Published: Monday, April 27, 2009
SCHOOL SEARCH CASE
Stripped of common sense
Some Supreme Court justices tipped their collective shaky hand last week while hearing arguments regarding the constitutionality of strip-searching students as part of schools' drug policies.
The justices' comments indicate they will overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that found an Arizona school's decision to strip-search a 13-year-old honor student unconstitutional.
The facts: On Oct. 8, 2003, based on a "tip" from a student who had been caught with prescription ibuprofen that Savana Redding was the source of the drugs, school officials pulled the eighth-grader out of her math class, searched her backpack, and upon finding no contraband, ordered her to the nurse's station to be strip searched. Redding was forced to pull out her bra and shake it about, the same with her underpants, to prove no pills were hidden therein. Which they were not.
Our broad-brush "war on drugs" leaves no room for critical or sensible thinking. Strip searching for ibuprofen? Strip searching an honor student who has never been in trouble based on the word of a girl who is in trouble? Strip searching at all? That's just as wrong-headed as school drug policies that test students who go out for extra-curricular activities.
But the justices weren't concerned with any of that. Writing on Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick reports that Justice Stephen Breyer was puzzled at how a strip search could harm a child: "... why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym?"
An exasperated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lithwick writes, tried to explain the difference but Breyer was too busy reminiscing.
"In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear," Breyer said. Then: "Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's beyond human experience."
Justice David Souter said he "would rather have the kid embarrassed by a strip search ... than have some other kids dead because the stuff is distributed at lunchtime and things go awry."
Justice Antonin Scalia, Lithwick reports, was almost chortling when he wondered what happens after "you search the student's outer garments, and you have a reasonable suspicion that the student has drugs. You've searched everywhere else. By God, the drugs must be in her underpants!"
Except, of course, when they are not.
Senior moments do not good Supreme Court decisions make.
The justices' comments indicate they will overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that found an Arizona school's decision to strip-search a 13-year-old honor student unconstitutional.
The facts: On Oct. 8, 2003, based on a "tip" from a student who had been caught with prescription ibuprofen that Savana Redding was the source of the drugs, school officials pulled the eighth-grader out of her math class, searched her backpack, and upon finding no contraband, ordered her to the nurse's station to be strip searched. Redding was forced to pull out her bra and shake it about, the same with her underpants, to prove no pills were hidden therein. Which they were not.
Our broad-brush "war on drugs" leaves no room for critical or sensible thinking. Strip searching for ibuprofen? Strip searching an honor student who has never been in trouble based on the word of a girl who is in trouble? Strip searching at all? That's just as wrong-headed as school drug policies that test students who go out for extra-curricular activities.
But the justices weren't concerned with any of that. Writing on Slate.com, Dahlia Lithwick reports that Justice Stephen Breyer was puzzled at how a strip search could harm a child: "... why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym?"
An exasperated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Lithwick writes, tried to explain the difference but Breyer was too busy reminiscing.
"In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear," Breyer said. Then: "Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's beyond human experience."
Justice David Souter said he "would rather have the kid embarrassed by a strip search ... than have some other kids dead because the stuff is distributed at lunchtime and things go awry."
Justice Antonin Scalia, Lithwick reports, was almost chortling when he wondered what happens after "you search the student's outer garments, and you have a reasonable suspicion that the student has drugs. You've searched everywhere else. By God, the drugs must be in her underpants!"
Except, of course, when they are not.
Senior moments do not good Supreme Court decisions make.
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