suspicion she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The decision put school districts on notice that such searches are "categorically distinct" from other efforts to combat illegal drugs.

In a case that had drawn attention from educators, parents and civil libertarians across the country, the court ruled 8 to 1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search or seizure.

Justice David H. Souter, writing perhaps his final opinion for the court, said that in the search of Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, school officials overreacted to vague accusations that Redding was violating school policy by possessing the ibuprofen, equivalent to two tablets of Advil. [emphasis added]

Wow. Not weapons. Not plastic explosives. A pain killer that the article describes as "prescription strength"--but I can buy bottles of 200 mg ibuprofen, and take enough to get the same result. It's still an over the counter painkiller.

I'm disappointed that Justice Thomas dissented on this, but I'll read his dissent before I get too upset. But clearly: strip searching a 13 year old for ibuprofen? The Court declined to hold the idiot who ordered this strip search personally liable. I don't think that I would have been so nice.

Francisco M. Negrón Jr., general counsel for the National School Boards Association, said he was glad the court recognized that the school officials had acted "in good faith."

I'm sure that they did act in good faith. But how about with a working brain?

UPDATE: I just read Thomas' opinion, which is "concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part." Thomas makes two points where I can somewhat see his point, but still think he's wrong.

His first point is that the Court made a mistake in the Tinker (1969) case when they scrapped in loco parentis as the rule for schools having the authority to act in place of the parents for maintaining order and discipline. He points to not only the serious prescription drug problem nationally, but the particular problems that the school in question was having involving alcohol and prescription drug abuse by its students--and argues that the problem is a bit more serious than the majority implies. He points out that there is an implication in the majority opinion that a near strip search for illegal drugs might be justified.

The second point that Thomas makes is that there is a well established set of precedents holding that once a police officer believes that a crime has taken place, it doesn't matter how trivial that crime it is: the police officer is supposed to arrest. Thomas' point is that we are going to create a real problem figuring out at what point a police officer has gone too far in performing a search based on how trivial the crime is. Continuous second guessing about, "Is this serious enough to take action?" saps the willingness of school administrators to do their job.

I agree that there is way, way too much finding of constitutional rights in places that the Framers never intended. I am also incensed that the rules keep changing to satisfy political correctness. You want to wear black armbands to protest the War in Vietnam? That's protected free speech. You want to wear a T-shirt on "National Coming Out Day" that expresses an opinion about homosexuality? That's not protected free speech. But I still reiterate my earlier point: I expect school administrators to think occasionally, and use a little common sense.

Of course, part of the problem is that equal protection suits have caused school administrators to go utterly beserk in "zero tolerance" because if you start behaving as though you have a brain, someone is going to sue you because Johnny wasn't expelled for having a pocket knife in his car in the parking lot, but Emilio was expelled for carrying a switchblade knife in his back pocket. That's gotta be racism!