Middle-School Strip Search Ruled Unconstitutional 528
Posted
by
timothy
from the moment-of-claritin dept.
from the moment-of-claritin dept.
yuna49 writes "The US Supreme Court today ruled 8-1 that the strip search of a 13-year-old girl by officials in an Arizona middle school was unconstitutional. However, by a vote of 7-2, the Court also ruled that the individual school officials could not be held personally liable. A suit for damages against the school district itself is still going forward. We discussed this case at length back in March when the Court decided to hear the case on appeal."
This is America (Score:4, Insightful)
This is America, where children are the Enemy.
Unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the district had a policy that made this a requirement of the officials, they should be held personally accountable for these horrid actions.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is odd, because last week I thought we were destroying civil liberties to save them. I do wish the government would make up its mind. Should we be building more private prisons to hold them cheaply, or should we be cherishing them and making sure they don't see Janet Jackson's nipple?
And the "!" in the 8 to 1 is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clarence Thomas, who 'asserted that the majority's finding second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline "and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge."'
I can't imagine how forcing a 13-year old girl to strip ensures anyone's health and safety, especially since they were looking for IBUPROFIN, for heaven's sake.
Make them pay! (Score:2, Insightful)
Those sons-of-bitches should be fired and prosecuted for child abuse, at the very least. They humiliated and terrified a good child, who had done no wrong previously, over fucking MOTRIN.
Just because it was "clearly established law" doesn't make it right to ignore that abusive treatment. At risk of godwin-ing this early, this stinks of "just following orders."
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
No no, this is America where we have to ruin a child's life in order to prevent them from ruining their life. I suggest 5-10 years of jail for sexting!
Fresh bosom (Score:1, Insightful)
From the article
The portion of the ruling exempting the officials from liability is likely to be greeted with relief by thousands of principals, teachers and other school officials who work to impart knowledge and maintain discipline in a fast-changing world, where children are growing up (or trying to) earlier than ever.
and whose luscious young breasts scream out to be exposed and gently carressed. Pretending they had some legit reason to strip search lolita is almost as unbelievable as the supreme court of the US letting these pervs off.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
or should we be cherishing them and making sure they don't see Janet Jackson's nipple?
Well at least we now have a Supreme Court decision that stops overzealous administrators and staff from seeing children's nipples in search of non-existent over-the-count drugs. Now, if only the administrators were actually held liable for their stupid decisions.
Re:Unless... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is America (Score:2, Insightful)
All governments are about control, and they want to control the children as much as the adults.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
That's when you call the cops and have it done by professionals who know how to do it properly. Even if my kid was carrying drugs in his or her underwear, I would not want a school administrator doing the search. You think you've got that much evidence, then you pick up the goddamned phone and phone the goddamned cops. If you're a school employee, your job is not to do strip searches, and I hope the kid's lawyers bankrupt the goddamned school. They overstepped their bounds so badly that it's difficult to imagine how they're judgement could have been any worse.
Clarence Thomas's Copy of the Constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sue the school? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope this moves right into airline security. If the school can't search a student without a warrant, why can the TSA (government agency) search our bags and persons without a warrant?
The theory is that although attending school is required by law, you don't have to fly. By choosing to fly, you voluntarily agree to be searched. Of course the reality is that other forms of long-distance travel are prohibitively inconvenient, but they're right that everyone who chooses to fly understands the rules beforehand.
All I know is one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
... if I was her brother or father I'd probably *still* be in jail for assault.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
That's when you call the cops and have it done by professionals who know how to do it properly. Even if my kid was carrying drugs in his or her underwear, I would not want a school administrator doing the search. You think you've got that much evidence, then you pick up the goddamned phone and phone the goddamned cops. If you're a school employee, your job is not to do strip searches, and I hope the kid's lawyers bankrupt the goddamned school. They overstepped their bounds so badly that it's difficult to imagine how they're judgement could have been any worse.
Agreed. However, for the sake of argument, consider the following hypothetical:
You received a credible tip from multiple sources that a girl has... I don't know... cyanide or something stuffed in her panties. So, you place this girl under "observation" to make sure she doesn't ditch anything while you call her parents and the police. The police say they will be there as soon as they can, but it may be two hours or longer. Her parents are at work and won't be coming at all.
