I believe this came out yesterday, figured it was worthy of a topic

 

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062501690.html

 

 

 

Basically, the court ruled 8-1(amazing in us politics) that the school was unjustified in a strip search of a 13 year old girl on allegations she had ibuprofen. While there was concensus that a search of her purse and pockets was fine due to the school having reasonable suspicion of drugs, a strip search violated her 4th amendmant rights protecting her from illegal search and seizure. The court left open then possibility of a lawsuit against the school district, but specific administrators were protected in a more contested opinion that they werent intentionally violating her rights

 

 

 

The single dissenting vote was on the basis that the school was not going beyond its duty to protect students and had justification to search (paraphrased) "any area where small pills could be hidden)

 

 

 

My thoughts

 

 

 

Very good to see the court ruling in favor of the student's rights, especially in such a strong non partisan fashion. While I wish the administrators were still open to lawsuits, the more important thing here was setting the precident protecting student's rights.

Uhm, what is wrong with ibuprofen in the first place?

Uhm, what is wrong with ibuprofen in the first place?

 

Under that particular school's "zero-tolerance" policy regarding drug possession, even carrying minor painkillers is considered a severe offense--not that she had any to begin with.

 

 

 

Yeah.

 

 

 

Had the school administrators simply used a bit of common sense and reasonable restraint in this matter, they wouldn't be facing the possibilty of a lawsuit as they are now.

There will be much feasting tonight.

and it only took them what? 6 years?

 

 

 

bout time

and it only took them what? 6 years?

 

 

 

bout time

 

 

 

More like 3 months.

and it only took them what? 6 years?

 

 

 

bout time

 

 

 

More like 3 months.

 

 

 

The whole case started when she was 13 didn't it? She's almost 19 now i think, i might be mistaken its been a while since i've read the original article, so in total 6 years. Unless she waited an extremely long time before coming forward.

and it only took them what? 6 years?

 

 

 

bout time

 

 

 

More like 3 months.

 

Isn't the girl 18 now?

"Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, was strip-searched at age 13 because school officials thought she was hiding ibuprofen tablets. "

 

That would be 6 years.

IMO the entire thing was blown waaaaay over proportion.

Uhh, good for them? It doesn't matter though, it's not like it does anything other than let her sue them.

IMO the entire thing was blown waaaaay over proportion.

 

The school blew having Ibuprofen waaay out of proportion.

Uhh, good for them? It doesn't matter though, it's not like it does anything other than let her sue them.

And for future cases and references. If they had ruled in favor of the school it would have allowed other public institutions to do the same.

Uhh, good for them? It doesn't matter though, it's not like it does anything other than let her sue them.

 

 

 

The real worry here was what a ruling in favor of the school would mean, this reaffirms that like the first amendmant you do maintain a limited amount of 4th amendmant rights in schools.

I meant for the girl, but you make a good point about it helping rulings in future cases.

I meant for the girl, but you make a good point about it helping rulings in future cases.

 

 

 

I think it gives the girl a sense of "justice has worked".

 

 

 

Though, like all cases like this, it kind of helps for future rulings, and shows what is actually acceptable, which is the main point in it.

Thoughts of school administrators:

 

 

 

"...Craaaaaaaaaaap guys..."

Thoughts of school administrators:

 

 

 

"...Craaaaaaaaaaap guys..."

 

 

 

Admins were given exemption from the court, the only possible lawsuit is one against the school district.

strip search violated her 4th amendmant rights protecting her from illegal search and seizure

 

 

 

That's strange. My American Government teacher told me that we lose all of our normal rights as soon as we enter the campus - such as the right to refuse unreasonable search and seizure and freedom of speech.

 

 

 

Glad to see them setting a good precedent.

strip search violated her 4th amendmant rights protecting her from illegal search and seizure

 

 

 

That's strange. My American Government teacher told me that we lose all of our normal rights as soon as we enter the campus - such as the right to refuse unreasonable search and seizure and freedom of speech.

