Ralph Lauren: We are responsible
Glow in the dark mushrooms
The ACLU reports that "the Supreme Court ruled today that school officials violated the constitutional rights of Savana Redding, a 13-year-old Arizona girl who was strip searched based on a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. This is the biggest victory for students’ rights in the last 20 years."
When Savana Redding was just 13 years old, she was strip-searched for allegedly possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. This traumatizing search was based solely on the false and uncorroborated accusation of a classmate who was caught with similar pills.Supreme Court declares strip search of 13-year-old student unconstitutionalSavana's case was argued before the Supreme Court by ACLU attorneys seeking to protect the privacy of all students -- and make it clear that such conduct has no place in America's schools. But this case would never have been heard if it weren’t for the bravery of Savana.
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Don't forget to mention Clarence Thomas' ludicrous dissent: "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments. Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."
Admittedly, according to my Mac's dictionary, his use of the word "secrete" is correct, but that doesn't make him any less brain-damaged in his opinion.
Caught with Tylenol! Clearly an immediate and significant danger to herself and others. ::sarcasm::
"Contraband"? What's truly dangerous is the infantilization of young people within the total institution of the compulsory education system.
(Remember, only one generation ago, high school used to be optional in the way we think of undergraduate college today. 14 year olds used to be able to act as responsible adults. Now they don't even trust a 13 year old to properly self-medicate with an NSAID! It's a world gone mad. Where's Lenore Skenazy when we need her?)
Isn't the concept of proportionality involved here?
Is the risk of damage from Advil (not Tylenol; sorry, should be corrected in my previous post) greater than the risk of damage from being strip-searched?
The pro-strip argument sounds like, "The police officer had to shoot her because she refused to put down a bottle of vodka. We cannot allow underage drinking, so that's why the cop shot her with his firearm."
Kids that age are especially sensitive and shouldn't even be touched. They should have called her parents.
@zuzu
From the NYT on the decision:
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.
@zuzu: not only was this action disproportionate to the alleged offense; it was based on bad evidence.
Regardless, I think I'm okay with preventing school officials from strip searching children. If you deem a strip search necessary, call in the god damn cops.
I was trying to imagine the mindset of a school official who thinks it's OK to strip-search a 13-year-old for any reason, but I kept getting "pedophile."
I'm with Brainspore. As much as I roll my eyes at pedophile hysteria, I'm inclined to think that the people who ordered and carried out this strip search should face sexual assault charges.
Adults strip searching a 13 year-old should be tried for child molestation. Absoultely disgusting.
Kudos to Savana and the ACLU. You really have to wonder at the complete insanity of some so-called "adults".
Even I, prince of darkness, devil incarnate, and lord of hell, am rather grossed out by the school officials.
I agree with brainspore, and mark gordon.
This just reeks of someone finding a rationalisation for their (subconscious) deviance - be it lusting after teens or just getting off on being in charge.
Whatever the case, i think we can all agree it sucks to be a kid nowadays.
They didn't call the parents, they didn't call the cops...and Clarence Thomas is just fine with that.
Has he ever made a sane decision while on the bench?
We're just in the midst of a battle royale of who can be the biggest asshole to someone else. In this case, the little person won. In the larger game, the assholes are still ahead 10000000000000 to 3.
Y'know what's actually sad about this story is, "This is the biggest victory for students’ rights in the last 20 years."
Oh, if you think Thomas' opinion on this is insane, wait 'til you read THIS story from a week ago. The SCOTUS made a 5-4 (I'll let you guess who the five were; non-Republicans should be able to guess easily) decision to deny a man's ability to request, and PAY FOR, DNA tests in a 1993 rape and attempted murder for which he was convicted.
See, if prisoners had the ability to request forensic tests that could prove their innocence, well, that would create HAVOC in the "Justice" system! I mean, the whole point of law enforcement isn't to make sure that the right person is punished, just that SOMEONE is punished!
Unfortunately, the story seems to have been nearly completely ignored in the blogosphere.
OK #1, the ACLU cherry picked a case to set precedent. Possessing prescription medication is a real problem at schools, and schools will now have doubts about trying to make sure kids aren't distributing their parents' drug cabinet.
#2, every time you hear one side of the story from advocates like the ACLU, it's warped. If there wasn't another legit side, this case wouldn't be at the supreme court. Without the perspective to make up my own mind, this is just propaganda.
#3 WHAT IS ON THAT ACLU GUY'S FACE?
The illusion of total control by school faculty over students must be shattered.