About 20 minutes into the waiting, she claims she has to go to the bathroom. What do you do? Do you forbid her from going to the bathroom or do you send someone in there with her to watch her so she doesn't flush the evidence?
Re:Clarence Thomas's Copy of the Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
In his interpretation, "unreasonable searches" do not exist. Every search has a reason and the 4th amendment is therefore null and void.
Re:And the "!" in the 8 to 1 is... (Score:3, Insightful)
The majority agrees with that part. From TFA:
Had Savana been suspected of having illegal drugs that could have posed a far greater danger to herself and other students, the strip search, too, might have been justified, the majority said, in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter.
Holy forking schnitt.
We like to have a good ol' joke and whinge about government and judiciary living in la-la-land and, true enough, they can often look fairly freakin' "out there" but from exactly how high do you need to have been dropped on your head as a baby to think that strip-searching school children is ever appropriate behaviour?!
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhh, Outside of a immediate threat to others what is wrong with calling the parents in to oversee a search of a minor?
Personally if I was the girls father the vice principal and nurses would not have heard the end of it.
I agree, but I don't know what would be worse, getting strip searched by the vice principal or getting strip searched by my vice principal while my mother looks on. (Although, I think having the parent in the next room would be sufficient if that's OK with the accused and the parent.)
And if I were the parent and nothing was found, there would be hell to pay whether I was called or not!
Re:Qualified Immunity (Score:2, Insightful)
Whys hould a policy help them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think that "We were just following orders" would be a legitimate exuse?
All bark, no bite (Score:5, Insightful)
However, by a vote of 7-2, the Court also ruled that the individual school officials could not be held personally liable
What good is the ruling if there's no consequence? It seems to me that the biggest problem with government is that there's almost no accountability, and that leads to corruption & abuse of power.
Re:All I know is one thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
... if I was her brother or father I'd probably *still* be in jail for assault.
Depends on how deep you bury the body afterwards Jaysyn.
Re:Qualified Immunity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unless... (Score:1, Insightful)
I fail to see how the 'district' can make official policy which could possibly amount to 'sexual assault of a minor' in the court system. These people, and a lot of ISD board members need a good thorough kick to the head... err.. awakening if they think that this that type of behavior by school administrators is acceptable in the name of zero tolerance. And don't get me started on 'zero tolerance......
Several people need to lose there jobs over this, and possibly have criminal charges pressed against them.... I'll leave the criminal charges up to the discretion of the victim and the D.A.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you didn't realise just how bad that sounds I've taken the liberty of rephrasing it for you:
"However, the second you state that school officials are not allowed to check your vagina or anus, that's where everything starts getting hidden."
You see how people might have a problem with that? "School-issue speculums" just doesn't have a comforting ring about it.
Re:This is America (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither. You watch her surreptitiously until the police or the parents get there. You do not do anything to tip her off to the fact that she is being watched..
Re:This is America (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously you haven't been in a school in awhile. Even most tame suburban schools have an assigned police officer on the grounds throughout the school hours. If this were my kid I'd be shouting sex offense from the rooftops. It was a despicable abuse of power, and a humiliating violation of a child with potentially lifelong repercussions. The people who did this have no business working around children.
This is time to act. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the courts won't hold them liable, than the people must! If the administrators responsible don't quit, than the students need to go on strike. How can anyone consent to their peers being abused in this manner?!?!? It's time parents, teachers, and students stand up for each other and demand that the administration step down. These pigs are either power hungry megalomaniacs or contributor to sexual assault (or both).
War on Drugs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Drugs Drugs Drugs. This is still coming down as a casualty of the war on drugs. What 'worse' could the 12 year old have had? MJ? Heroin? Maybe she's the large portion of 12 year old meth heads.