 

 

 

Glad to see them setting a good precedent.

 

 

 

He's wrong, without context he might have just been wording it a little badly, but you maintain some rights in schools. The basic frame of it is that while you are in schools you lose most of your rights, and their are reasonable limits on the ones you maintain. Firstly, quite a few simply dont apply(ex. 3rd, quartering of soldiers); secondly, you lose quite a few outright(2nd, right to bear arms). Most rights that you have that are more of a civil liberties thing such as right to free speech privacy etc. have limits placed on them due to the security needs of a school. A good example of 1st amendmant limitations was the bong hits for jesus case where it was ruled a school can suspend someone for certain types of language at school or school events.

 

 

 

What made this ruling important, is that it clearly divided the fact schools have special power and the fact that students maintain some rights. While it was unanimously ruled the school had the right to check her purse and pockets due to the possible risk to other students(not probable cause like police need); the main dividing line was the fact the school still has to respect the students 4th amendmant rights.

IMO the entire thing was blown waaaaay over proportion.

 

 

 

Are you kidding? Ibuprofen is a minor painkiller usually used for headaches.

 

 

 

"STRIP THE ADDICT! MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF HER! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

 

 

 

Seems like a proper administrative response, right?

 

 

 

It's sick that people could do this to a kid in the first place, but even worse because it was over something for headaches and body aches.

Kinda sad that this happened, but even sadder that she is going to get an extreme amount of money out of it. You shouldn't get your college paid for because someone made a mistake years ago. Money would not solve anything in her case, so any lawsuit would just to try to fetch some needed cash.

Uhmmm, not thread advertising but I created a thread about this...

 

 

 

[hide=Dzihouchan says]13 year old girl that got stripsearched

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

SAFFORD, Ariz. Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.

 

 

 

An assistant principal, enforcing the schools antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

 

 

 

The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side, she said. They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

 

 

 

The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.

 

 

 

In Ms. Reddings case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that school officials had violated the Fourth Amendments ban on unreasonable searches. Writing for the majority, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said, It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights.

 

 

 

More than that, Judge Wardlaw added, it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Richard Arum, who teaches sociology and education at New York University, said he would have handled the incident differently. But Professor Arum said the Supreme Court should proceed cautiously.

 

 

 

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?

 

 

 

The Supreme Courts last major decision on school searches based on individual suspicion as opposed to systematic drug testing programs was in 1985, when it allowed school officials to search a students purse without a warrant or probable cause as long their suspicions were reasonable. It did not address intimate searches.

 

 

 

In a friend-of-the-court brief in Ms. Reddings case, the federal government said the search of her was unreasonable because officials had no reason to believe she was carrying the pills inside her undergarments, attached to her nude body, or anywhere else that a strip search would reveal.

 

 

 

The government added, though, that the scope of the 1985 case was not well established at the time of the 2003 search, so the assistant principal should not be subject to a lawsuit.

 

 

 

Sitting in her aunts house in this bedraggled mining town a two-hour drive northeast of Tucson, Ms. Redding, now 19, described the middle-school cliques and jealousies that she said had led to the search. There are preppy kids, gothic kids, nerdy types, she said. I was in between nerdy and preppy.

 

 

 

One of her friends since early childhood had moved in another direction. She started acting weird and wearing black, Ms. Redding said. She started being embarrassed by me because I was nerdy.

 

 

 

When the friend was found with ibuprofen pills, she blamed Ms. Redding, according to court papers.

 

 

 

Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal, ordered the two school employees to search both students. The searches turned up no more pills.

 

 

 

Mr. Wilson declined a request for an interview and referred a reporter to the superintendent of schools, Mark R. Tregaskes. Mr. Tregaskes did not respond to a message left with his assistant.

 

 

 

Lawyers for the school district said in a brief that it was on the front lines of a decades-long struggle against drug abuse among students. Abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications is on the rise among 12- and 13-year-olds, the brief said, citing data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

 

 

 

Given that, the school district said, the search was not excessively intrusive in light of Reddings age and sex and the nature of her suspected infraction.