The price of freedom is that sometimes people get away with doing "bad things". Preventing drug use isn't worth strip searching students.
Just as preventing a few occasional acts of terrorism isn't worth living in a police state.
@zuzu
ibuprofen = advil
Tylenol would be acetaminophen (or paracetemol depending where you are)
The dangers of prescription ibuprofen are also silly. It's easy to take a "prescription" level dose with otc ibuprofen. What a ridiculous thing to search someone for, let alone strip search.
@#17
#1: Link?
#2: The SCOTUS listened to the other "legit side", and decided it wasn't legit. Thus, the ruling.
#3: Something that could probably be surgically removed, unlike the belief that 13-year-olds should be subject to strip searches because they might have prescription-strength ibuprofen. That sort of twisted outlook can only be addressed with therapy.
Another fail for the war on drugs.
The Govt has long reported that prescription drugs are the fastest-growing category of drug abuse among teens. And, Frontline's medicated child has always scared the bejesus out of me.
Bottom line: the ACLU intends to set precedent on a group of cases which are likely to be the dominant form of future teen drug abuse.
Yeah, the ONDCP has never been one for scare tactics ("THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS! BOOGA BOOGA!"). And Frontline's report is about overmedication of children by adults.
teufelsdroch,
Ibuprofen is an over the counter analgesic. She can buy it legally. It doesn't get you high. You seem to be the target demographic for histrionic FUD.
Pedophiles really hate it when you cut off access to their dating pool.
@24
My comments do not relate to this case, but to the precedent it sets. I am not even making a judgement about whether that precedent is bad. I merely point out that the meaning of this decision extends beyond the case. Without that perspective you are, again, merely distributing propaganda.
@ 23 The implication of the Frontline ep, and the explicit conclusion of the gov't report, was that the increasingly common use of pills to 'treat' children means that those kids likely view those drugs as safe. It means that prescription drug abuse starts at an earlier age. And it also means that serious prescriptions are commonly accessible.
Granted, drug use among kids is a problem but a strip search based on unsubstantiated accusations merits at best detaining the child and a call to the parent(s).
This is the logical conclusion to the BS of "Zero Tolerance" policies that supposedly absolve school admins from having to make a thoughtful decision.
I won't godwin the thread, but having a policy in place that allows one to claim "just following orders" is a cop-out.
If this was my child I'd be on that school like a Pit Bull.
So the girl was falsely accused, and then stripped searched without mandate.
And she's still innocent, and the liars and abusers have been spotlighted nationally.
Makes my morning!
CONCERN TROLL IS CONCERNED :(
I even corrected myself a few minutes later. I rushed to post and forgot to double-check which generic name was cited in the original article.
Just so long as we agree we're not talking about naproxen or aspirin. ;)
All the more reason to end the War on Some Drugs and embrace morphological freedom / cognitive liberty?
You, not doctors or the government, own your body.
(Too bad "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" isn't available for viewing on CBS's official Twilight Zone page. Another Brick in the Wall will have to suffice.)
"serious prescriptions", as opposed to "comedic prescriptions"? It's your personal responsibility to be informed about everything you do, including what you do to (or put in) your body.
Drugs have been a part of modern life for at least a century. Soon other forms of microtechnology, such as cyborgization, will expand that frontier even further.
Last decade, if you didn't buy your child a recommended graphing calculator for school, you put them at a disadvantage. This decade it's a netbook (or laptop).
At the high school and college level, we've had several mainstream considerations of the defacto use of neuroenhancement drugs.
So in the next decade, it looks like we'll be providing a variety of cognitive or performance enhancements for our children: gene therapy / reprogenetics, brain-computer interfaces, and psychoactive drugs.
Not getting a brain implant, 20 years from now, could make you look as backwards and foolish as if you sent your kid to school without shoes today.
(10 years from now, it might make you only look as foolish as not allowing your teenage daughter to obtain a prescription for birth control pills.)
Most of my points have been said better by others, yay BB comments!
Concerning "drug hysteria" as an illness: if a dozen "prescription-strength" Ibuprofen is greater than a full 200-pill economy bottle of the same ingredient, something is terribly wrong. Relative harm needs to be taught -- more to teachers than students.
Wouldn't it be better if legality was a function of risk? If so, pot would be OTC, and Tylenol would be prescription.
This reminds me of the fast-food strip-search story (true) that was then dramatised on "Law & Order" -- sick, disproportionate, evidence that anencephalics do live to adulthood. (oops, did I type that out loud?)
