Strip-Search Case Tests Limits of 4th Amendment 1240
langelgjm writes "The US Supreme Court has agreed to review a case involving the strip-searching of a 13 year-old girl who was accused of possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen on school grounds, in violation of the school's zero-tolerance drug policy. The case has gained national attention because of the defining role it will play in determining which, if any, parts of the Constitution apply on school grounds. In Morse v. Frederick, the Supreme Court has already upheld the right of school administrators to restrict students' free speech at school-sponsored events that take place off school property. The school described the strip-search as 'not excessively intrusive in light of [the student's] age and sex and the nature of her suspected infraction.' The Supreme Court's last decision about searches on school property dealt only with searching a student's purse. Incidentally, the girl was found not to be in possession of any drugs, illegal or otherwise."
Been following this for awhile. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry for the second reply; an anecdote. (Score:3, Interesting)
The Plan: Get Kids Used to it in school... (Score:5, Interesting)
... so that when they're older, they'll accept this and even more serious breaches of privacy from the government. Because it's to protect the children!
Piece meal application of the Constitution? (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't make sense.
Do school officials get to cherry pick which parts of the Constitution they can violate?
They get to violate a student's free exercise of religion on the grounds that one cannot distinguish between congress making laws and school officials "permitting" references to Christian dieties.
A 13 year old girl taking analgesics to school for menstrual pain is a catagory of crime identical to a drug pusher vending dope and requires "zero tolerance"? Only to those who refuse to think or use common sense, so are brain dead. The more this PC crap takes hold the more it is indistinguishable from Fascism.
Re:Sorry for the second reply; an anecdote. (Score:4, Interesting)
A pen is a much more dangerous weapon than that. Strangely, you're also allowed to bring them on airplanes.
Which part of the Constiturion applies to children (Score:5, Interesting)
What I think is of importance here is how our culture treats children.
When does a child become a citizen if not at birth?
And, if children are citizens, what is the excuse of running schools with a level of oppression more appropriate of POW camps? Or making a child do something they are not ready or willing to?
Many parents resort to spanking their child to give them a lesson. When was the last time your boss spanked you or grounded you for not meeting the project deadline?
Our culture promotes treating children as property, making it "OK" for adults to abuse children verbally and psychologically and physically, just recently (in the last 100 or so years) addressing sexual abuse. Physical abuse is still widely accepted and even recommended. The right to privacy, the right to eat when and however much you want, the right to sleep when you are sleepy and use the bathroom when you are ready, are taken away from you when you are a child.
Strip searching a 13-year old girl is just a symptom of tour collective habitual disrespect for children's core dignity.
I suggest you check out this http://is.gd/oMQM [is.gd] and this http://is.gd/lQwS [is.gd]
Incorrect: "I was spanked as a kid and I turned OK."
Correct: "I was spanked as a kid and I grew up to believe that spanking is OK."
Re:Jesus H. Christ's squeezable bacon! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, back when I was in high school, I (and others) often had advil or tylenol, for when we got headaches or whatever. I'm unaware of any recreational use for OTC headache drugs, so frankly, I'd be a little concerned over whoever ordered a strip search of a 13 year old girl, and his _real_ motives.
Hell, the "prescription strength" ibuprofen has the strength of 2 advils. Even had she had some, she, uh, takes 1 strong pill instead of 2 weak ones when she has a headache.
This whole case says more about who ordered the search than anything else.
Re:Which part of the Constiturion applies to child (Score:5, Interesting)
Strip searching is completely different from, say, sending a child to bed without dinner.
The day that children are allowed to do anything they want regardless of the parents is the day that children rule the world. Have you ever seen a two year old? Completely selfish. Would not at all be interested in helping "open source software." Haven't you seen 12 year olds act like two year olds? And 22 year olds act like 12 year olds? If they don't get their way, they whine and cry and throw tantrums because they expect to get their way, because that's how it's happened all their life.
The world doesn't work that way. It is not incorrect to say I was spanked as a kid and I turned out [sic] OK. On the other hand, many people seem to think that if children's desires were just gratified more as a child, they wouldn't be so problematic. We are having more and more kids have everything the want, and it's been that way increasingly for a while now. Seen any improvements in "bad things" such as greed, poverty, violence, sexual assault, etc.?
