Her crime? She was suspected of possession of…Get this...
It’s another example of the arrogance of school officials. This time, it’s a school official in Arizona.
Here’s the story....
Savana Redding, an eighth grade honor student at a middle school, was pulled from class by the vice principal. Earlier that day, ANOTHER student had been found carrying ibuprofen pills.
The student caught with the pain killers claimed that she got the pills from Redding.
Redding denied the accusation, and agreed to a search of her backpack. No pills were found..
Then, Redding was taken to the office of the school nurse SO THAT A STRIP SEARCH COULD BE PERFORMED.
The school has a zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including the ibuprofen, without prior written permission.
In the school nurse’s office, Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear. She was then commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out at the crotch, exposing her pelvic area. The strip search failed to uncover any ibuprofen pills.
That’s right. A strip search was performed on a child, in a non-emergency situation, without the knowledge or consent of her parents.
Are you as outraged as I am and any right minded person would be?
OF COURSE the parents sued. And, amazingly enough, a three-judge panel sided with the school. The parents appealed. On appeal, eight of eleven judges agreed that Redding’s constitutional rights had been violated.
“A reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a thirteen-year-old girl to a traumatic search to ‘protect’ her from the danger of Advil,” the court wrote. “We reject Safford’s effort to lump together these run-of-the-mill anti-inflammatory pills with the evocative term ‘prescription drugs,’ in a knowing effort to shield an imprudent strip search of a young girl behind a larger war against drugs.”
“It does not take a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old girl is an invasion of constitutional rights. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity,” the court continued.
How does the “War on Drugs” became “War on our children.”?
“Students and parents nationwide can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that adolescents cannot be strip searched based on the unsubstantiated accusation of a classmate trying to get out of trouble,” said Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project and co-counsel in the case…
“This ruling is a victory for our fundamental right to privacy, sending a clear signal that such traumatizing searches have no place in America’s schools.”
The supreme court justices accepted the case Friday for review. They will decide whether a campus setting gives school administrators greater discretion to control students suspected of illegal activity than police are allowed in cases involving adults in public spaces.
Arguments are expected to be heard in April.
At issue is whether school administrators are constitutionally barred from conducting searches of students investigated for possessing or dealing drugs that are banned on campus.
A federal appeals court found the search "traumatizing" and illegal.
Some parents say older children deserve the same constitutional rights as adults, but educators counter that a school setting always has been treated differently by the courts. They say a ruling against them could jeopardize campus safety.
In an affidavit, Redding said, "The strip-search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had. I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry."
With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Redding and her family sued, and a federal appeals court in San Francisco, California, ruled against the school.
The court wrote: "Common sense informs us that directing a 13-year-old girl to remove her clothes, partially revealing her breasts and pelvic area, for allegedly possessing ibuprofen ... was excessively intrusive."
The court said the school went too far in its effort to create a drug- and crime-free classroom. "The overzealousness of school administrators in efforts to protect students has the tragic impact of traumatizing those they claim to serve. And all this to find prescription-strength ibuprofen."
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the school district said requiring a legal standard of "probable cause" to conduct student searches would cast a "roadblock to the kind of swift and effective response that is too often needed to protect the very safety of students, particularly from the threats posed by drugs and weapons."
The supreme court has had a mixed record over the years on students' rights. The court could now be asked to clarify the extent of student rights involving searches, and the discretion of officials over those for whom they have responsibility.
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