Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2009
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: H - 9
Copyright: 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Debra J. Saunders
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Savana+Redding
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/strip+searches

MORE THAN A SILLY STRIP SEARCH

When she was a 13-year-old student at Safford Middle School in 
Arizona, Savana Redding was strip-searched by school officials in 
search of - this is no joke - ibuprofen. Now she is suing the 
district and the officials for violating her Fourth Amendment 
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

It is not good for  that while the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments 
on her case last week, Justice David Souter commented, "My thought 
process is I would rather have the kid embarrassed by a strip search, 
if we can't find anything short of that, than to have some other kids 
dead because the stuff is distributed at lunchtime and things go awry."

The good news, I guess, is that Souter is not the surgeon general, 
because he seems unable to distinguish between Advil and methamphetamine.

But that's it for the good news.

Redding was an honor student with no disciplinary marks against her 
when another student was caught in class with prescription ibuprofen, 
small knives and a cigarette. That girl falsely told Assistant 
Principal Kerry Wilson that she got the pills from Redding.

Redding denied the charge. Wilson searched her backpack and found 
nothing. So he asked a female assistant and school nurse to 
strip-search Redding. The two women took Redding down the hall and 
instructed her to remove her socks, shoes and jacket, then shirt and 
pants, and finally, when she was down to her underwear, they asked 
her to pull and twist her underwear - exposing herself - to see if 
any pills fell out. Redding later described the episode as "the most 
humiliating experience" of her life.

The experience should have been among the most humiliating for 
Wilson, the assistant and the nurse: They didn't find any pills.

Matthew Wright, the attorney for the school district, told the 
Associated Press that media coverage is negative due to "a 
superficial understanding of the facts." He did issue a statement 
that school officials are "in the untenable position of either facing 
the threat of lawsuits for their attempts to enforce a drug-free 
policy or for their laxity in failing to interdict potentially harmful drugs."

So instead, they got a lawsuit for strip-searching an innocent kid 
because they were fool enough to think she might hide a legal drug in 
her bra. Yes, those would be the adults in this story.

I should note that the other student was found with 400 mg 
prescription ibuprofen pills, not a 200 mg over-the-counter Advil. 
But that is a distinction without a difference. I have to agree with 
U.S. Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw who, in a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals ruling in Redding's favor, 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 on drugs."

Wardlaw also was appalled that Safford conducted a less intrusive 
search of the girl who falsely accused Redding, while never asking a 
boy suspected of the same infraction to strip. If the school was 
compelled to strip-search Redding to prevent a lawsuit or harmful 
episode, why not the others?

Slate Magazine's Dahlia Lithwick noted that when Justice John Paul 
Stevens asked what discipline the district meted out to the girl who 
falsely fingered Redding, Wright answered, "Oh, there was no 
discipline that I know of."

Interesting.

Common sense could have prevented this irritating case. School 
districts ought to have better things to do - like educating - than 
banning student use of over-the-counter drugs. If parents don't want 
their children taking medication for headaches or cramps, let parents 
say no. It's not the schools' job.

Common sense also should tell school officials not to strip-search 
students for any reason without a parent's permission. Asked what she 
thinks the school should have done, Redding's answer was simple: 
"Call my mom first."

The Supreme Court does not have a strong track record when it comes 
to recognizing student or parental rights. In 1995, the Big Bench 
ruled that an Oregon school could require school athletes to submit 
to random drug testing, in part because of the "increased risk of 
sports-related injury." In 2002, the court supported an Oklahoma 
school district's mandatory drug policy for students participating in 
any extracurricular activities, sporting or not - even if parents 
objected to the test.

Perhaps, however, this episode is too extreme even for this court. 
Or, as Souter also noted, "at some point, it gets silly." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake