Phew!

Candelaria Silva — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:41:30 -0500

I, too, am glad that the judgment went the way it did. I am dismayed but not surprised that Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. The decision did not go far enough. The slow erosion of personal freedoms is frightening. The multitude of new rules and codes of conduct and lack of common sense and courtesy continues to astound me. I do believe that Justice Ginsburg had something to do with the decision. It's hard to envision it going this way without her influence.

http://blog.candelarisilva.com

Good and plenty!

Gret point

PunditMom — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:31:26 -0500

I think you make a great point about the sexual harrassment issue. How is it that first-graders get accused of harrassment for a peck on the cheek, but this assistant principal and other staff get off pretty much scott free? The part of the opionion that said Redding can't recover damages pretty much takes the teeth out of the decision -- where is the downside to school personnel if SCOTUS says they will leave discipline for acts like this to the schools themselves and also leaves the victim without any recourse?

Sorry if I kept you awake at bedtime! ;)

Sexual Assault?

Leighbra — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:37:11 -0500

I really don't see how them stripping a child (13 is under the age of consent in all of the states I know of) without a doctor, law enforcement, or her parents there falls short of sexual assault. Yet 1st graders caught kissing classmates get expelled for sexual harrassment.

I'm so proud of this girl and her parents taking it as far as they could.

As a nurse, I am revolted that it was the school nurse and school secretary that performed the search. That nurse was acting WELL outside of her job duties as a school nurse. I can not imagine the school district has a policy in her policy and procedure manual discussing how to properly strip search students.

She distinctly failed to advocate for her patient.

If they thought that there was a serious concern, that is what law enforcement is for. Call them in, and then it's their problem.

One could argue that since you are supposed to trust nurses and your school principals (princiP-A-L, because he's your pal!) that this is custodial abuse. Such an abuse of trust. Good luck earning that back, dirt bags.

I, too, will keep the mental image of Ginsburg whacking them upside the head in their private chambers. Maybe one of them actually thought "What if that had been my daughter?"

Bah, gotta quit reading your posts before bed! lol

Supreme Court Says School Strip Search Unconstitutional, But Where are the Consequences?

PunditMom — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:56:43 -0500

Six years ago, 13-year-old Savana Redding was called to the principal's office because another girl claimed she had given her prescription strength ibuprofen in violation of the school's strict "zero tolerance" drug policy. When school officials didn't find anything in Redding's backpack or other belongings, they ordered her to strip to her underwear and pull her bra and undies to the side, exposing herself, so they could make sure she wasn't hiding any pain relievers under her clothes.

I can't even begin to imagine how humiliated and violated I would have felt as a young teen if that had happened to me. We're taught pretty early in school that as Americans we have certain protections and rights. Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that Redding's Fourth Amendment constitutional rights were violated when school officials made that extremely questionable decision to ask a young high school girl to strip in the name of "zero tolerance."

In an 8 to 1 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas being the lone dissenter, the Supreme Court ruled that the search that was performed on Redding went beyond what was called for in that situation and that, as a result, her constitutional rights had been violated.

After reading the accounts of the oral arguments, I was pretty sure the court would rule against Redding, opening the door to increasing numbers of overly intrusive searches of students. The male justices jokingly talked on the bench about how high school boys are comfortable with being naked in the locker room and snapping each other with towels, and seemed untroubled by the clear difference between locker room antics and being forced to strip in front of your assistant principal.

At the time, Dahlia Lithwick at Slate recounted:

This leads Justice Stephen Breyer to query whether this is all that different from asking Redding to "change into a swimming suit or your gym clothes," because, "why is this a major thing to say strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym?"
This leads [Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg to sputter—in what I have come to think of as her Lilly Ledbetter voice—"what was done in the case … it wasn't just that they were stripped to their underwear! They were asked to shake their bra out, to stretch the top of their pants and shake that out!" Nobody but Ginsburg seems to comprehend that the only locker rooms in which teenage girls strut around, bored but fabulous in their underwear, are to be found in porno movies. For the rest of us, the middle-school locker room was a place for hastily removing our bras without taking off our T-shirts.

Lithwick also reported that the justice who laughed the hardest and loudest at the idea of high school kids in their underwear was Clarence Thomas. Maybe he was just remembering his own youthful Tom Cruise moment.

After the argument, Justice Ginsburg lamented, seemingly out of frustration, "They have never been a 13-year-old girl. .... It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."

Some of my faith has been restored that a little common sense remains at the Supreme Court, but the justices still missed an opportunity to tell parents across the country that there will be consequences to school officials who cross this line -- the justices refused to allow Redding's case for damages against the assistant principal to move forward. So, while we can feel better about the fact that schools should not be strip searching our kids for pain relievers, if they do, there's really no recourse.

Another thing that occurred to me is that given the kinds of questions (and jokes) raised at the oral argument, something must have happened between then and the decision's announcement, because while SCOTUS questions don't always reveal which way the justices are going to rule, they can be a reliable indicator.

But I have to wonder, in light of the apparent change between oral arguments and the decision, what happened to help produce this major shift in thinking?

I'd like to imagine that maybe Ginsburg had had just a little too much of her colleague's callous remarks, that she marched herself into their chambers and had a little "talk" with all of them. I know that's not really how the Supreme Court works, but I love the visual image of Ginsburg reminding her male peers of the teen years of their sisters or daughters or friends, and that she made them reach back into their own memories of childhood and apply some common sense to this one. I want to hold on to my fantasy mental imagine that Ginsburg turned the ship on this one by asking Chief Justice John Roberts to think about this case and imagine it was his own daughter in Redding's position. If she was able to do that, maybe the Supreme Court has taken a slight turn in women's favor.

A girl can dream, can't she? After all, Ginsburg is carrying a big load for all women and girls until we get another woman on the Supreme Court.

BlogHer News & Politics Contributing Editor Joanne Bamberger is a "recovering" attorney and avid Supreme Court watcher (as well as a member of the Supreme Court bar!) When she's done reading through the full opinion in the Redding case, you can also find her musings at her blog, PunditMom, as well as at The Huffington Post, DC Metro Moms and MOMcrats.

BlogHer is non-partisan but our bloggers (including me) aren't! Follow our coverage of Politics & News.

BlogHer - Supreme Court Says School Strip Search Unconstitutional, But Where are the Consequences? - Comments

Phew!

Gret point

Sexual Assault?

Supreme Court Says School Strip Search Unconstitutional, But Where are the Consequences?