The Supreme Court recently ruled on whether or not schools can strip search teenagers (in this case, a middle school student). I can't say I disagree with them in this particular ruling, because according to the article the only source of information school officials had was the word of another student.
I'd like to know what else the school officials knew about the girl (was she generally suspected of selling prescription drugs, for example). The article doesn't talk about any past history with this student, which is huge. It also doesn't say anything about whether or not the prescription was hers, which is another huge consideration. Schools are different than everywhere else because students are REQUIRED to be there. As a result, rights get defined differently (whether you agree with that or not can be debated later).
The part about this article that rubs me the wrong way is the following statement,
Justices Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens would have allowed the claims against individual school officials to go forward. “This is, in essence, a case in which clearly established law meets clearly outrageous conduct,” Justice Stevens wrote.
School officials are given a charge to ensure the safety of ALL students, quite frequently that means protecting them from their peers, many of which know exactly what the law is and what school officials can do. Did the assistant principal in this case overreact? Yes, but not so much that they should become personally liable. If a school official had to worry about violating rights and having such a violation cost them their job, I guarantee they wouldn't be very effective administrators. This would lead to more lax rules, and effectively those that know how to skirt them would get around them, and it would affect the entire climate. Private vs. Public education starts to come to mind.
Bottom line is exactly what should have happened is what happened. Kudos to the court for making the right call, but a big middle finger to Ginsburg and Stevens for thinking this was such a gross violation of rights that someone should be personally liable.
Comments...
dugh daren wrote
6-29-2009 @ 21:49:24 (PST)
Hmm...
Well, here's the actual opinion delivered by the court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-479.pdf It's possible that Ginsberg and Stevens feel that, based on testimony given, that there was potentially malicious intent or that if pursued a further court decision might define limits for and against this sort of procedure.
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