Supreme Court Rules Against Strip-Searching Our Children

Talk about your difficult moral conundrums! Listen to this crazy-hard decision that the Supreme Court was forced to make today…

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday school officials violated an Arizona teenage girl rights by strip-searching her for prescription-strength ibuprofen, saying U.S. educators should not force children to remove their clothing unless student safety is at risk…

Redding was 13 when the educators in rural eastern Arizona conducted the search. They were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

The school's search of Redding's backpack and outer clothes was permissible, the court said. But the justices said that officials went too far when they asked to search her underwear.

Jeeze! That must have been a tough one for the Supreme Court. I mean, on the one hand, we're talking about violating an under-aged girl's rights and forcing her to take off all her clothes so that she can be inspected by an adult person who should know better.

But on the other hand, she might have been hiding some extra-strength Advil.

I'm sure the Justices had to deliberate for hours and hours and hours and that there was at least one instance of vigorous fist-pounding and yelling followed by emotional collapse and intense weeping. Because this is by no means a no-brainer, as I'm sure we'll clearly see by the split-down-the-middle decision…

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said that Safford Middle School officials violated the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches with their treatment of Savana Redding.

Hmmmm… An 8 to 1 ruling. I'd have thought it'd be closer than that. As I'm sure did the one Supreme Court Justice who obviously believes in his heart that it was right of those adult authority figures to root around inside a little girl's underwear looking for some barely-stronger-than-aspirin pills.

Hmmmm… I wonder which one it was…

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.

I never ever would have guessed that.