The Freedom Bulletin

On Cinco de Mayo, two high school students in California wore American flag t-shirts to school. The principal told them to either take the shirts off or wear them inside out, calling them “incendiary.” Now the two boys and their parents are suing the school system, claiming that the school’s actions violated their constitutional rights:

Kendall and Joy Jones; John and Dianna Dariano, parents of Matthew Dariano; and Kurt and Julie Ann Fagerstrom, parents of Dominic Maciel, are asking a judge to rule that what happened May 5 at Live Oak violated the First and Fourteenth amendments, and that the school district’s policy regarding student speech is too vague.

The suit also asks for “nominal damages” and to award attorneys’ fees.

The Morgan Hill Unified School District, Live Oak Principal Nick Boden and Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez are named as the defendants.

Some people might call this lawsuit frivolous, but I think it has merit. No one should be banned from showing pride in their country, even during the holiday of another country. So many teenagers try to be cool and fit in at all costs that it’s a breath of fresh air to hear about teens showing their patriotism and standing up for what they believe in. It’s too bad that the Fourth of July doesn’t fall during the school year, because it would be interesting to see if the school allowed students to wear Mexican flag t-shirts on America’s holiday.

Complaint (PDF), thanks to KSBW-TV via the Examiner

This is creepy. A high school in Pennsylvania gave out laptops to its students and then allegedly spied on them at home by remotely activating the laptops’ webcams. One student’s parents are filing a class-action lawsuit against the school.  According to CNN,

“The suit said that on November 11, an assistant principal at Harriton High School told the plaintiffs’ son that he was caught engaging in “improper behavior” in his home and it was captured in an image via the webcam. According to the Robbinses’ complaint, neither they nor their son, Blake, were informed of the school’s ability to access the webcam remotely at any time.”

It’s messed up that the technology would even exist to allow people to do this. There may be legitimate uses for remotely activating webcams (perhaps to find your laptop if you lost it) but computers that an organization gives out to people should not have this feature. No one should be able to unknowingly watch another person through their computer.

And I can’t believe that the assistant principal (allegedly) accused a student of wrongdoing for something he was doing at home! How on Earth is what someone does at home the school’s business?

If the allegations are true, the school officials’ actions amount to a violation of the 4th Amendment, since they essentially looked inside students’ homes without a warrant. According to lawyers from the ACLU and EFF, this might even be a criminal violation of federal wiretapping laws. I certainly hope that the school, if truly guilty, is held fully accountable for these egregious violations of students’ rights.

Did you hear about the 8-year-old boy who was ordered by his school to go to a psychologist because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross?

While there are many facts in dispute between the boy’s parents and school officials, there is no doubt in my mind that the school is in the wrong. The boy’s father said that he drew the cross when asked to draw something that reminded him of Christmas; the school denies that. It’s unclear whether the boy meant to draw himself or Jesus on the cross. The school says they didn’t actually suspend the boy but just forced him to have a psychological evaluation before he could return – seems like the same thing to me. They even disagree on whether the drawing the boy’s father has been showing to the media is the one the boy drew.

But even if you interpret the evidence in the way that is the most favorable to the school, what happened to this boy is unjust. It’s just like what I posted about last time – people need to let other people be. A school’s job is to teach kids facts about math, writing, grammar, history, science, computers, and other subjects. It shouldn’t be a school’s job to meddle in students’ lives or to push value judgments on them. Kids should be able to draw whatever they want, and teachers and superintendents shouldn’t psychoanalyze their drawings and send them to shrinks for anything different or unusual.

The father in this case has been criticized for being too willing to speak to the media and for demanding that the school reimburse his son for his suffering and pay for tuition to a private school since the boy is too traumatized to go back to the same school. But I agree with him! The school officials violated the boy’s rights and should compensate him for his suffering. I don’t blame him for wanting to go to a different school. Being singled out and sent to a psychiatrist would be traumatic, and drawing a picture, even if it is of yourself on the cross, does not merit that.

As Pink Floyd said, teachers need to leave kids alone! Schools should teach facts and skills, not psychoanalyze kids’ drawings and single them out for psychotherapy for every little thing. Kids should be able to express themselves without being labeled as mentally ill.

The Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 that it was unconstitutional for a school to strip search a 13-year-old girl out of suspicion that she had aspirin. This is a happy day for the privacy rights of all Americans, and I applaud this decision.

Unfortunately, the court found 7 to 2 that school officials did not have to pay damages to Savana Redding, now 19. I would have had them pay as much money as possible, and maybe even go to jail.

I agree with the majority’s decision that the search violates the 4th Amendment. For reference, the amendment goes as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by an Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If this search wasn’t unreasonable, I don’t know what is. The contraband in question was equivalent to two Advil, hardly dangerous. The search was extremely invasive, and there was no warrant. School officials have taken their concern with students’ safety way too far, at the expense of students’ dignity, privacy, and freedom to make their own decisions. I don’t see anything wrong with a 13-year-old being allowed to carry aspirin and make her own decisions about whether she wants to take it. Even worse, though, is the fact that Savana did not even have aspirin on her! She was humiliated and violated for nothing.

This search was borderline sexual abuse. I understand that it was not done for sexual purposes but out of an obsession with safety at the expense of everything else, but being strip searched should be humiliating to people of any age and gender. I am glad the court (with the exception of Justice Clarence Thomas) decided this is not acceptable in America.

Update: Here’s a PDF of the decision.

The Supreme Court is going to hear the case of a 13-year-old girl who was strip searched by her school because of a false accusation that she had aspirin. Savana Redding and her parents sued the school and the assistant principal for ordering her to be strip searched after another student accused her of possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. She and her parents called the search humiliating and unconstitutional, and who can blame them?

The school’s actions are wrong on so many levels.

• First, it is wrong for a school to ban students from possessing or taking medication. People of all ages have a right to decide what medicines they want to take and to take those medicines whenever and wherever they want. A teenager is plenty old enough to make her own decisions about medicine.
• Second, the school had no warrant for the search. The Fourth Amendment forbids all searches for which there is no warrant. The Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that this protection applies to students, even though such a thing shouldn’t be necessary, since there is nothing in the Constitution that would suggest that students are exempt from the Bill of Rights.
• Third, I really don’t think strip searches should ever be legal, even if there is a warrant. Nothing can justify that kind of humiliation.
• Fourth, Savana didn’t even have the pills that the school had unjustly banned! I think that if you cause another person any kind of pain, inconvenience, or humiliation in order to search for something, and it turns out the person didn’t have the thing you were searching for, you should have to pay restitution to the victim. A strip search is humiliating; therefore it is punishment. Therefore, the school punished Savana even though she did nothing wrong. This is clearly unjust, and the school should have to undo the punishment by paying her a large sum of money.

All in all, the assistant principal and school committed a grievous wrong and flouted the Constitution. They should be punished severely.

Last year the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Savana’s favor, but the school appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the ruling “would create enormous confusion for school officials in trying to determine when and how searches may now properly be conducted.” Um, how about no warrant, no search? What’s confusing about that?

The Supreme Court will hear the case in April.