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Strip-Search Case Tests Limits of 4th Amendment
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."
I'm really hoping to see a large bitch-slap style ruling against the school district. This whole thing is just shameful.
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... 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!
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
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.
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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."
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.
While I also think it is irrelevant, that just sounds really bad coming from a school official. You stay class Safford, AZ school district.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
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.
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.
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.