Court narrowly makes the right call

A few months ago, I posted a Quote of the Day about the case in Arizona where a 13-year-old girl was strip searched by school officials because they suspected she had ibuprofen. Five years later, the court system has finally come to the right conclusion . . . but by the narrowest of margins:

The 6-5 ruling by a panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned an earlier decision, setting out its reasoning in an extensive 75-page ruling with many details on the complications of eighth grade life.

"Directing a 13-year-old girl to remove her clothes, partially revealing her breasts and pelvic area, for allegedly possessing ibuprofen, an infraction that poses an imminent danger to no one, and which could be handled by keeping her in the principal's office until a parent arrived or simply sending her home, was excessively intrusive," Justice Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the majority.

The majority found flaws in the school's logic that a tip from another student justified the action.

"The self-serving statement of a cornered teenager facing significant punishment does not meet the heavy burden necessary to justify a search accurately described by the 7th Circuit as 'demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant [and] embarrassing'.

"And all this to find prescription-strength ibuprofen pills.

"No legal decision cited to us, or that we could find, permitted a strip search to discover substances regularly available over-the-counter at any convenience store throughout the United States."

I find it chilling that this decision was as close as 6-5. Any rational human being must believe that this kind of intrusive, abusive enforcement of spurious rules must be beyond the pale: what possible public good is served by humiliating and terrorizing a 13-year-old girl — on the word of another teen attempting to mitigate her own situation — for the "crime" of possibly possessing legal medication?

Unbelievable.