 

 

 

Adam B. Wolf, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Ms. Redding, said her experience was the worst nightmare for any parent.

 

 

 

When you send your child off to school every day, you expect them to be in math class or in the choir, Mr. Wolf said. You never imagine their being forced to strip naked and expose their genitalia and breasts to their school officials.

 

 

 

In a sworn statement submitted in the case, Safford Unified School District v. Redding, No. 08-479, Mr. Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding. She and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before, and members of the school staff thought they had smelled alcohol. A student also accused Ms. Redding of having served alcohol at a party before the dance, Mr. Wilson said.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said she had served only soda at the party, adding that her accuser was not there. At the dance, she said, school administrators had confused adolescent rambunctiousness with inebriation. Were kids, she said. Were goofy.

 

 

 

The search was conducted by Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse, and Helen Romero, a secretary. Ms. Redding never appeared apprehensive or embarrassed, Ms. Schwallier said in a sworn statement. Ms. Redding said she had kept her head down so the women could not see that she was about to cry.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said she was never asked if she had pills with her before she was searched. Mr. Wolf, her lawyer, said that was unsurprising.

 

 

 

They strip-search first and ask questions later, Mr. Wolf said of school officials here.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding did not return to school for months after the search, studying at home. I never wanted to see the secretary or the nurse ever again, she said.

 

 

 

In the end, she transferred to another school. The experience left her wary, nervous and distrustful, she said, and she developed stomach ulcers. She is now studying psychology at Eastern Arizona College and hopes to become a counselor.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said school officials should have taken her background into account before searching her.

 

 

 

They didnt even look at my records, she said. They didnt even know I was a good kid.

 

 

 

The school district does not contest that Ms. Redding had no disciplinary record, but says that is irrelevant.

 

 

 

Her assertion should not be misread to infer that she never broke school rules, the district said of Ms. Redding in a brief, only that she was never caught.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding grew emotional as she reflected on what she would have done if she had been told as an adult to strip-search a student. Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she said she would have refused.

 

 

 

Why would I want to do that to a little girl and ruin her life like that? Ms. Redding asked.[/hide]

 

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=798602

 

 

 

I know it kind of died, but that's thread duping...

[hide=]

Uhmmm, not thread advertising but I created a thread about this...

 

 

 

[hide=Dzihouchan says]13 year old girl that got stripsearched

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

SAFFORD, Ariz. Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.

 

 

 

An assistant principal, enforcing the schools antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

 

 

 

The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side, she said. They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

 

 

 

The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.

 

 

 

In Ms. Reddings case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that school officials had violated the Fourth Amendments ban on unreasonable searches. Writing for the majority, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said, It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights.

 

 

 

More than that, Judge Wardlaw added, it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Richard Arum, who teaches sociology and education at New York University, said he would have handled the incident differently. But Professor Arum said the Supreme Court should proceed cautiously.

 

 

 

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?

 

 

 

The Supreme Courts last major decision on school searches based on individual suspicion as opposed to systematic drug testing programs was in 1985, when it allowed school officials to search a students purse without a warrant or probable cause as long their suspicions were reasonable. It did not address intimate searches.

 

 

 

In a friend-of-the-court brief in Ms. Reddings case, the federal government said the search of her was unreasonable because officials had no reason to believe she was carrying the pills inside her undergarments, attached to her nude body, or anywhere else that a strip search would reveal.

 

 

 

The government added, though, that the scope of the 1985 case was not well established at the time of the 2003 search, so the assistant principal should not be subject to a lawsuit.

 

 

 

Sitting in her aunts house in this bedraggled mining town a two-hour drive northeast of Tucson, Ms. Redding, now 19, described the middle-school cliques and jealousies that she said had led to the search. There are preppy kids, gothic kids, nerdy types, she said. I was in between nerdy and preppy.

