It must be Kids’ Week, or something.
According to this ABC News article, a 13-year old girl was strip-searched by school administrators because they thought she was carrying ibuprofen.
I will repeat that for those of you on drugs: a 13-year-old girl was strip-searched by school adminsitrators who thought she was carrying ibuprofen.
It seems one of the victim’s classmates had been telling the principal that she’d been giving other kids the drug, and even produced a single pill as proof. The vigilant school administrators deemed that to be sufficient probable cause to yank the victim out of class and search her backpack and locker. Oddly, no drugs were found. Not satisfied by this lack of evidence, the school administrators took the girl to the School Nurse’s office and forced her to take off her clothes. These school administrators then pulled the victim’s bra away to expose her breasts, and pulled her panties away to look at her crotch. By the way, no drugs of any kind were found.
In a rational Universe, the people responsible for this would have been tarred and feathered, beaten severely, and run out of town. In any normal section of reality, the people who committed these acts would be arrested and jailed for sexual assault. Unfortunately for rationality, the people who committed these crimes were school administrators, and are therefore above the Law.
The victim’s mother sued the school when she found out about the incident. The local court found in favor of the school. So did the Appellate court. The case is supposed to be heard by the Federal Appeals Court soon.
Here is my question: How could any judge decide that this was within the rights of any government official? I’m reasonably certain that this sort of thing is specifically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. If there was ever a textbook definition for “unreasonable search and seizure” this would be it.
Aside from the Judge and School Administrators (the obvious idiots in this case), who is to blame for this Byzantine abuse of authority?
Look in the fucking mirror.
You (the People) have permitted yourselves to be frightened into allowing the Government to filch away our rights. All that is required to get the American People to roll over and lick their oppressors’ boots is to whisper the words, “war on drugs” or “war on terror“.
Those magic phrases have been- and are being- used to magically make our individual liberties disappear. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are being annihilated in tiny increments.
And we (the People) are letting it happen.
Let us go back to basics. School administrators are government employees. The government is supposed to work for the people. Therefore, we (the People) are complicit in the sexual assault of a 13-year old girl.
We (the People) have given these government employees the authority to sexually assault our children, and furthermore made it possible for them to escape any consequences of their stupidity.
We do not have to put up with this. For the love of Reason, register to vote. Vote in your local elections. Run for School Board. Get rid of these authoritarian lampreys we have allowed to infest our school systems.
Can’t get elected to the School board? Start a petition to recall any member of the School Board who approves of these draconian tactics. Put measures on the ballot to repeal these idiotic “zero tolerance” policies. Petition your local and State officials to make this sort of un-Constitutional activity against the law.
The next step is to sue the bastards when they pull this crap. If it wasn’t your child who got victimized by the school administration, offer financial support for the parents of the assaulted child in their legal fight.
There is no excuse for strip-searching a 13-year old girl in a hunt for ibuprofen– or any other drug, for that matter. In my opinion, there is no excuse for strip-searching any student without a warrant. Ever. If the school administration thinks there a student might be carrying drugs (or any other contraband), they can call the parents and the police- in that order. If the cops and the parents don’t agree, then the school administration can piss up a rope- individually and collectively.
How long are we (the People) going to allow the Government to erode away our rights? What will it take before the People start standing up for their rights?
We’d better do something about it, and soon.
Remember the Four Boxes.
Current status: Furious
Current music: Veterans of the Psychic Wars by Blue Oyster Cult
A Dark and Sinister Force for Good 
Whatever happened to good old fashioned reason? Sounds to me no one from the school officials on up through the courts to date have a single ounce of it.
risingrainbow– Reason has been trumped by “zero tolerance policies”.
Reason implies reasoning ability, which implies some sort of higher cognitive functions such as actual thought. Thinking is hard for some people- especially for a lot of people who become school administrators. With a “zero tolerance policy”, they no longer have to think. “Everything not compulsory is forbidden. Everything not forbidden is compulsory. That is all you need to know, citizen. Now, show us your papers!”
School administrators around the country seem to be doing their best to create a generation of technopeasants who will toil for the benefit of their betters and never raise a voice or fist in protest. We, the People, are letting them get away with it by delegating parental responsibilities on the schools.