I would venture to guess that school officials such as these two female ones that strip-searched a 13 year old girl based on an accusation from a kid (who, by the way, when faced with real consequences of his actions, thought he would just get out of it by lying - something some kids are spanked for and learn is not good. Hm...) are not accustomed to not getting what they want, and likely would have gotten quite mad if the girl had refused to do what they told her to. Authority "complexes" don't come from not having every desire fulfilled as a child. "Spoiled brats" are usually quite bossy and get quite angry when they don't get their way. Seems like that behavior continues into adulthood.
Curbing that behavior in a child is pretty important. It has nothing to do with dignity, it has to do with wanting the child to behave well and not simply float around, expecting (WRONGLY) everything to be his for the ordering. That is letting the child grow up in a lie. Very respectful of his dignity, I'm sure.
Found this nugget (Score:5, Interesting)
While I also think it is irrelevant, that just sounds really bad coming from a school official. You stay class Safford, AZ school district.
Re:Which part of the Constiturion applies to child (Score:2, Interesting)
Children are pure egoism in action. It's necessary to discipline them in order to train this egoism into compromise. This the foundation of social law and the rules of social engagement.
Given half a chance, all of us would make the entire world submit to our will, as any child desires. However, with the help of discipline, we can put this egoism to sleep. The ego suppresses what it cannot attain, therefore punishing and rewarding a child for certain actions is an effective form of conditioning.
It is a false conditioning, however. Only the most constant brainwashing can condition a child not to take $100 when no one is around. Anything less will not allow us to deny an evolutionary characteristic important to our animate survival.
Until such a time when this human characteristic has been superseded by evolutionary altruism (as present within the rest of nature, which has already evolved), discipline will remain an important part of raising a child, and children will not have identical rights to an adult.
Re:Obama Policies Will Bankrupt the US Tsarkon Rep (Score:5, Interesting)
An assistant principal, enforcing the school's antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.
and
Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, dissenting, said the case was in some ways "a close call," given the "humiliation and degradation" involved. But, Judge Hawkins concluded, "I do not think it was unreasonable for school officials, acting in good faith, to conduct the search in an effort to obviate a potential threat to the health and safety of their students."
and
"Do we really want to encourage cases," Professor Arum asked, "where students and parents are seeking monetary damages against educators in such school-specific matters where reasonable people can disagree about what is appropriate under the circumstances?"
1.There is nothing reasonable or doubtful that thinking that two advils would do serious harm, or even minor harm to a 13 year old girl.
2. There is also nothing reasonable about strip searching a 13 year old girl who was minding her own business
3. There is nothing reasonable about strip searching a girl even if she did have a prescription for Ibuprofen
What is happening is that special interest groups are normalizing this aggressive and authoritarian policy and practice towards children (and adults as well, but that's another topic). They are continuing to normalize and escalate these nasty and unwarranted attitudes and behaviours.
Re:Tip of the ice berg. (Score:4, Interesting)
Your using the learn-from-gutter-experience argument. I suspected it would come up eventually. Unfortunately I have only heard anecdotes but have seen no evidence to support this hypothesis. One example I do remember very well, is an academic military journal I read once. There was an article that observed whether people who are born and raised in rough environments make better infantry soldiers. The results are that people who are not exposed to abusive situations handle abusive situations much better when they are adults. In fact the street-wise kids were more likely to get eight balled from the army because of psychological problems.
I have personal anecdotes of this myself, but at least I have seen formal evidence of what I am talking about in a scientific journal.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's forget that it was ibuprofen, and throw the school out of it for a second.
If it were your child, and you suspected her of being in possession of an illegal drug, would you do the same? I might, although in the case of a 13yo daughter I might have my wife do it (if available). Might would turn to absofuckinglutely if I had caught her doing such things before.
Throw out what you consider to be good child rearing, because that isn't law. There's plenty of spare the rod, spoil the child parenting left, my parents were of that mindset, and honestly I think it works just fine. Your opinion may vary, but again, this is a discretionary area.
So you're left with an entity that has to act like parents, and does things parents might do. I suspect the officials involved absolutely believed her guilty. If she was guilty, should the evidence be admissable in criminal court? Absolutely not, this is the definition of civil liberties violations. Should it be used to expel/suspend/punish? You bet your ass.