And them they will kill a 13 years old because another 13 years old classmate said that she carried scissors, a sharp instrument a significant danger to herself and others.
I have no doubt in my mind that all the kids we give medicine for behavioral problems actually have them. I'm pretty sure that even half the kids we give medicine to don't have problems. I think it's partly America and the western world's increased laziness, we just don't want to deal with kids who are on a lot of the time. The other part is we're starting to think of people as machines, if they don't work exactly the right way, we need to fix them.
This and suburban expansion are what makes me lose faith in the world. Everything is becoming the same everywhere. It's depressing how similar everything is.
@22
The Govt is not of one mind. Certain portions of the government are pushing the agenda that "drugs are bad, m-kay?" Outside the narrow confines of the schools, there's a more nuanced reality in which it's recognized that almost all drugs have legitimate uses, that many drugs have little or no abuse potential, and that drugs of various sorts are often clinically indicated. Minors can walk into drug stores and buy OTC drugs, and it's perfectly legal. Parents routinely dispense both OTC and prescription drugs to their children at home. It's only in the schools that this fanatic anti-pharmaceutical ideology is firmly entrenched.
I'm seriously worried about schools that have blanket zero-tolerance policies for all pharmaceuticals, making no distinction between PCP and calcium carbonate antacids, no distinction between junkies and diabetics, no distinction between a brick of weed and an EpiPen. This broad-brush anti-"drug" hysteria that Nancy Reagan started is a threat to public health, and we should put a stop to it. "What's that? You've been bitten by a wasp, and you're going into anaphylactic shock? Just say no!" It's puritanical bullshit. We need a return to sanity.
(And the notion that you can just go to the nurse's office to get your EpiPen doesn't cut it, either.)
Ibuprofen (Advil) is safer than Acetaminophen/Paracetamol (Tylenol), which can kill your liver, especially if you combine it with alcohol.
Ibuprofen (Advil) causes stomach bleeding. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is hard on the liver. (Neither are good to take with alcohol.) Everything's a compromise of risk-reward.
"But this case would never have been heard if it weren’t for the bravery of Savana."
it would never have been heard if you people would get over your hysterical fear of harmless drugs. it's an over-the-counter pain killer. "prescription strength"?? wooooooo
@33
Exactly: schools make no distinction between harmless and harmful pills. They are not qualified to do so. That is why a case based on ibuprofen has relevance for more dangerous pills.
And, schools are fanatically anti-pharma because they are fanatically anti-lawsuit. If tomorrow your kid got pills from a friend at school and OD'd, you'd be in the courthouse the next day.
I'm perfectly happy for an adult to make their own decisions. I am not happy to have a 13 year old making that decision. 13 year olds should not dose themselves--with anything. I wager that the first time you saw 6th graders passing around a bottle of sleeping pills, you would have a different idea of what's acceptable.
Now, that said, I've gotten way too far from this case, which is horrifying. Obviously the people responsible should have been fired. And they would have been, immediately, except that the ACLU saw it as an opportunity.
I can't believe she let them strip search her.
I'm still amazed that this went all the way to the supreme court rather than the school officials being arrested the evening of the incident for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor.
If you were to write down a complete, comprehensive list of everyone that "zero tolerance" rules were created in an effort to protect, schoolchildren themselves would be at the absolute bottom of the list.
Those policies were never meant to help children. They were meant to create a nebulous system where no individual administrator can be blamed for making bad decisions that hamper childrens' education.
Why worry about doing the right thing? Just make it official policy to always do the wrong thing, and make it so that it is not any one person or group of people's decision to consistently do the wrong thing. It's like painting the entire management structure of the system in zebra stripes. Each bad call is the responsibility of everyone and noone, and citizens are kept frustrated about who to place the blame on if they want to press for change that's actually intended to help their kids.
Sure, the kids are worse off than ever, but no administrator's reputation is endangered, and that's what really matters most in our education system.
Ibuprofen? Hardly a mind-altering drug - its main effect apart from alleviating some sort of pain is giving you a belly-ache.
Completely ridiculous - I'd think even more so, since here in Denmark it's over-the-counter; but it's not an "abusable" drug, not like it were codeine or morphine. I'm glad it was ruled the search was unconstitutional.
Ibuprofen is OTC in the states too; you can just get a higher dose per pill with a prescription.
here's the opinion
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-479.ZS.html
of note, the school officals got off scott free,
qualified immunity. it now goes back to a lower court to decide if the district has to pay damages.
