Not to mention another example of judicial insanity.

In 2003 a government school in Arizona strip searched a 13 year-old honors student with “no history of disciplinary trouble or drug problems.” Why? Because they thought she had ibuprofen. I’m not making this up.

The details are just outlandish. Officials caught a girl with ibuprofen and one nonprescription naproxen tablet (it’s a pain reliever that, among other things, is used to reduce menstrual cramp pain). She claimed that she got the pills from a girl named Savana. Naturally, the school’s vice principal “instructed a female secretary to strip-search Savana under the school nurse’s supervision, without even bothering to contact the girl’s mother.” (Emphasis mine) Seems reasonable.

Unbelievably, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the search was perfectly acceptable and did not violate the 4th Amendment rights of this 13 year-old girl. This is the same court which ruled in 2002 that compelling students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance violated their constitutional rights. So to summarize: forcing kids to say the Pledge is bad, strip searching them with scant probable cause is just fine.

Kudos to Rob.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.