jteamaz's Blog

There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it's perfectly reasonable to strip search a 13-year old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible. The first group includes officials at Safford Middle School in Safford, AZ who in 2003 forced 8th grader Savana Redding to prove she was not concealing Advil in her crotch or cleavage. It also includes two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, who ruled last fall that the strip search did not violate Savana's Fourth Amendment rights. The full court, which recently heard arguments in the case now has an opportunity to overturn that decision and vote against a legal environment in which school children are conditioned to believe government agents have the authority to subject people to invasive, humiliating searches on the slightest pretext.

Safford Middle School claims a "zero tolerance" policy that prohibits possession of all drugs, including not just alcohol and illegal intoxicants but prescription medications and over-the-counter remedies, "except those for which permission to use in school has been granted." In Oct. 2003, acting on a tip, Vice Principal Kerry Wilson found a few 400-milligram ibuprofen pills (each equivalent to two over-the-counter tablets) and one nonprescription Naproxen tablet in the pockets of a student named "Marissa" who claimed Savana was her source.

Savana, an honors student with no history of disciplinary trouble or drug problems, said she didn't know anything about the pills and agreed to a search of her backpack, which turned up nothing. Wilson nevertheless instructed a female secretary to strip search Savana under the school nurses's supervision, without even bothering to contact the girl's mother. Savana was stripped to her underwear and told to "pull her bra out the side and shake it, exposing herself," and "pull her underwear out at the crotch and shake it," exposing her pelvic area.....sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.

Savana was of course mortified, but thought she'd be in more trouble if she didn't do what they asked, and was of course, humiliated beyond words. The school's principal said "I didn't think it was a big deal because we didn't find anything."

There's no reason to suspect that a 13-year old honor roll student with a clean disciplinary record had adopted drug-smuggling practices associated with international narcotrafficking, to to suppose other middle-school students would willingly consume ibuprofen that was stored in another student's crotch......remember, this was "prescription strength ibuprofen," pretty bad stuff.

It's a good thing the school took swift action before anyone got unauthorized relief from menstrual cramps......

Seems a bit extreme to me, thoughts ??