It appears that NJ v. TLO is the controlling case, as far as the search is concerned. A search in this context need only be "reasonably related to the objectives of the search" and "not excessively intrusive in light of the age and the sex of the student." Even though the court may (and should) find excess intrusion, the court will likely hold that the officials have qualified immunity since there isn't a "clearly established" prohibition against the search "which a reasonable person would have known." When it does so, the court will be further watering down the word "reasonable," IMO. Reasonable people don't treat middle school students like prison inmates, especially when . . .
I remember a vice principal hassling me about drinking water in the hallway after morning football practice. She told me that it could be vodka and I told her that banning drinking clear fluids was probably the worst possible way to prevent that, which was going to happen no matter what the rules were.
Agreed 100% Softly with everything you said. What the hell is wrong with some people. Seriously, that is dumbfuckstupidasshit. If I was the girls dad I'd have kicked the VP's *** then considered suing. Just ridiculous.
as a father of two daughters, kicking the vice principal's *** was my first thought too the war on drugs gone amock
While an all out search for ibuprofen does seem to me to be excessive, students today are carrying inhalents hidden on their body. It's a matter of life or death. And if a student dies in the restroom doing an inhalent, you can be sure the school will be blamed for negligence.
How do you prevent a student from injuring themselves with stuff like this but prevent being sued for negligence? I definitely don't condone what happened but would just a simple search have sufficed?
I assume the search was conducted by female employees. The girl was distributing prescription medication. Who is to determine how great a risk is the medication ?
But if students are going to hide drugs in their crotches, how is a search going to be done that could not potentially be labeled as causing “humiliation and degradation." I'm not arguing the search was correct, just throwing this out for discussion.
Thanks, that makes sense. Although in this case it seems to me they had more than a hunch (they had the testimony of the other girl), I understand completely what you are saying. Let me throw a hypothetical out there. What if the girl took the advil, had some sort of reaction, and fell into a coma? Where would that put the school in terms of liability? The school might have even suspected in the past that the first girl had distributed prescription medicine but never had enough evidence to warrant a search. It seems to me schools are often put in "damed if you do, damned if you don't" situations, and this seems like one of those cases. I'm curious about all who said they would linch the VP. If your daughter was the second girl and she was sent to the hospital for ingesting the drug, would you absolve the school of all responsibility?
What a bunch of ******* morons... Yep the ever important war on drugs and the word of another 13 year old should always be the "reasonable' basis of strip searching a 13 year old.... I have little doubt that this level of stupidity will be codified as law by the conservatives now in control of the court.
Thanks for the well-written and educated replies. I've never actually thought about strip searching students and I don't think I have ever taught in a school that would do such a thing, although its not something that would be any of my business anyway. This caught my interest because I did have a student last year who was known to use and distribute his mother's extensive prescription medicine cabinet. And I'm sure he kept the supply in his shorts...that's probably why he never dressed out in gym and susequently failed PE. He was eventually sent to an alternative setting for unrelated issues.
I am not a lawyer, but our legal system must be really screwed up if it is acceptable to strip search a child for OTC medications. Seriously screwed up.
First off Ibruprophen is neither perscription nor a controlled substance. It is an over the counter drug that childern the age of 13 take ALL THE TIME!!!! I go through at least a bottle every soccer season, with my 13 year old girls soccer team. My problem is the VERY low level of evidence that may be codified into law to protect stupid actions. Cool... some kid will say... let's get Sally strip searched.. that would be hilarious! All we need to do is tell the assistant principal she said she had some advil she coudl give me.... Ohhh... keep the drugs out of our schools!!!!! As somebody else said, zero tolerance laws are stupid, because they don't allow for thinking to be involved in their administration. Anytime you take thinking out of the equation you end up where we are with this stupidity....
Yeah the girl that had the "drugs" in her posession, said she got them from another girl. Only one of the girls was strip searched. makes my point exactly. Scary thing is the court is likely going to codify this level of stupidity into law to indemnify schools fighting the "war on drugs" no matter how ******* stupid they are in the execution.
So, what would have happened if the girl told the principal to go f**k himself and didn't take **** off?
