Kerry Wilson My Friend Don't Start Away Uneasy

Regular readers of this blog have learned that to expect the knock of opportunity at their door is to expect a Mercedes E class in their box of Crackerjacks...er...we mean have been regaled with many times with tales from our time as inmates of the local ecucorporate training facility. We were, without putting too fine a point on it, not the most grateful recipients of the knowledge showered down upon us by our educational technicians.

Back in the day when a teacher suspected one of the miscreants was carrying contraband, said delinquent was usually confronted, some sort of arrangement was made concerning how shares of the alleged contraband would be distributed amongst the faculty and student body, and life went on. And life was good.

Now, in these times of zero tolerance and too many educational overlords watching too many episodes of 24, things are somewhat different.

The Supreme Court ruled that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

We'd like to step in here as card carrying members of the educorporate industrial complex and say in our experience nothing is more disruptive to the learning environment than a kid high on ibuprofen.

Savana Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils.

It's a well known fact among educators that when parents send kids to school who may not be feeling well, they often tell them to hide their medication in their panties. Elizabeth Arlen used to hide her M&M's there because candy wasn't allowed in Sister Arnulfa's classroom. They may not melt in your hand but...well...let's get back to our story.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable. And finally, the court would be interested to know how long the parents of students at Safford Middle School have known their vice principal is a perv."

Hey, he is the "vice" principal. Yeah, we know. Old joke, but the classics are classic for a reason.

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. "Nothing wrong with looking at booty in the line of duty," Justice Thomas wrote. "Got any photos?"

Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

Hey Clarence, did you read the brief? There were no pills in her underwear, that's the whole point. If they had found something she'd be in jail now, like the rest of kids we don't feel like dealing with.

The court also ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. "Look, you want to hire perverts to run your schools, you deal with them, we got tee times up here," wrote Justice Scalia.

Previously, a federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. "Kids don't have rights," the judge wrote. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. "Plus she's a girl," the panel added. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Vice Principal Kerry Wilson could be found personally liable. "What are you guys, republicans, or christians, or both?" the appeals Court wrote of the previous decisions. "Where we come from pervs don't get a free ride just because they have a title in front of their name. Well, maybe if the title is Congressman, but that's not the point."

The Supreme Court agreed.

Well, except for Justice Thomas, but then, we sort of knew he wouldn't.

Safford Middle School Vice Principal Kerry Wilson leaves the Court Building after the decision