Whenever I run across a great injustice or particular piece of insanity in this world I can now rant and rave about it on these pages, instead of letting it fester deep inside of me!
Wonderful therapy and it sure beats walking around all day mumbling to myself and being rude to people. (Although I do that anyway!)
This gem of insanity first came from CNN news and then I got my hands on it so if ya haven't heard by now......... you're about to!
First...... ya take a normal 13 year old schoolgirl down in the good ol' U.S. of A., and for purposes of modesty we will not reveal her name but instead call her "Savana Redding!" (sic)
Got that? Sweet kid, school uniform, pigtails and black patent shoes! An eighth-grade honors student at Safford Middle School, about 127 miles from Tucson, Arizona.
Where we have a problem is when Miss Redding was strip-searched by school officials after a fellow student accused her of providing prescription-strength ibuprofen pills.
(The school has a zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including the ibuprofen, without prior written permission.)
Well, first of all I didn't know they even had "prescription strength" Advil, but even so, I have to assume that this girl was doing a "Florence Nightingale" number for a fellow student who was in some sort of distress and not pushing the stuff!
Give the girl a medal?
Nah.............., drag her to the office and search her!
When ya don't find anything, do a strip search! (Now remember, this girl is only thirteen, and if she's at a private school....., is probably not very street smart or tough on the inside!)
(What did ya get busted for.....? Pushing Advil!)
NOW! This is where it gets interesting! (As if it wasn't already!)
The Reddings, (Oops! There goes the anonymity.) took the school to court and the government lawyers stated that a thirteen year old does not have the same protections as an adult and the school was within it's rights to do the strip search!
This alone was enough to choke me, but since then the case has gone up through the U.S. legal system and each time the government lawyers lost, they appealed!
After all, they have government money to burn!
(Now I'm not sure of the exact circumstances of this case....... except that as the decision went back and forth on it's way up the system, the government was more interested in protecting itself than in seeing justice done! After all, who, besides the government, would contest the fact that you DON"T strip search a thirteen year old!)
In an affidavit, Redding said, "The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had. I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry."
At issue is whether school administrators are constitutionally barred from conducting searches of students investigated for possessing or dealing drugs that are banned on campus.
A federal appeals court found the search "traumatizing" and illegal.
Some parents say older children deserve the same constitutional rights as adults, but educators counter a school setting has always been treated differently by courts, and a ruling against them could jeopardize campus safety.
While a federal magistrate and a three-panel appeals court found the search was reasonable, the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Redding last year.Good God, that headache is starting all over again!
"Common sense informs us," wrote the court, "that directing a 13-year-old girl to remove her clothes, partially revealing her breasts and pelvic area, for allegedly possessing ibuprofen ... was excessively intrusive."
The court said the school went too far in its effort to create a drug- and crime-free classroom. "The over zealousness of school administrators in efforts to protect students has the tragic impact of traumatizing those they claim to serve. And all this to find prescription-strength ibuprofen."
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the school district said restrictions on conducting student searches would cast a "roadblock to the kind of swift and effective response that is too often needed to protect the very safety of students, particularly from the threats posed by drugs and weapons."
School officials said the court was "wholly uninformed about a disturbing new trend" -- the abuse of over-the-counter medication by teenagers.
The high court has a mixed record over the years on students' rights.
In a famous 1969 ruling, the justices said students do not "shed their constitutional rights ... at the schoolhouse gate." But decisions in the 1980s gave administrators greater discretion, including one case that said officials need not be required to have a warrant to search a student's locker. Such a search was permitted if there were "reasonable" grounds for believing it would turn up evidence and when the search was not "excessively intrusive."
Opinions in 1995 and 2001 allowed schools to conduct random drug testing of high school athletes, and those participating in other extracurricular activities.
And in a well-publicized 2007 ruling from Alaska, the Supreme Court upheld the suspension of a student who displayed a large "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at an off-campus, but school-sponsored, event. The decision did not endorse a broader argument that students in general have limited free-speech rights when they interfere with a school's vaguely defined "educational mission."
The court could now be asked to clarify the extent of student rights involving searches, and the discretion of officials regarding those they have responsibility over.
I know, I'll get some advil for it!!!!
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-Allan; Actually there is RX strength ibuprophen....the difference is the pills instead of being 400mg or less are 800 mg. I dont know enough about this to comment except to say that years ago a co worker of mine's daughter committed suicide by OD'ing on RX ibuprophen..so its not as harmless as you think.
Lori F
-Allan; One of the problems that goes back to the 70s is that school admin is in the middle. If something bad happens, they're at fault for not being sufficiently alert and pro-active, if they over-react they're Nazis or Dingbats. In many of our institutions reasonable discretion has been replaced by Zero Tolerance and Mandatory Responses. Try sending a diabetic kid to school with a pocket full of syringes ... it's a nightmare. Just like mandatory sentencing in court. We've tried to automate things that should be human because we don't want to accept human errors and limitations, so we trade then for machine errors and limitations.
Pelagius Hereticus,
Hi Allan, Sometimes I wish I could take government officials out and shoot them for fun but I guess I should restrain myself and my first inclinations. Extremes seem to be the norm today because any form of common sense is not applicable today. You may not agree but one day if this idiosy continues we may just have a chairman Mao in this country.
Richard Regener
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know......!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E! and H E R E! And as a paperback H E R E ! and H E R E !
Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://allans-perspective.blogspot.com
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