Calling all lawyers
Jun. 25th, 2009 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI have a few questions about this ruling.
Let me start by saying that it is amazing, given the kinds of questions even the liberal SCOTUS justices were asking, that they ruled as they did. I'd also like to add, as many on progressive blogs have been doing, that I, too, was certain before I read the details of the ruling that Thomas would be the lone dissenter, proudly trumpeting the rights of school districts to strip-search tweeners at any moment for any reason. So, hurrah, SCOTUS actually managed to rally and say, no, you can't strip search a teenage girl because some other teenage girl felt like getting her in trouble and passed on a rumor that the first girl was packingheat Advil. (Thomas' dissent is giving me the creeps, so I'll leave it to you guys to read about it rather than going into it myself.)
But I still have a couple of questions:
1) The school officials have been granted immunity from, I assume, civil prosecution despite SCOTUS having found that the officials violated the girl's rights. Since Justice Thomas is so certain that every mixed signal = everyone breaking the law, won't this not deter schools from doing such searches in the future, despite their unconstitutionality, because they know they can't be sued?
2) The school district is not immune. Is it really the best way to stop this kind of adult-power-tripping madness to say that individuals can demand students be officially pantsed but that only the school can be sued for it? Honestly, wouldn't it better to say the school should be ashamed for not disciplining this person or that one but that the real problem was that person deciding to take the law into their own hands?
Basically, what I, the non-lawyer, get out of this is the following:
School teachers/administrators cannot strip search students...but there won't be any personal penalty if they do. The school district will be liable, however, meaning that the victims of these administrators will be in the oh-so-enviable position of suing a public school. So victims of this kind of unwarranted and now definitely unconstitutional assault will get to chose between letting the incident slide or bankrupting the center of education for their fellow students. Won't that be fun.
Let me start by saying that it is amazing, given the kinds of questions even the liberal SCOTUS justices were asking, that they ruled as they did. I'd also like to add, as many on progressive blogs have been doing, that I, too, was certain before I read the details of the ruling that Thomas would be the lone dissenter, proudly trumpeting the rights of school districts to strip-search tweeners at any moment for any reason. So, hurrah, SCOTUS actually managed to rally and say, no, you can't strip search a teenage girl because some other teenage girl felt like getting her in trouble and passed on a rumor that the first girl was packing
But I still have a couple of questions:
1) The school officials have been granted immunity from, I assume, civil prosecution despite SCOTUS having found that the officials violated the girl's rights. Since Justice Thomas is so certain that every mixed signal = everyone breaking the law, won't this not deter schools from doing such searches in the future, despite their unconstitutionality, because they know they can't be sued?
2) The school district is not immune. Is it really the best way to stop this kind of adult-power-tripping madness to say that individuals can demand students be officially pantsed but that only the school can be sued for it? Honestly, wouldn't it better to say the school should be ashamed for not disciplining this person or that one but that the real problem was that person deciding to take the law into their own hands?
Basically, what I, the non-lawyer, get out of this is the following:
School teachers/administrators cannot strip search students...but there won't be any personal penalty if they do. The school district will be liable, however, meaning that the victims of these administrators will be in the oh-so-enviable position of suing a public school. So victims of this kind of unwarranted and now definitely unconstitutional assault will get to chose between letting the incident slide or bankrupting the center of education for their fellow students. Won't that be fun.
