Strip search of 13-yo girl ruled unconstitutional

In April I posted "Zero tolerance requires zero brains" about the strip search of a 13-year old girl in school during a search for Tylenol.

I'm pleased to report that the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that the school's behavior was inappropriate and unconstitutional:

“A reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a thirteen-year-old girl to a traumatic search to ‘protect’ her from the danger of Advil,” the federal appellate court wrote in today’s opinion. “We reject Safford’s effort to lump together these run-of-the-mill anti-inflammatory pills with the evocative term ‘prescription drugs,’ in a knowing effort to shield an imprudent strip search of a young girl behind a larger war against drugs.”

“It does not take a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old girl is an invasion of constitutional rights. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity,” the court continued.

I'm less pleased to note that the court's ruling was a split decision (6-5).