The Freedom Bulletin

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.

The food police are at it again. Governor Deval Patrick has created an initiative called “Mass in Motion,” which aims to combat obesity. If the initiative passes, restaurant chains will be required to post the amount of calories their foods contain right on the menu, and kids will be weighed in 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th grades and the results and recommendations will be sent home to their parents.

This is a terrible idea. In addition to costing taxpayers’ money, this initiative will take the pleasure out of eating and will violate kids’ rights.

First, having calorie counts thrown in your face takes the fun out of going to a restaurant. People don’t go out to eat because it’s healthy; they go out to eat as a special treat, because it’s fun. Now, people who are especially health-conscious can go on the Internet and look up restaurants’  nutritional information before they go, and the rest of us can simply enjoy the food without having to worry about how healthy it is. With calorie counts shown right on the menu, however, people might end up choosing foods with fewer calories, but they’ll probably choose things that don’t taste as good, and even then they’ll probably feel guilty because they’ll know there are other foods they could have chosen that have even fewer calories. People should look at food as food, not as numbers. Making people healthier is not good if it requires taking the fun out of everything.

Additionally, making people healthier is not good if it requires violating people’s privacy rights. The purpose of school is to teach kids facts about history, grammar, spelling, math, science, et cetera. Schools should not teach kids what they should do or how they should live their lives, nor should they have any interest in how much kids weigh. Once at my high school, everyone was weighed in gym/health class, and even though no reports were created or sent home, it was slightly humiliating. Imagine if this was done every 3 years and parents received a report about it! Not only would this be humiliating, but it would be a violation of privacy rights, because the government has no right to know how much you weigh.

What is wrong with letting people make their own decisions about what to eat and how much to exercise? How much you weigh is up to you, not up to parents, doctors, schools, or the government.

An elementary school in California has forbidden kindergarteners from dressing up as pilgrims and Indians this Thanksgiving. According to some parents, wearing headdresses and pilgrim hats is “demeaning” and “a racist stereotype.”

I can think of a lot of things that are demeaning, and wearing pilgrim and Indian outfits isn’t one of them. Headdresses, beads, and vests are a simplified way of representing typical Native American clothing, just as pilgrim hats and collars are a simplified way of representing what the pilgrims wore. There’s nothing bad about wearing a headdress, so how is it insulting to Native Americans for kids to wear headdresses? What is demeaning about acting out a historical event?

Political correctness has gotten way out of hand. Things that should be simple and fun are forced to become bland, meaningless, and pointless.

Have a great Thanksgiving, and don’t let the PC police ruin it!

I saw an article in the Boston Herald about a new ban on junk food in Newburyport, MA schools. I think this is just ridiculous. The state government has basically turned into the gun police, the driving police, the health police, and now the food police.

Sadly, there are a lot of schools that have decided not to sell desserts, soda, and other good-tasting food in their cafeterias. Saying that you’re not going to sell junk food is one thing, but telling people they can’t bring it in violates people’s rights on a whole new level. One could argue that the school has a right to decide what products it wants to sell, but the school has no right to tell kids what they can and can’t bring in.

Kids in Newburyport now are forbidden from bringing in all sweets, from candy to pastries. So much for making school fun. Now kids can’t even look forward to eating something tasty at lunch time.

Dr. Caroline Apovian of the Boston Medical Center was quoted as saying, “I’m all for it. We have an obesity epidemic in children, and candy is just empty calories. I can’t imagine a parent being upset that schools are banning candy.”

I beg to differ. Candy is not empty calories – it tastes good. That’s the whole point of candy.

Maybe people would be healthier if all they ate was fruit, vegetables, and plain, boring meat, but what’s the point of living if you’re not allowed to do anything fun? A life without candy and sweets is not a very high-quality life. People of all ages should have the freedom to decide what they want to eat.