I would rather live in a society where an insolent and untrustworthy child can be expelled from school on the whim of administration and left to her parents; school officials thus being relieved legally and practically from the duty and our legal system not taxed with the burden of determining constitutionality. But that's also not working out. Further I don't want to fund the lawsuits against schools by parents seeking damages for children who developed drug addictions or were injured by weapons in schools that "didn't do enough to ensure the safety of their children". I lose again.
So ignoring the details of this case, I don't think it's so clear cut. I'm curious why prescription strength ibuprofen is contraband, and the judgement which led to the girl getting strip searched, but that's not what the supreme court is being asked to review. They're in a quagmire of definiting what in loco parentis covers.
Re:And people wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who went to high school during the Columbine event, and saw the heavy-handed knee-jerk reactions from administrators, I now home school my son. School administrators are getting mad with power, though they're in a tough spot. If they turn their back on it, and a kid overdoses on drugs, then the school is sued by the parents. If they fight it, then they're sued by the parents. They're in a very hard spot.
Then again, there are just some DUMB administrators like this case.... and my old school vice-principal that tried to get brown slacks (such as those worn by farmers... in our small, rural, dairy-farm town) as gang clothing.
No more, I don't want to deal with the headache and stress of raising a kid in those environments, waiting to see what BS they put them through.
If you check around, you'll undoubtedly find many homeschool co-ops in your area. We have a very nice co-op here, where everyone gets together once a week for group learning and interaction, taught by parents. And I can teach computer classes to kids, kids who actually WANT to learn.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:5, Interesting)
This incident shows incredibly poor judgment, and suggests that the morons involved got way too caught up in their "no drugs in school" policy, but it does not, in any way, indicate a likelihood of the perpetrators seeking to abuse children for sexual pleasure.
Oh I don't know about that. I'm not saying rush to prosecute them for sexual abuse... But at the point at which they have the girl alone, stripped to her skivvies, and then demand that she spread her legs and pull her underwear away from her body so that they could look down her panties, I begin to suspect that one or both of those bitches were getting off on it.
I have a hard time believing even the stupidest of school officials -- and not for lack of good examples -- would really think that after failing to find pills anywhere else that they'd find them stashed down the front of her panties. I find it 100% impossible that even the stupidest of school official in the 2000s wouldn't have blazing red warning alarms going off in their head at the thought of forcing a minor to expose her genitals. That they were doing what in any other context outside a doctor's office would have resulted in them being arrested for sex crimes. They can't possibly have been unaware of that. Nor could they have been unaware that they were humiliating the poor girl, even though the nurse says she never appeared embarrassed. Yeah fucking right! I don't buy it for a second. Even if they aren't kiddie-pervs, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and these bitches sure lorded their power over the girl. Maybe making her expose herself was just their way of punishing her for thwarting them by not having drugs on her. I don't know, I just know that no normal person would think making the girl expose herself was a reasonable and entirely non-sexual execution of their duties.
Nor do I believe this was a unique case, because it was not an exceptional case. Someone accused someone else of having drugs, and the person didn't have an drugs in their locker, bags, or pockets, and there was no other reason to believe they had drugs but the accusation. Yeah bet that's never happened before.
Look, I don't know, I'm just saying this thing reeks to hell of something a lot worse than just poor judgement.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:1, Interesting)
If the govenment ever took my children, I would begin plotting a Marvin Heemeyer style revenge, except I'd do it remote control, cause death to those who wronged me and I would also plan on not getting caught.
Keep up the pressure, you goodie-two-shoes fuck with other people's lives asshole, and you could get a whole country of Marvin Heemeyer.
Fuck the local government. Fuck the state government. Fuck the federal government. All a bunch of THIEVES, and abuch of rights denying fucking assholes.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:2, Interesting)
Slavery could not have happened without the individual right to bear arms. Southern states demanded that right be codified in the new Constitution, lest the Federal government change their mind (a very real possibility as many Americans at the time were opposed to slavery). The North said "okay."
That holds no water?
As a practical matter, I'm sure you'll agree that the history of the Second Amendment is more notable for the decades of slavery which followed, not for any successful defense against a tyrranical government.
