What Would You Do If Your 13-Year-Old Child Was Strip Searched At School?
Written by: Kim Sawyer
Imagine this — another student, who is in trouble with school officials for being caught with ibuprofen, informed school officials that your child is the one who provided the meds. Also, let’s just imagine that your child is an honor roll student who has never had any disciplinary actions brought against her (at this point, let’s just say your child is a girl). Now, let’s kick this imaginary story up a notch. What if the school officials believe the unsubstantiated accusations against your child AND the school officials decide to send your child to principal’s office for questioning? When your child gets to the principal’s office, she is asked if she gave the student in trouble the ibuprofen. Your child denies any knowledge of this. Unfortunately, the principal does not believe your child and asks if he/she can search your child’s backpack. Your child agrees simply because she hasn’t done anything wrong. So, after searching your child’s backpack, and not finding anything, the principal decides to take your child to the nurse’s office to have her strip searched to see if there are any meds on her person. Whoa!!!! What???!!! Yes! The strip search involves your child being ordered to strip to her underwear. Then, your child is commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts. Lastly, your child is told to pull her underwear out at the crotch, which exposes her pelvic area. When the search failed to produce any meds, your child is told to get dressed and is sent back to class.
When your child gets home, she tells you what happened to her at school. What would be your first reaction? Would you go up to the school and cause all kinds of commotions? I’ll tell what I would do. Forgive my French, but all hell would break loose! Let me take a breath…. I just get infuriated when I hear stuff like this!
What I just described above is not an imaginary story. It actually happened to a 13-year-old girl in Safford, Arizona in 2003! Her parents sued the school and just this past Friday, July 11, 2008, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that schools may not strip-search students for drugs based on an unverified tip, overturning two previous rulings. Now, although I’m glad that the court ruled in favor of the little girl, it took five years to get this ruling, the ruling was only 6-5 AND two courts had previously ruled in favor of the strip search! What kind of foolishness is that! (If you would like to read the story concerning this reprehensible act, click here).
Now that I’ve ranted and raved about this, what do you think about this? What would you do if it happens to your child? I would love to hear your take on this…….
Tags: school
July 17th, 2008 at 3:39 am
This is very thought provoking.
In South Africa we have a major problem with drugs in schools, so one can identify with the problem. I have a 14 year old daughter at school – and I must admit that , despite the problem, if they strip-searched her in that manner, I would go ballistic!
Perhaps, if they had REAL, hard evidence, their first step would have to be to be to call the parents into the school immediately – but I cannot condone such a search on any child under those circumstances. I’d be horrified.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:08 am
hmmm…. I think it is absolutely wrong. If they felt it necessary to search her, they should have called the parents, although if I were the parent, I would probably tell them they couldn’t do it. The whole thing is amazing because, I believe at some point how you live your life should afford you benefits. This girl had never been in trouble and was an honor roll student, yet she wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt that she was telling the truth. Now that infuriates me! Our society is not one based on guilty until proven innocent. They system failed her five years ago. I guess Friday was redemption. Did they get any money?
July 17th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Hey Mike. I too think they should’ve called the parents first! They completely overlooked and bypassed any rights the child may have had.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Hey Kathy. Money was not mentioned in any of the research that I did.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Wow! I really had no idea that we had sunk that low. I believe that if Senator McCain were in office we might see a reversal.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Hi Rob. Welcome to 7DayBuzz. Your comment has peeked my curiosity. Are you saying if McCain is elected, he would make it okay for schools to strip search students?
July 17th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
This totally made my head go from an irritating headache to a “Let my lie down & take a Lortab” headache.
I would sue the pants off of the school district and possibly hire some crack heads to “strip search” the dumbass principal & the idiots who voted FOR strip searching.
What is the world coming to?!?!?!
July 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hi Angelika. Welcome to 7DayBuzz. I had to LOL about your headache comment because I know exactly what you mean. This is some mess! And the Courts made it even worse by waiting 5 years to find in favor of the student!
July 18th, 2008 at 8:12 am
So often it seems as though the thieves, liars and the corrupt faction of society, always seems to have the upper hand. And another thing, why would the school officials immediately believe one student over the other? Clearly the principal of the school should have been removed, it’s obvious that she is no longer able to make clear and rational decisions.
And as far as my feelings, I would be fuming…but I would want action taken against everyone involved in the decision that lead to the ‘strip search’. I think that would send a stronger message to teachers and school officials, than just suing the school system.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Let’s see first I would have to be sedated so that I didn’ t go tearing down the school like a maniac – but once I gathered my wits, I would have that school principal head on a platter or at least his resignation. I’m glad the courts finally ruled in favor of the child. But geeez 5 years and that close of decision. It’s a scary world.
The stuff that happens to kids can be very frightening. I recently posted about “teens striping for donations” – to say the least I was a bit appalled at the idea (Strip2Clothe – an organization is asking teens to strip, video tape, and upload it to their site, and then donations of clothing are being made to the homeless based on how many times the video is watched – can we say eeeeeeew! totally creepy!)
July 18th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hey Lady Rose. Welcome to 7daybuzz. Are you serious about teens stripping for donations? That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard recently! This is crazy. What do parents say about this organization? Are there any boycots? What is going on here……
July 18th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Hi Sadie. Welcome to 7daybuzz. I don’t know why the parents just stopped at the school system. But do you think it would’ve sped up the time for the courts to rule against this practice?
July 18th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Lady Rose, I love the part about having to be sedated! I can’t even wrap my brains around stripping by teens for a charity. Surely can’t be!
Here’s the thing. I’ve always hated when a boss, teacher, parent, pastor, etc disciplined the entire group for the wrong doing of one person! Go to that one person! Why does everybody have to pay? One bad apple can spoil a whole bunch. My point is, I know there are schools where strip searching might be a must and a typically way of life, but hat percentage has got to be small. Why then do other schools jump on the bandwagon? What they did to the little girl was a violation. Period. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, even if they would have found the big, bad, scary, prescription strength ibuprofen, it still seems to be a violation in the manner it was done.
If that same teacher/principal/administrator/nurse/whoever was in line at the airport and the person in front of them quietly said, I heard the person behind me talking on the phone and I think they are concealing a weapon, how would they react if they were strip searched for something someone just said? I doubt that they would stand still for it! Yet, because she was 13 years old, and from the sound of it, a nice young woman, they took total advantage of her innocence.
I agree Sadie, why would they take one student’s word over another’s? Why didn’t they just let the nurse do it? Why did two people get to see her goodies? And the girl that accused the other one didn’t say she had pills on her at that time nor did she say she had them in her underwear. Are we really dealing with school personnel or light weight child molesters?
July 18th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
But why even allow ‘just’ the nurse to do it? Isn’t that still a violation of her rights? Especially since they didn’t even try to contact the parent first.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Yes Kim, I agree. Nobody should have done it but why two people? I was just trying to stress how much more perverted it seems having two people looking. Still WRONG!
July 20th, 2008 at 10:28 am
What’s the deal with ibuprofen? This is a drug which is available OTC (over the counter).
You can read more about the drug here.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hi Richard. Welcome to 7daybuzz. It was prescription strength and she did not have a prescription for it.
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July 20th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Ah, so in the United States if you don’t have a prescription, you have to strip off, huh?
Seems logical.
In South Africa we don’t bug people to prove they have a right to prescription medication. I hope it stays that way.
Richard Cattos last blog post..Another in our series about Lovely Crime Free Britain
July 20th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Sometimes we Americans defy logic!:–)