Supreme Court Against Strip-Searching Teenagers (8–1)

As detailed in the article, Strip search of Ariz. teenager illegal, court says by Jesse J. Holland, the Supreme Court weighed in today on the case of the young lady who was strip-searched to determined whether she had brought Ibuprofen—Ibuprofen!—to school with her. The facts of case are as follows:

“Redding was 13 when the educators in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search in 2003. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs without advance permission, and the school was acting on a tip from another student.”

Oh, my, yes, those highly reliable tips from “other students”; those are about as reliable as the Afghanistanis who turned in their compatriots for money, condemning them to years in Guantànamo on their word alone. Interesting, though, is that a ruling in 1985 granted school administrators the right to search students even when they had “reasonable suspicions” instead of the more stringent “probable cause” that applies to full-fledged, first-class citizens of the U.S. (which has also been weakened considerably, as noted in the footnotes). The facts of the case in the article fail to mention that a man was also present for at least part of the strip search.

The court ruled that “U.S. educators cannot force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk.” Their last several rulings seemed capricious and would be in danger of being overturned[1]—if there was any way of doing so. But this one, finally, came down on the side of citizen rights. Can you guess who voted against it? If you guessed Clarence Thomas, then you would be right. You can keep why you guessed good old Clarence to yourself. Clarence opined that “[i]t was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look”. Or, perhaps, that she didn’t have any pills. No? Not possible? In Clarence’s America—and he is most assuredly not alone—citizens are guilty until proven innocent; that she had done nothing wrong doesn’t seem to cross his mind. How the hell is this guy on the Supreme Court? He’s clearly salivating at the thought of school officials snapping on latex gloves and getting to legally perform a body-cavity search on a minor. He goes on to mention that the case having been decided in this way will give all those drug-dealing teenagers the perfect hiding place for their stash: their underwear. And school administrators can only look on helplessly and do nothing, not even one little strip-search. Poor Clarence, what’s a raving lunatic to do when the guilty majority walk free? Does this guy even pretend to be impartial anymore? Ever?

Lucky for Clarence, seven of the justices agreed that the school could not be held legally or civilly liable for having violated a student’s rights. “Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that [principal] Wilson could not be held financially liable.” Good for them; what’s to stop schools from doing this again if they can’t be held liable? They strip-searched a minor and the court found that to be against the law; ergo, it should be possible to hold them legally liable for their crime (or, to use the euphemism, transgression). Anything else and you might as well just tip the whole legal system into the bin because it’s a joke that protects the powerful and wealthy and slams the powerless and poor.

Naturally, those in favor of total control over teenagers and totally in favor of strip-searching teen-aged girls complained:

“[…] others suggested the high court may have created further problems for school systems by failing to make clear exactly when school administrators can strip search students and when they can’t.”

What’s not clear? How about this? Don’t strip-search kids for drugs. Just don’t. There is probably no reason to ever do so that will end up being justifiable. However, the court was pretty clear when you can use such searches: “[when] student safety is at risk”. That’s pretty clear; you can search for weapons[2], but not drugs. But that’s not clear enough for Dan Capra, a Ford University professor, who is quoted as saying: “Officials now know they can’t do exactly what was done in Safford”, but what are they allowed to do? Now, IANAL[3], but isn’t it the job of the court to decide on the facts of the case, establish a precedent “e basta”?[4] It’s up to the legislature to work out the niggling details of the law and to establish guidelines. The court then rules whether those guidelines collide with established law and precedent, the legislative proposes an amended version and so on and so forth. If the court had gone into detail, they would have been accused of legislating from the bench—and rightly so.

That’s how the system works—stop trying to short-circuit it because you think it’s taking too long or it keeps coming up with answers with which you don’t agree. If you don’t like it, too bad. Lobby for change, but don’t agitate for shortcuts that do an end-run around the basic governmental system in America. If you can’t handle that, sit down and shut up while the grown-ups talk and decide for you.