Imagine a world where nothing was illegal, even for a 12 year old. They could follow the home style justice that some parents used to do with cigarettes they found: Make the kid smoke them ALL. One sitting. I know more people who have been stopped from smoking with this tactic than "Hey kids, don't smoke. It's a adult thing"
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the supreme court decision on the liability thing? It basically comes down to "precedent and legislation here was so confused, that even the Federal appeals court decided incorrectly; there was no way the administrators could have been expected to know whether their actions were constitutional."
Which is sad, but true. I'd have a much easier time claiming the administrators should be liable if every single court in the chain had found against them. But if as it is, I agree the decision was stupid, but non-obviously so. At least to a lot of people. Which once again is very said.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
99 percent of parents I know would physically stop any such action from occurring, and I don't blame them at all!
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a parent of a little girl.
I must say that if my child came home and reported either of these incidents I would likely be in police custody as a result.
Now, I personally don't think girls of that age should be wearing g-strings and thongs, but that simply means I police *my* kid. Not other people's kids. Especially if it's not against the rules to begin with. I agree with the "no showing underwear" rule, much like I agree with the "no drugs, and we can search your personal possessions while you are on campus" rules. What I can't fathom is the thought of we'll lift your skirt and strip off you clothes even if we don't have *damn good* evidence or suspicion.
Take this case:
Girl accused of having motrin-400's and they want to find out if she has any more. Search locker, pockets, backpack, purse, STOP! You're done. Seriously, it's Motrin, not crank. And the "informant" is another student who was just busted and wants to shift the blame.
Vs.
Teacher sees dope deal go down, pulls both students in. Weed/speed/whatever is "missing" and no sign it was dropped...
now you get in the territory of _maybe_ getting to a more intimate search.
as it is now as a parent I would press sex offense charges in both cases, sue the pants off the school district, picket the school with the names of the offenders and what they did, and blanket the district with fliers about what happened...
Each incident like this makes me realize that things have only gone downhill since I was in school.
[/rant]
-nB
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
should qualify the sex offense comment:
referring to the (now) GP post and main thread topic, not the drug deal got caught. That I would push for a letter of reprimand from the district...
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
Something to consider also is that if it's THAT FREAKIN SERIOUS then you don't let a teacher deal with it, you call the police and let THEM deal with it. That's why we HAVE police to begin with, they know how to handle issues with that kind of gravity.
Teachers deal with school related issues, anything that's threatening life or limb gets sent to the police. The police deal with it, and then it goes to the JUVENILE justice system.
Then again not all cops are as awesome as the one's that have saved my ass from abusive and sometimes outright psychotic school administrators, but if a cop does something this absolutely fuck-dumb then there's already established means of dealing with it.
Re:All I know is one thing... (Score:1, Insightful)
I wouldn't be.
Being caught is never the answer.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
.. but not very easy to reverse.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, what?
The supreme court fucking said that they can't be held liable because they didn't know the law?
WHEN THE FUCK WAS IGNORANCE OF THE LAW EVER AN EXCUSE FOR BREAKING IT?
Re:sue the school? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahem! [wikipedia.org]
Emphasis mine
Also, See Here [myfoxny.com]
Re:Stop blaming the government and schools... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, here's a thought. The child Did Not have the suspected drugs on her person, and was searched on suspicion of such. The parents, in your argument, did the correct thing and ensured that their child did not carry the inappropriate item to school, but they administrators did the search anyways.
Would you like to review your argument and get back to us a little later?
Re:This is America (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite. The supreme court said they can't be held liable because _no_one_ knew the law. As in, it was impossible to know it, given what was actually written down.
Similarly, a prosecutor who filed suit against someone based on a law the legislature passed would presumably not be held liable if the law is then challenged and found unconstitutional. Of course if he then continues to bring such suits, things would be different, just as here things would be different for future behavior akin to that of these school administrators.
Shouting cliches doesn't change the fact that this situation (which I, again, think was highly unfortunate behavior on the part of the school administration in the ethical, not just legal, sense) is not the same as "ignorance of the law".
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
Teacher sees dope deal go down, pulls both students in. Weed/speed/whatever is "missing" and no sign it was dropped... now you get in the territory of _maybe_ getting to a more intimate search.
At which point the cops are called. School adminstrators never have the right to strip search kids. Jesus christ...
