Or maybe it's Animal House. Via NCinDC @ Flickr.
As Amanda points out, even the most progressive members of Dude Nation cannot grasp that women and girls are more than “slightly comical pieces of meat.” That certainly seems to be the case with the U.S. Supreme Court, which may be on its way to prioritizing a school’s “right” to perform involuntary strip searches on teenage girls suspected of harboring Ibuprofen in their drawers over the girls’ right to bodily autonomy. Tuesday’s transcript can be found here (Safford Unified School Dist. #1 v. Redding).
The case before the court concerns Savana Redding, who was strip searched in a nurse’s office after some little snitch said the 13 year old had brought white pills to school. She was forced to pull her bra and underpants out and shake them in front of two female employees. The pills were extra-strength Ibuprofen. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search was unreasonable and unconstitutional. Redding described the search as “the most humiliating experience” of her life. She transferred to another school after the incident.
The old men on the Court want middle school girls to get what’s coming to them for being so tantalizing. Almost chortling, Justice Scalia wondered what happens after “you search the student’s outer garments, and you have a reasonable suspicion that the student has drugs … You’ve searched everywhere else. By God, the drugs must be in her underpants!”
And if it weren’t for those meddling kids, I’d be in her underpants too!
Justice Breyer asked whether what was done to Redding is all that different from asking girls to change into their swimsuits for gym class.
*blink*
They really can’t empathize with women or girls. I’ll bet he also wonders what’s so bad about raping a women who’s conseted to sex in the past. At least Redding had an ally in Justice Ginsberg, who was exasperated by her colleagues’ boneheadedness. She pointed out that the tipster fingered Redding only after she herself was caught with drugs, and sputtered:
What was done in the case … it wasn’t just that they were stripped to their underwear! They were asked to shake their bra out, to stretch the top of their pants and shake that out!
Watch out Ruth, you’re getting your bench-mates all hot and bothered now.
In a display that caused me to suspect it was April Fools Day all over again, Breyer said, “In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.”
Why am I not surprised.
*Stolen from the Slate article.
GARRRRRRRR I wish I had words to express my rage. The Supreme Court with the exception of Justice Ginsberg turns into a bench full of 12 year old boys with half a Sunday school education and a copy of Hustler whenever they discuss any issue pertaining to women. Remember when the majority got through the whole opinion in Carhartt without once mentioning the HEALTH OF THE MOTHER THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CASE? But felt it appropriate to opine on the unique bond between mother and child? WTMOTHERFUCK. I’m so totally fucking grossed out that these squicky molester types are the law of the land.
Oh and guess what Scalia THERE WAS NO REASONABLE SUSPICION SHE HAD DRUGS THAT IS HALF THE POINT.
I believe that sometimes the Justices’ questioning sounds extreme because they’re pushing the attorneys to defend their claims.
That being said, I fully expect them to decide in favor of school administrators who sexually violate their students.
PS, your title is so perfect I would kiss you if it weren’t an invasion of your privacy and I don’t play like that.
“And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.”
Whoa, Breyer. TMI, dude — TMI.
wait, is Breyer saying locker room boys used to stick…ibuprofen in his panties? Or was he alluding to something more sinister? WTF?
Dahlia Lithwick deserves credit, JD!
Ah, I missed that. She pretty much rocks most of the time. Why can’t we get some women like that up in SCOTUS? And why are all the young ones the worst? We’re gonna be waiting out Scalia and Thomas’ bra snapping for decades.
Poor RBG. She must want to smash stuff when she gets home at the end of the day.
Check out Alito’s fascistic moral intuition: “Justice Samuel Alito muses that “the school could keep records on its students, like the police keep records on confidential informants, so unless this student had a proven record of having accurately ratted out a certain number of classmates in the past, she couldn’t be believed.”
I knew I hated that fucker the most. Who THINKS like that about a HIGH SCHOOL?
Hopefully a bunch of these dickheads either retire or DIE in the next four to eight years so Obama can get some decent judges on the court again.
This is why I feel certain that I cannot remain in the legal profession. The dudeliness is rampant, and daily.
HistoricUpstart, there’s no one to choose from. At least, no one with a penis. All the up-and-coming Circuit judges are all old annoying white guys. It’s fucking depressing.