(so it'll settle.)
teufelsdroch #17:
...every time you hear one side of the story from advocates like the ACLU, it's warped. If there wasn't another legit side, this case wouldn't be at the supreme court.
Both sides did make their case, quite publicly. The ACLU just happened to make their case much more convincingly than the creeps who decided it was OK to violate a young girl's privacy for no good reason.
Saying "I can't make an impartial judgment on this case when I'm only hearing the biased view of the ACLU" is just another way of saying "I'm not going to bother looking into both sides of this case, because I don't like the ACLU and therefore they must be wrong."
@38
If schools aren't qualified to make decisions, they should leave those decisions up to the parents and/or the students, with some weight given to the students' age. If an 18-year-old has her purse searched, and they find oral contraceptives, notifying the parents would be an invasion of the student's privacy. Moreover, if all she has left are the sugar pills, there's no basis for any disciplinary action, even under a zero-tolerance regime.
I also question the argument that the schools are totally unqualified to make such decisions. They apparently called a poison control hotline to identify the pills they'd found on another student, and the poison control hotline should have been able to inform them that the drugs weren't particularly dangerous and had no significant abuse potential. Moreover, the school nurse helped carry out the search. I would expect a school nurse to know that ibuprofen is available over the counter and that it has no significant abuse potential.
The risk of lawsuits ought to make the schools relax some of their more draconian policies. If tomorrow your kid is denied access to his EpiPen at school and dies of anaphylactic shock, you'd be in the courthouse the next day. I seem to recall at least one ADA lawsuit involving a diabetic student being denied access to insulin at school. Let's not forget that we're discussing a law suit, and the school lost.
Thirteen-year-olds can dose themselves responsibly, or they can dose themselves irresponsibly. The same can be said of fifty-two-olds; I have a certain right-wing radio host in mind. I don't think it's at all unusual for an IEP or Section 504 plan for a diabetic to stipulate self-administering insulin by the age of thirteen.
Maybe I just wasn't hanging out in the right circles, but I've never seen sixth-graders passing around bottles of "sleeping pills" -- unless by "sleeping pills" you mean antihistamines rather than, say, benzodiazepines or barbiturates. I may well have been dosing myself with antihistamines by the time I was in sixth grade, but I've seldom used them as "sleeping pills," and I've only taken benzodiazepines once, prior to a surgical procedure.
"biggest victory" = "only victory"
sad.
Prescription ibuprofen in the US is usually 600 or 800mg, 3-4x the non-prescription dose. Before the drug went OTC in the US, the typical prescription version for menstrual cramps was 600mg. It's possible to get an ulcer from the stuff (I've done it, using the OTC version :-) if you're not at least vaguely careful. (Dr. House even had a patient die from the stuff.)
It's not something the school would be restricting because you might get high (it doesn't do that), but because of the anti-getting-sued forces that Teufelsdroch referred to. Many decades ago, when I was in high school in a much less paranoid suburb, teachers still weren't allowed to give OTC drugs to students; I remember one conversation where a teacher explained that he would be totally shocked if he heard that any of his students STOLE aspirin from the top right-hand drawer of his desk while his back was turned writing things on the blackboard; it saved the kid a trip down to the nurse's office.*
* (A.a. - that was Crum.)
so, to get "prescription" ibuprofen; take three pills of the non-prescription.
How do we get these situations where the uninformed Man On The Street knows straight away that something is wrong, but the person hired specifically to make the decision never questions what they're doing?
@46
"If schools aren't qualified to make decisions, they should leave those decisions up to the parents and/or the students, with some weight given to the students' age."
That's exactly right! If you'd like your kid to get a medication, just take the bottle to the nurse with a prescription for when to take them.
"Thirteen-year-olds can dose themselves responsibly, or they can dose themselves irresponsibly. The same can be said of fifty-two-old"
I suspect you know, yourself, that children cannot be allowed to dose themselves with prescription medication they do not have permission to possess.
Regarding insulin, your perceived problem is exactly opposite of the real one. Most schools don't have the number of nurses available to give insulin shots to all those whose parents ask for it. So, most students self-administer.
If you've read a story about a kid not being allowed access to an epipen, my guess is that it was a private school. Public schools are legally mandated to allow them, if prescribed, and to train nurses to administer.
"I would expect a school nurse to know that ibuprofen is available over the counter and that it has no significant abuse potential."
Did you notice how the SCOTUS decision called these 'prescription pain killers' without ever mentioning 'ibuprofen'? The charges didn't make value judgements about what KIND of prescription painkiller it was, and therefore schools can't either.