 

 

 

One of her friends since early childhood had moved in another direction. She started acting weird and wearing black, Ms. Redding said. She started being embarrassed by me because I was nerdy.

 

 

 

When the friend was found with ibuprofen pills, she blamed Ms. Redding, according to court papers.

 

 

 

Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal, ordered the two school employees to search both students. The searches turned up no more pills.

 

 

 

Mr. Wilson declined a request for an interview and referred a reporter to the superintendent of schools, Mark R. Tregaskes. Mr. Tregaskes did not respond to a message left with his assistant.

 

 

 

Lawyers for the school district said in a brief that it was on the front lines of a decades-long struggle against drug abuse among students. Abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications is on the rise among 12- and 13-year-olds, the brief said, citing data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

 

 

 

Given that, the school district said, the search was not excessively intrusive in light of Reddings age and sex and the nature of her suspected infraction.

 

 

 

Adam B. Wolf, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Ms. Redding, said her experience was the worst nightmare for any parent.

 

 

 

When you send your child off to school every day, you expect them to be in math class or in the choir, Mr. Wolf said. You never imagine their being forced to strip naked and expose their genitalia and breasts to their school officials.

 

 

 

In a sworn statement submitted in the case, Safford Unified School District v. Redding, No. 08-479, Mr. Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding. She and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before, and members of the school staff thought they had smelled alcohol. A student also accused Ms. Redding of having served alcohol at a party before the dance, Mr. Wilson said.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said she had served only soda at the party, adding that her accuser was not there. At the dance, she said, school administrators had confused adolescent rambunctiousness with inebriation. Were kids, she said. Were goofy.

 

 

 

The search was conducted by Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse, and Helen Romero, a secretary. Ms. Redding never appeared apprehensive or embarrassed, Ms. Schwallier said in a sworn statement. Ms. Redding said she had kept her head down so the women could not see that she was about to cry.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said she was never asked if she had pills with her before she was searched. Mr. Wolf, her lawyer, said that was unsurprising.

 

 

 

They strip-search first and ask questions later, Mr. Wolf said of school officials here.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding did not return to school for months after the search, studying at home. I never wanted to see the secretary or the nurse ever again, she said.

 

 

 

In the end, she transferred to another school. The experience left her wary, nervous and distrustful, she said, and she developed stomach ulcers. She is now studying psychology at Eastern Arizona College and hopes to become a counselor.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding said school officials should have taken her background into account before searching her.

 

 

 

They didnt even look at my records, she said. They didnt even know I was a good kid.

 

 

 

The school district does not contest that Ms. Redding had no disciplinary record, but says that is irrelevant.

 

 

 

Her assertion should not be misread to infer that she never broke school rules, the district said of Ms. Redding in a brief, only that she was never caught.

 

 

 

Ms. Redding grew emotional as she reflected on what she would have done if she had been told as an adult to strip-search a student. Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she said she would have refused.

 

 

 

Why would I want to do that to a little girl and ruin her life like that? Ms. Redding asked.[/hide]

 

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=798602

 

 

 

I know it kind of died, but that's thread duping...

[/hide]

 

 

 

Sorry if I offended you, I figured since the old thread was dead and the ruling was such a signifigant development it would be appropriate to start a new thread to discuss the ruling.

 

 

 

edit--

 

 

 

Kinda sad that this happened, but even sadder that she is going to get an extreme amount of money out of it. You shouldn't get your college paid for because someone made a mistake years ago. Money would not solve anything in her case, so any lawsuit would just to try to fetch some needed cash

.

 

 

 

I have mixed feelings about this; I think she is entitled to something, but Im worried this is going to become a ridiculous amount of money. I totally stand by the legal ruling from the court, but if she sues for millions of dollars I will be rather disheartened. Of course, there isnt an arbitrary line, but if she sues for say $250,000(US) then I would consider it a reasonable settlement.

Money is the best response to authority. A severe lack of it will cause them to think before they do another strip search...especially for a small drug like this.