Is anyone else enraged by this scenario? A thirteen year old girl was STRIP-SEARCHED by school officials because they "suspected" she MAY have had prescription strength IBUPROFEN!
This is a MAJOR WTF??!! I am so angry that this girl was put through such a humiliating, traumatizing experience.
These are times when I am reminded of what I dislike the most about public or government education-it is SO INSTITUTIONALIZED! And becoming more so with each passing day. These are schools which children attend, not prisons! Though schools continue to resemble prisons more and more. This case is highly disturbing to me and I hope it is to others.
Savana Redding, now 19, was a 13- year- old eighth grader in a small Arizona public school when she was called into the principal’s office and was asked to dump out her backpack. She did. Finding nothing, this male vice principal then sent Savana to the nurse’s office, where she was told to remove her clothing. She was then told to shake out her bra, thus exposing her breasts. Then to spread her legs while she held open her panties, exposing her pelvic area. This strip search was not to find heroin, cocaine, or even marijuana. There was no “probable cause.” The ONLY information the school officials were going on was another student claiming that Savana had given her ibuprofen.
Note: the principal did not even check Savana's desk or search her locker. After the backpack search turned up nothing, they went directly to a strip-search. WTF??? Where was the common-sense or any logic here, not to mention care for the emotional well-being and rights of this young girl? If this had been one of my daughters I do not know if that principal would be have been so lucky as to only be sued. I don't think he'd be sleeping so well at night.
Where in the hell is any common sense in this scenario? This was a young girl, an honors student, who had no disciplinary record whatsoever. And what were they looking for? IBUPROFEN!!!! And what was their cause for suspicion? Evidence that she was distributing or selling drugs? NO. Many students saying that she was? NO. Did Savana appear to be high on medications or illegal drugs? NO. This is what they had-ONE other girl telling them that maybe Savana had some ibuprofen with her.
Really, what in the world were these officials thinking? I suspect there was some political drama and/or middle school bitchiness going on because these facts just do not add up to justify the actions on the part of the school. Shame on that principal. And really, shame on the school nurse and the secretary who conducted the search. They were women. One was a school nurse. She, if not both of them, should have been aware of the emotional effects such an experience would have on a 13 year old girl in the midst of puberty-the age at which you are the MOST insecure about your body, the most embarrassed, the most emotional. And shame on these women for not speaking up for this child's rights, for not standing up to the principal and refusing to conduct such an unwarranted, obviously ridiculous search. Seriously, did they really think that if Savana had ibuprofen, she would have hidden it in her crotch?
This case concerns me on so many levels. What are the rights, if any, of a child, a human being, once they walk into a public school building? Do they lose all constitutional rights? Who decides what is a “reasonable search?” Who decides what is "cause for suspicion?” How common are strip searches in schools? Is this going on all over the country to our children? Is this what the war on drugs and zero tolerance and fear of being sued has come to? All the possible answers to these questions frighten me, both as a parent, and as a citizen.
The case, Safford Unified School District v. April Redding 08-479 was heard before the U.S. Supreme Court last week on Aril 21st.
To add insult to injury, several of the male justices on the Supreme Court seemed to view Ms. Redding's humiliating strip search as just a little “embarrassing,” not too much more than changing in front of other girls in the locker room. Justice Stephen Breyer even joked about how when he was a boy changing in the locker room, it was not uncommon for other kids to stick things down his underwear. When the court exploded with laughter, it was he who was embarrassed.
I was ANGRY all over again: here were these old MEN, minimizing Savana's experience that caused her, a girl whose favorite place was school, to stay home for months, eventually switching schools, never to return to the school where she experienced such shame, and to develop ulcers. Is THAT the result of just a "little embarrassment?"