Again, was this case ridiculous? Absolutely. But you're continuing to prove my point that people are going to use this clear-cut, extreme case to make much broader arguments.
most school administrators are such because they made the conscious decision to sell out for money. Not all, but definitely most.
Maybe schools need to hire a regular guy off the street to vet their ethics.
Like in this case, the principal walks down the hall to an office with "Regular Guy" on the door:
"Hey, Regularguy, we heard a rumour that someone had Advil, so we're going to force a little girl to take her clothes off while we watch. Waddya think?"
"That's a terrible idea, it'll achieve nothing and make you look like monsters."
"Oh yeah, the thought had never occurred to me! Thanks, Regularguy!"
he needs a cape and googles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYyGyya_Ems
EvilAdrian, found just the man for the job!
http://store.theonion.com/area-man-tee-p-174.html
Here's his CV: http://www.theonion.com/content/search/onion/advanced?search=area%20man&restrict=
I don't really get it. I mean, if it was, let's say... coke, or ecstasy pills, or whatever... It was ibuprofin, for heaven's sake! I just popped in a pill because of my fever!
Ibuprofen is Over The Counter in the US? In the UK it just sits there on the bottom shelf in the supermarket.
Why was this case taken all the way to SCOTUS? Wouldn't lower courts have been able to spot the bleeding obvious?
"Over the Counter," counterintuitively enough, means a drug you can just buy off the shelf. You can buy ibuprofen off the shelf in the US. Just not prescription-strength ibuprofen.
I'm curious as to what Ms. Redding's religious background is. My wife is actually from Safford, Arizona, and the town has an *enormous* Mormon population to the point that most of the city, county, and school officials are Mormon - I believe the administration of Safford Middle School at the time of this incident were Mormon as well. My wife has some awful stories of living as a non-Mormon in Safford, and much of her family has told me stories of how poorly they were treated by Mormon school officials (to the point that if they were sent to the Principal's office for whatever reason, the first question held to them was "What's your religion?" and they were always presumed guilty until (begrudgingly) proven innocent. Based on Ms. Redding's description of the event, I wouldn't be surprised if she herself is not of the Mormon faith and was treated so harshly by the school's administration because of it. To be clear, I have absolutely nothing against Mormons - they are simply the majority population in that town, doing what the majority does to the minority in any population the world over. All that aside, I'm glad to see the SCOTUS made a decent decision for once.
@51
"If you'd like your kid to get a medication, just take the bottle to the nurse with a prescription for when to take them."
Given the extent of the hysteria, I suspect that many schools chiefly intend to have the nurse "just say no" whenever possible. Teachers can also potentially block student visits to the nurse during class. Nurses may step away for whatever reason. And then there's the point you conveniently make:
"Most schools don't have the number of nurses available to give insulin shots to all those whose parents ask for it."
By your own admission, then, school nurses are not up to the task you're attempting to assign to them.
"I suspect you know, yourself, that children cannot be allowed to dose themselves with prescription medication they do not have permission to possess."
Neither can adults. What's your point?
"Did you notice how the SCOTUS decision called these 'prescription pain killers' without ever mentioning 'ibuprofen'? The charges didn't make value judgements [sic] about what KIND of prescription painkiller it was, and therefore schools can't either."
Oh, quite the contrary. I actually read the decision. It explicitly recognizes that the medications seized were equivalent to OTC drugs. I refer you to pp. 9-10 of the majority decision:
"Wilson knew beforehand that the pills were prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter naproxen, common pain relievers equivalent to two Advil,or one Aleve.[4] He must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, and while just about anything can be taken in quantities that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills."
[4] was a footnote:
"An Advil tablet, caplet, or gel caplet, contains 200 mg of ibuprofen. See Physicians’ Desk Reference for Nonprescription Drugs, Dietary Supplements, and Herbs 674 (28th ed. 2006). An Aleve caplet contains 200 mg naproxen and 20 mg sodium. See id., at 675."
The court did not make the broad-brush assumption that "prescription painkiller" implies "opioid narcotic." It instead cited an earlier ruling (T. L. O.) which demands that school searches be "not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction." Understanding "the nature of the infraction" demands some knowledge of the hazard posed by the substance in question. Is this a suspected infraction of an arbitrary rule, or is it a matter of public safety? Just don't get that intrusive without knowing for certain that the substance in question presents a serious danger.
(For an example of similarly intrusive enforcement of an arbitrary rule I refer you to another Assistant Principal Wilson.)
