NEVER STRIP SEARCH

We don't appear to be as serious about sex offenders as we like to
claim we are. If we were, we'd find a way to outlaw strip searching in schools.

Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court justices find regarding the
Arizona case in which a 13-year-old girl suspected of drug possession
was strip-searched, I am opposed to teachers and school
administrators strip-searching students.

Teachers are trained to teach. If they suspect a certain student of
drug possession or some other unlawful act, law enforcement should be called.

If all parties are doing what they have been trained to do, lines are
less likely to become blurred.

There can be a seamless move from keeping the school safe for
students to the Gestapo behavior of a frustrated teacher determined
not to be outdone by some smart-aleck student. And lurking in there
perhaps more often than we'd like to think is the teacher or
administrator who has personal reasons for wanting to witness or
participate in the strip searching of a child or adolescent.

A multitude of sins are committed against students by those who tell
us they are trying to protect the students.

In 2002, an assistant principal at a San Diego, Calif., high school
lifted girls' skirts -- in front of male students and other adults --
to see whether they were wearing thong panties to a dance. Thong
wearers were denied entry and told to go home and change, news
services reported.

The assistant principal said she was concerned the combination of
revealing clothing and suggestive dancing could lead to sexual assaults.

As it turned out, the assistant principal assaulted many of the girls
before the boys had the chance.

Then there was the alleged strip-search of some of a class of
seventh-graders at Russell County Middle School in 2004, when a
teacher said about $12 was missing from her makeup bag.

The principal, assistant principal and a counselor allegedly took it
upon themselves to conduct strip searches after the money was not
found during searches of students' pockets and purses. The students
sued and reached a settlement in which the school system and the
other plaintiffs denied the allegations, but agreed to pay $190,000.

The suit claims that the students were taken to the restrooms, where
the searches took place. A female administrator accompanied the girls
while the school's principal accompanied the boys. In the restrooms,
the students were asked to remove their shirts and drop their pants,
according to the lawsuit. In some cases, they were told to move their
underwear so that they were partially exposed, the suit states.

That would be a dehumanizing experiences. Stripping down to
underwear; removing underwear or moving it to the side to reveal
private body parts is inexcusable and should be unlawful -- at least
under the circumstances that seem to make the headlines.

It is never open season on students who have broken the law or are in
violation of some school code.