Re:This is America (Score:1, Insightful)
I love it when people talk about bankrupting public institutions...
I have a hard time following the logic that would have the taxpayers who had nothing to do with the crime pay for the mistakes. I'd think that you'd be wanting to hold those who made the mistake accountable.
If you could prove that the voting public knowingly voted for people that would enact laws or behave in this manner, then maybe you'd have cause to charge the public for the damages.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
To be a civil rights violation, the official doesn't have to have been wrong, but the act must have been clearly illegal. This is because off the difference between simply being wrong, and *willfully* using the power of the state to take away people's rights.
When an issue is legally "up in the air," officials would otherwise be in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations.
hawk, esq.
Re:Clarence Thomas's Copy of the Constitution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
There may have been some question of Constitutionality but there was NEVER any question about appropriateness, common sense, good taste, or forward thinking.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd argue that it's the fact that people give too much attention to authority and blindly do whatever they're told to do. How difficult is it to scream 'get out of my pants you paedophile!' ?
It's everyone's duty to ensure that a correct balance of power is maintained. Those in 'authority' need to be challenged whenever they overstep the bounds of that authority.
That was my thought exactly. Why did this girl let herself be put in that position? It's because schools, much like society as a whole, is simply in place to turn people into sheep. That doesn't by any means make it the victim's "fault" that this happened, but it sure made the occurrence a lot easier and likely.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very simple, parent should be present at the search.
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the authorities naturally have that sort of psychological power over children is one of the reasons abusing that authority is so wrong, and should be punished severely.
Re:This is America (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is America (Score:5, Insightful)
Adults. Not children. At 13 she is not capable of reliably determining where the authority of those running the school stops. That's one of the many definitions of being a child.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
You can be convicted of doing something so obviously and totally morally wrong that any reasonable person would have thought it wrong even though a duly constituted authority orderered you to do it.
Even if you accept the Nuremberg principles (and let's face it; they're somewhat specious from a strict legal point of view), that leaves a lot of weasel room. In particular the words "obviously" and "reasonable"....
I do agree with the main part of what you're saying: that if you take the Nuremberg principles to their obvious limit then anyone is liable for anything anytime as soon as someone decides (post facto, note!) that something you did was "wrong", even though legal at the time when you did it. That's what makes the Nuremberg principles pretty questionable to me.
I do think the supremes got it wrong by not prohibiting this sort of behavior on a more blanket way, for what it's worth, and especially for saying it would be ok if the circumstances were just a bit different. But given the progress of this case so far, and the number of "reasonable" people who seemed to think that all was OK with the school official's behavior, I think their liability decision was the right one, sadly. It doesn't make me _happy_, but neither would the decision the other way, honestly.
Of course IANAL, etc. If you are and if there are relevant legal principles I'm missing here I'd like to know.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Say; What are the names of all your children's teachers?
interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is America (Score:1, Insightful)
4) child is NOT allowed to flush
I'm sooo sorry! I forgot and accidentally flushed out of habit. Unless the penalty for flushing is worse than the penalty for X... in which case X gets swallowed. Gulp!
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
Accusing people of something that is groundless, simply because the charge may be effective, is very wrong.
Re:This is America (Score:2, Insightful)
Last time I checked.... minors are not afforded full protection under the constitution. Only adults beyond the age of consent are afforded full constitutional protection.
I seem to recall a case in Alaska where a student was denied the right to free speech because they unwittingly were participating in a school sanctioned function on public property, and so the school was allowed to discipline the acts of the accused even though this person was NOT a Ward of the State at the time of their expression.
The line between school and private life, for minors has become seriously blurred.
Re:This is America (Score:3, Insightful)
THAT FREAKIN SERIOUS then you don't let a teacher deal with it, you call the police and let THEM deal with it
No you don't; You call the parents in. At least the first few times until it's clear that they won't or can't deal with it in which case calling the cops can easily be justified and is at least partly about dealing with the problems of the parents. Schools should rightly be very careful about bringing the police in since the consequences can be extremely serious and it basically represents a failure of the school if it has to happen. They should normally have reacted earlier.