Oh my God. I’m reading the oral arguments now and Scalia said, with regard to ibuprofen and aspirin, “I’m not aware that one gets a high on either one of those” before cutting to a completely unrelated anecdote about a student who had become gravely ill after taking prescription medication and had to be airlifted.
Right. This little hussy was trying to get somebody airlifted or even killed with those ibuprofen.
PilgrimSoul, I heard Kathleen Sullivan was in the running?
Sarah, I think I remember hearing on NPR that Savana changed schools, she didn’t drop out completely. She’s currently a college student somewhere.
@P.Soul I heard Judge Sotomayor (2d Cir) was a top candidate.
Was Breyer on crack yesterday? Seriously, getting strip searched is not the same as you and your classmates exploring your sexuality in the locker room, or whatever it is you’re alluding to.
Poor RBG. You know she goes home and yells about her idiot colleagues to her husband. RBG, she’s just like me!!
Wow I wish I had never turned to the internet this morning. This is really pukey. Fucking SC assholes.
One point of fact: it was prescription ibuprofen. Doesn’t make it ok, but it was a prescription drug, which makes perhaps a smidge more sense than a strip search for an OTC headache medicine.
Maritsa, it’s insane — I can’t believe Breyer can’t tell the difference between authorities ordering you to strip and getting changed for gym class.
Funnyface, I’m actually not sure that makes any difference at all. Even if it was supposed to be pure grade heroin, at some point you either call a parent or a cop.
I fully expected the Scalia/Alito/Thomas/Roberts faction to go straight to the “Students have no rights in school the teachers are the authorities and stand in the place of parents and must do whatever it takes to protect students from the menace that is ibuprofen!” argument, but I hoped for better from Breyer and Souter and the folks I normally respect. I certainly didn’t except them all to dissolve into giggles. Why is Ginsberg the only one with sense about this, and what part of “unreasonable searches and seizures” does not include shaking out panties for painkillers?
PhD, my bad. I made the correction.
funnyface… i had a prescription for ibuprofen in high school for my cramps. what differentiates prescription from and OTC? 200mgs. OTC was 200mg per tab, my Rx was 400mgs. Make sense right, because nobody would ever think to buy 200mg OTC Midol and take 2 at a time to make it 400mgs…
I’d like to point out that often in these Supreme Court hearings, the justices ask questions that seem foolish, and more often ask questions that they (and everyone else) already know the answer to. They do that so they can make a ruling that covers as many of the bases as possible, and leaves as few loopholes as possible (because lawyers are all about the loopholes) Asking insulting questions doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t sympathize with her. Whether or not you agree with their politics, they are not stupid people. If they rule in Savana’s favor in this case (which I absolutely believe they should), it will be a turn from the court’s previous support for schools’ extensive rights to do searches of students in order to protect them. If they decide to go that direction, they’re going to want to make sure they’ve asked every stupid question so they can’t be accused of not asking every stupid question. And honestly, ACLU lawyers get picked on a little more than usual because of the perception that ACLU lawyers are liberal whackjobs. And the ruling they’re debating is a 9th Circuit ruling, which frankly, requires more caution because the 9th Circuit does tend toward the extremely liberal.
I don’t know what their motives were, I’m just saying, maybe we can reserve judgment and hold back on the name-calling until after they’ve issued a ruling. If they make a stupid ruling, then I say, bring on the pitchforks!
The pills were extra-strength Ibuprofen.
The pills that she was suspected of having were prescription strength ibuprofen (the equivalent of two regular ibuprofen). But there were no pills. None.
@funnyface–what ceejeemcbeegee amd FashionablyEvil said. Are you stupid? This was the equivalent of two otc advils. Not that it should matter. Even if it was a prescription opiate, that is no reason to strip search a child. If there were a reason to believe that a child was taking a non-prescribed drug, then the parents and maybe the police should have been called. Who on earth would give that kind of authority to a random school employee? Nobody in their right mind.
OK Tomecat, there’s no need to call another commenter stupid. Unless said commenter is a troll.
[...] surprised to report that the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against the Arizona school that strip searched Savana Redding. The then-13 years old was ordered to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because she [...]