Getting High On Advil
Cathy Seipp wrote in reason about ridiculous prohibitions by schools of asthma inhalers. This idiocy was repeated by an Arizona school that searched a female student for...get this...ibuprofen. From ABC News in Australia:
A divided US appeals court has ruled an Arizona school violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old student by conducting a strip search for ibuprofen.Suspecting that a student had violated a policy against prescription or over-the-counter drugs without permission, public school officials in Safford, Arizona, ordered a search of Savana Redding.
A school nurse had her remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if Ms Redding was hiding anything.
The 2003 search, prompted by a tip from another girl, did not find ibuprofen, which is found in common medications like Advil and Motrin to treat pain like cramps and headaches.
...In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michael Daly Hawkins wrote: "We should resist using our independent judgment to determine what infractions are so harmful as to justify significantly intrusive searches."
"Seemingly innocuous items can, in the hands of creative adolescents, present serious threats.
"Admittedly, ibuprofen is one of the mildest drugs children could choose to abuse. But that does not mean it is never harmful."
Like debilitating cramps are good for you. Asshats.
via ifeminist
Hard to know what was more stupid, zero tolerance policies that include pubescent girls handing each other ADVIL, school administrators that would strip search a student without first calling their parents, school administrators not understanding that strip searching a girl for an ADVIL would not be a death knell to their career, support for zero tolerance policies from the school board that would enable a school administrator to think that strip searching a student for an ADVIL would be a reasonable thing to do and not harmful to their career, a school board paying their lawyers to defend their zero tolerance policy in court, or that several federal judges didn't do an immediate spit take and actually decided in favor of the school?
Zero tolerance policies. Just why *do* you support them Amy? (kidding!)
jerry at July 16, 2008 4:05 AM
Must be all that Motrin I've been snorting.
A pity there isn't zero tolerance for abject stupidity. Is it any wonder we're not teaching kids to think? Clearly, the administrators haven't the slightest clue how to do it themselves.
Amy Alkon at July 16, 2008 4:09 AM
Judge Hawkins got something against the Constitution? Oh, my bad. Guess it doesn't apply to minors. I was horrified when this case came out. If this had happened to me at that age, I would have been scarred for life, no lie. I was very shy and easily embarrassed. Teen years are an awkward time of life while they figure out who they are and obsess with that being somebody cool, somebody they like. To mortify them over nothing is going to be far more dangerous than their experimenting with adult pastimes.
T's Grammy at July 16, 2008 6:30 AM
Kids and parents need to talk about this stuff and parents get to make the call. Schools do have a duty to protect kids but what reasonable person actually thinks the behavior in what Amy blurb is okay?
At no point did any of the "adults" involved stop and think "this is messed up. We're strip searching a kid." Maybe it's just me but the thought of having to take my clothes off and have a gloved person dig around my orifices gives me the creeps. Makes my skin crawl. Makes me a kind of feel like curling up into a ball in a corner and rock back and forth. Back and forth.
Does anyone feel this experience would traumatize them - esp. at a point in life where your body-identity and sexuality is at its most confusing? It would feel dirty and wrong to me at that age. I probably would have had a heart attack.
If some kid was a known trouble maker with known issues with legitimate drugs (oxy-whatevers, perks, buys Adderol from everyone) then maybe it warrants some sort of processing. But even then there needs to be a PROPER PROCEDURE.
1) call the parents. Tell them to get their behinds down to the school.
2) call the police and ask a same-sex officer to assist in the search.
3) have the parent IN. THE. ROOM.
Gretchen at July 16, 2008 6:30 AM
I don't have the energy to fix my mistakes above...there are a few. Sorry.
Gretchen at July 16, 2008 6:32 AM
What I can't figure out is why the zero-tolerance policies are so draconian in the first place. Everybody knows there's a big difference between Advil and acid, but for some reason some administrators think treating them the same is somehow a good idea. It takes effort to reach this level of stupidity, so there must be a reason somewhere. Could this be one of those policies designed to head off even the slightest threat of a lawsuit?
old rpm daddy at July 16, 2008 6:55 AM
Zero-tolerance policies are the result of the confluence of sloth, fear, and stupidity.
Power-tripping school administrators are terrified that every child in their care is a threat to their perceived authority. They're too lazy to bother knowing each student on an individual basis, and too dumb to know the difference anyhow.
So, we get 'zero tolerance' policies designed to allow for the projection of power without requiring any analytical skill whatsoever on the part of the teacher.
It's not fear of lawsuits, it's fear of having a child find a loophole around your authority.
Public schools don't exist so much to instill in their charges a love of knowledge and the ability to leverage the collected wisdom of the ages as they do to instill in them the idea that they must become unquestioning and obedient worker drones and consumers.