As a matter of fact, can you provide an example of when the Second Amendment provided the sort of protection you claim it does?
What the Second Amendment actually did was this: It ensured slavery could continue under the new Federal government, which was a necessary concession for the South to join in the new government.
I'm not suggesting the Second Amendment solely allows us to bear arms for the singular purpose of forming militias and putting down slave uprisings (or Indian rebellions for that matter). I am saying that the reason the Second Amendment was included in the first place was as an explicit guarantee that the tools by which slavery was maintained in slave states would not be taken away by the Federal government.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
If my parents had a rule in the house that I was not to carry ibuprofen, and I was suspected of breaking that rule, it may as well have been crystal meth. So yes, I think it is proper. This isn't about law and order, this is about school discipline.
As for judgement and how I would handle it. No, I would not strip search another persons child, especially a female. I would be instantly charged with pedophilia and thrown in jail. That aside, no, in most situations I would not. But neither would I accept the care of a thousand children on a daily basis. If I was going to do that, I would set up a system wherein I could effectively maintain discipline. I would of course reserve strip searches for "sure things" that I could make an example out of, and I would have my sword prepared...but I can understand the practice.
Assuming the article tells the whole truth, and isn't leaving some details out, then I agree that poor judgement and an overzealous application of policy was at play. I think actions do deserve to be taken against the administrators who pulled this stunt as well. But we're talking about the US supreme court, possibly coming up with a ruling that would apply across the board.
I was in school. I have seen things get smuggled in underwear, as far back in such conservative times as the mid 90s. I knew girls who used their bra's to conceal more than kleenex. Teenagers are old enough to know the game, but not old enough to know the score. I would rather the supreme court did not rule against this, that it were left to the school districts and parents to decide and take responsibility for.
Apathetic parents are the usual reason teachers don't bother to call home anymore. I know several school teachers and I know the parents they want to call never get involved.
Finally, to put it in perspective, yes this poor girl had to get stripped in front of a bunch of old women. It's embarassing, and I hope everyone's mom does get a lawyer each and every time this happens (and the school is wrong), and I hope each time they're right they make a big deal about it and kick the bastard out. I think parents and schools need to negotiate with each other about how discipline will be maintained, and what level of authority the schools can excersize (and what level of responsiveness is expected). Anything that draws parents out of the mode of sending their children to the babysitter is a good thing. Anything that makes it uncle sam's problem, or the taxpayers problem isn't helping at all.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:2, Interesting)
Safford maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward all prescription medicines, including prescription-strength ibuprofen.
Wait a minute, zero tolerance on prescription drugs? What the hells with that?
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it's just zip, boom, bang, guilty!
A good friends daughter has behavioral problems and so my friend filed both the IEP and behavioral plan with the school. One day she gets a call, her daughter bit a teacher.
Thing is, the IEP and behavioral plan dictate that my friend was to be called immediately. Instead the school resource officer aka cop, was going to arrest the daughter.
What the school didn't count on was that my friend works for the state child advocacy office. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for that one.
But even after the school got its ass handed to it by the advocacy the cop decided on his own to talk to my friends daughter. Last I knew the police department was still licking its wounds over that one.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are those who would say we are already slaves considering that while we own shotguns the Army owns F-16s. No militia of the people could possibly stand against the Federal government today.
The failure of this tired old argument is that you need someone to drive a tank, fly an F-16, or load an artillery shell.
For every soldier who will fire on his own people, there are several who would refuse, or who would desert, or would join the resistence, or would fire but then go crazy and end up commiting suicide or fragging an officer.
Any scenario that involves using military hardware to stop 2nd amendment practioners is not going to be that simple.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
actually there is no way a strip-search could have happened in a soviet school. only the police had the right to do such a thing.
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there any particular reason you consider the US military to be different?
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:3, Interesting)
>US deaths: 58k
>NVA deaths: 1.1 million
>Care to rethink that thought?
Real wars aren't a video game where the body count determins the "winner". The point is that the U.S. capitulated and the North held the territory at the end of the conflict. Using body count logic, you could claim that the AXIS powers won WW2. The Germans killed closed to 14 million Russian soldiers (and another 6M+ civilians).
Re:Been following this for awhile. (Score:2, Interesting)