Okay folks, I WENT to this middle school. Let's run down the list of things you don't understand:
1 Pedophilia accusations. The administrator (assistant middle school principal) who order the search was not involved with the search. Because he is a guy. The search was preformed by the female school nurse (who covers multiple schools in the district, which is why there was a time delay) and female gym teacher, who were not told what the banned substance they were looking for was. The girl was not touched or required to take off her clothes.
This is also a school district that takes charges of impropriety seriously, firing their best high school math teacher (who was amazing, beloved by all students, and not in the least ever inappropriate or ever had any complaints against him) for BUMPING into a female student in a crowded hallway.
2 School Policy. The school's policy was inline with Arizona state laws, and had been approved by the city lawyer. The school district is too poor to have their own lawyer, unless they are being sued. The current lawyer was paid in part by the school insurance, and I believe in part by a bond issue (I don't live there anymore, and I got that info third-hand). Arizona has incredibly strict zoning laws about substances near schools. If an administrator believes that a non-student adult has cigarettes on them or in their car on school grounds (or within 200 feet) they can have that person arrested.
3 There is a drug problem at the school. It's restricted to a relatively small cohort (one or two kids every year or so dumb enough to be caught on school grounds). Yes it is often as benign as pot, but on several occasions, it's been crystal meth. One favored way of taking meth in southern Arizona? By dissolving it in water and painting it on to things like OTC pills.
4 As for the idea that school administrators "sell out for money." Arizona is 50th in the amount of money paid per student. Nobody is getting rich off education in AZ, and certainly not in Safford, where a starting teacher makes 21,000 / year (less than they would working at Wal-Mart as a manager, and since they have college degrees, I think they could.)
What the school did was wrong. They should have called her mother (who was known for being a bit of a harpy/loon (it's a SMALL town)). But the real problems are much more systemic and impact all kids in Arizona. Schools in AZ treat children as chattel and pre-convicts. (The middle school where this occurred has 25 foot barred gates at each entrance and barbed wire on the roofs. It is to prevent rampant and expensive vandalism, but it creates a terrible feeling.)
As a state, AZ is in the top five for teen pregnancy, teen drug use, and has a very high infant/child mortality rate. They are at the bottom for child/teen literacy and child/teen health insurance. Teachers in Arizona are required to receive raises that align with inflation every year. The state legislature votes to determine the amount of inflation. You'll be glad to know there has been no inflation in Arizona for more than 20 years.
The system is broken fundamentally in Arizona. And this is the sort of thing that happens.
And the ACLU (who did the right thing by this little girl) doesn't give a damn that the lawsuit will cost the next ten years of kids at Safford Unified School Districts, new books (I remember new textbooks twice in twelve years of schooling), new equipment (most of the computers at the schools were bought with grants, but that was in the good old days) and the money to pay teachers (Arizona has a teacher shortage, and many positions are filled by long term subs.)
So, somebody does something stupid that is within the law and their handbook. And yes, something should have been done to make sure this doesn't happen again. But there's a bunch of school kids, most of them working class, who are really going to suffer because somebody's going to want money from a system that has none.
@61
Yes indeed, the judges were very careful in their decision to try to limit its scope. You're making tit-for-tat arguments which continue to prove my thesis:
This case was clear cut, but the broader precedent the ACLU is trying to set regarding prescription medication and personal searches is not valid.
The enlightened school principal would read the full decision and understand that. But, as you've pointed out, schools see a lawsuit and make irrational policies.
YOUR basic thesis, as far as I can tell, is that kids should be allowed to carry and take drugs without instructions from their doctor. And that thesis is clearly not supported by the SCOTUS decision, nor by common sense.
@ Teufelsdroch:
I'm sorry, but the Supreme Court's ruling explicitly disagrees with you:
"Because the suspected facts pointing to Savana did not indicate that the drugs presented a danger to students or were concealed in her underwear, Wilson did not have sufficient suspicion to warrant extending the search to the point of making Savana pull out her underwear.
"Because Wilson knew that the pills were common pain relievers, he must have known of their nature and limited threat and had no reason to suspect that large amounts were being passed around or that individual students had great quantities."
"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"
Clearly, the court ruled that school was in a position to judge the degree of harmfulness of the pills.
All your other comments that this was just a pretext for a decision that will make all prescription drugs legal for toddlers to ingest at any time, or whatever it is that you're FUDing about, also display a clear lack of reading or understanding of the decision. This decision was about strip-searching a 13-year-old girl and the violation of the Fourth Amendment, not about ibuprofen.