Do this! Buy that! Don't Think!
This is the mantra of the modern public educator. Those who go into education thinking that they will actually teach find out to their dismay that teaching is the one thing they are not allowed to do.
brian at July 16, 2008 7:16 AM
Zero tolerance usually = zero thought. It's easier to just apply a blanket standard to everything than deal with case-by-case. And it gives them an opportunity to abuse their power - kinda like the TSA, huh?
Funny thing is, ibuprofen is a whole lot less dangerous than the "energy drinks" that some people drink by the case. But I wouldn't want THEM banned, either (I don't drink them). Wouldn't even want the various chemicals used for "huffing" banned.
Remember the days when parents were the ones mainly held responsible for this kinda crap?
Jamie (SMS) at July 16, 2008 7:34 AM
The lack of vocational education, or life education, in high schools has always puzzled me. First off, every kid graduating high school should know how to open a bank account, balance checkbook, understand housing prices and job wages, etc. etc. types of things that make it easier to be an adult. There was never a choice for me BUT to go to college--not just because my parents expected it but because, frankly, I had no marketable skills when I graduated high school (good grades are not job skills!). I think community colleges are a great place for this kinds of hands-on experience, but high schools should also provide this training.
Monica at July 16, 2008 7:37 AM
What brian said.
I don't condone such asshat-ery, but my experience has been that people in authority with the brains and balls to publicly say "That's Stupid, I don't support it" may be replaced quickly.
http://wordpress.com/tag/christina-comer/
I believe in doing what's right but... why, from an evolutionary perspective, would anyone choose principles over survival? I think the answer is in what you consider success: the greater good, or what's good for onesself right now.
Is there any research on:
why certain institutions evolve toward stupidity?
why people support causes of no obvious benefit to them or their genes?
DaveG at July 16, 2008 7:56 AM
Brian - as I read your brilliant post I imagined standing up in a school auditorium, maybe some sort of emergency meeting for parents to listen to administrators speak after the Nth child's ass was searched for Flintstone's vitamins.
I imagined letting those words pour proudly, strongly from my mouth followed by a standing ovation of all the parents. I don't have kids but it was fun to imagine rising up and changing this kind of shit!
Ok back to reality. Thanks for the dorky escape ;-)
Gretchen at July 16, 2008 8:19 AM
"Is there any research on:why certain institutions evolve toward stupidity?"
Not sure, but I think a good place to start is a correlation between being tax-supported and that evolution. Once you have to start justifying your position for being able to suck off that tax-funded tit, all sorts of weirdness comes out of your mouth. Or union dollars- You'll see the same thing from union reps.
Juliana at July 16, 2008 9:35 AM
This stuff makes me CRAZY. I am a mom and if this happened to my kids I would go Ballistic on those ppl at the school. The zero tolerance stuff makes me absolutely CRAZY. Its INSANE. Makes NO SENSE.
Melody at July 16, 2008 1:31 PM
"Remember the days when parents were the ones mainly held responsible for this kinda crap?"
Yes. Who do you think changed that?
That's right. Parents did. Which led to a search policy for "drugs" that couldn't count on the "drug" being Advil, and couldn't discriminate between the thug and the valedictorian.
One of the reasons for that was that it was to the sluggard's advantage to confuse the issue about what "rights" are. I see that confusion among adults all the time, and so am confident that the same demographic cannot decide what they are with respect to minors.
Radwaste at July 16, 2008 2:41 PM
The most consistent examples of appalling judgment and abuse of authority seem to be provided by school administrators the world over.
I have often wondered why?
I suspect this type of work appeals to people with a deep-seeded need to be respected and obeyed at all times, and to have their oh-thor-it-TIE recognized. I further suspect that most of these indivduals have figured out on some level that the only group of people likely to offer them this level of respect are under the age of 15 and lack the basic civil protections most people would expect under the law.
Bullies. If someone pulled this on my kid, I'd bring a massive lawsuit down on him, the nurse, the school, the schoolboard, the local government and anyone else I could get my hands on.
scott at July 17, 2008 10:54 AM
Looks like the assistant princiPAL is going to have to pay for her idiocy.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2008/07/13/20080713schoolstripsearch0713.html
kg at July 17, 2008 11:46 AM
I can give you my observation.
They are women.
There are women in this world who can handle being in positions of power and authority. These are rare.
Then there are the women whom, when given the slightest scintilla of power, immediately become petty tyrants hell-bent on dominating all who come into their domain. It is from this group that the majority of modern "educators" are drawn.
It is this reason, among others, that there are so few men in primary education.
brian at July 17, 2008 3:30 PM
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