It makes me so angry that these old privileged men were so cavalier in discussing a young small-town girl’s traumatizing experience, reducing it down to nothing more than a typical change of clothing in the locker room. How dare they? They have no idea what they are talking about! Are they female? Have they ever lived in a pubescent female’s body? Have they experienced the shame of not having a body that meets up to our society’s unattainable airbrushed image? Have they ever been forced to undress and show their penis to authority figures, authority figures they would then have to face every day they went to work? I suspect the answer to that is NO!
There was one exception, the lone female in this powerful group of nine- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She, upon listening to this belittling attitude from her male colleagues, was clearly frustrated when she spoke up for Savana- and thus all teenage girls- when she reminded the jerks on the bench that teenage girls don't ENJOY getting naked in front of their peers, that they often would find it embarrassing at that age, and they don’t get completely naked.
That gave me just a tiny sense of satisfaction and just a tiny glimmer of hope.
The school of course is defending what it did by claiming they had to keep other students safe. That if they did not perform the search, they would have been endangering the lives of the other students. I understand the need to keep kids safe at schools-it is a valid concern. However, were the other children’s lives in danger even if Savana had ibuprofen? I do not think so. I think the school had several reasonable alternatives. If they really thought Savana had ibuprofen on her, why not call her mother and send her home? Why not search her desk and locker?
As a parent, at the very least, I would want a phone call that my child was suspected of carrying "illegal drugs." I damn sure would want a phone call BEFORE my child was strip-searched. In addition, you can be damn sure I would take my child out of that school before I let strangers make her get naked and shake out her bra, spread her legs, and show them her genitalia.
I am deeply concerned the Supreme Court may rule in a way that makes it even easier for schools to perform strip searches, but I hope to hell they do not.
Until June…
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7 years ago
2 comments:
To answer your opening question of "Is anyone else enraged by this scenario?" YES. Beyond enraged. Scared to death actually. Scared that this not only can, but is happening in our schools. Scared that the original court ruled that the school did nothing wrong. Hopeful that the appeals court overruled it; but scared that it did not do so unanimously. And petrified that the Supreme Court may actually rule in the favor of the school. I thought it was a no brainer. That it would be a clear victory for Savana, and for children and people's rights. But after reading the news about the Justice's questions, I am scared. As quoted in the appeal ruling: “It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a thirteenyear-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.” (The full ruling is available at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2008/07/11/0515759.pdf).
I am male. Nevertheless, I shed a tear every time I stop and think about what that poor girl had to go through. And that this will haunt her for years and years to come. All over Advil. All because another 13-year old caught red handed tried to pass the blame onto someone she was mad at. All in the name of "Zero Tolerance" which is synonymous with "Zero Common Sense" and is a euphemism for "Zero Rights". Maybe we should practice Zero Tolerance of sexual harassment & sexual molestation and those school officials should be tried as sex offenders and then forced to register as such where ever they live. Too much you say... read the appeals court ruling when it questions why the school chose to strip search a girl based on the allegation of another student but did not strip search a boy also accused (on the same day in the same matter as Savana) of violating school drug policy. (See footnote #5 on pg 8429 (pg 8 of the PDF file) of the Court of Appeal's ruling.) And for the record, none of them should have been striped searched. But my point here is that of the three suspects, two girls and one boy, one girl was strip searched, one girl (the one actually caught with the Ibuprofen) had to lift her shirt, but the boy... nothing. Sounds like sexual inequality or sexual harassment to me.
You are right in saying that our schools have become prison like; too institutionalized. Our kids have to walk through metal detectors all so gun lovers can have their guns to protect themselves... from whom... from people who stole guns from other gun lovers or people who can easily buy them at gun lover shows. But that is another topic for another time.
I hope the supreme court has enough common sense, and common decency, to realize the school went too far in this matter. If not, I will be very scared for this country and its children.
I guess there is justice after all! The United States Supreme Court ruled today (June 25) 8-1 that the search of Savana was Illegal. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. See this USA Today Story for some coverage of the opinion. You can also view the full opinion as a PDF. I so happy for Savana that she has finally received some justice in this nightmare she has been going through.
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