Strip Searches in Schools – Know Your Rights

As unbelievable as it sounds, there have been multiple accusations of school personnel, including teachers, counselors, principals, nurses, and security police forcing children to be strip searched. In some cases the adults were looking for contraband such as vape pens or marijuana. Other situations involved looking for signs of abuse, while about 10 percent of cases were predicated by a search for weapons. Is this legal?

Concerning Allegations 

• A seven-year-old who was accused of stealing $3.00 from her teacher was told to remove her leggings and underwear by the school’s administrator.
• A security officer in a high school ordered a student who had autism to undress in a classroom while other students were present. The student was required to pull down both his pants and underwear as the officer looked for a vape.
• A menstruating eighth-grader with special needs was required to strip, lift her breasts, and spread her legs in front of the school principal, who was looking for marijuana.
• A five-year-old was forced to undergo more than one vaginal exam by school nurses who were looking for indications of abuse.

Some Statistics

The reported cases are cause for alarm:

• 30 percent involved students being forced to pull down their pants and/or lift up their shirts;
• In over 12 percent of cases students stripped down to only underwear;
• Students were told to remove their underwear in 15 percent of cases;
• In just under one percent of situations vaginal exams were performed;
• Officials from the schools were looking for drugs, vapes, or money 45 percent of the time;
• 10 percent of searches were for weapons (in which none were found);
• Adults were looking for signs of abuse in 30 percent of cases;
• In over 37 percent of cases, the search was conducted by an adult of the opposite gender;
• Over 80 percent of searches were conducted by school staff, with the remainder being conducted by school police officers.

How it Affects Kids

Intrusive? Traumatic? Demeaning? Humiliating? These words and more describe strip searches for students in schools. The American Bar Association writes that strip searches are harmful, violating students’ sense of dignity and impacting healthy brain development. The fact of the matter is, many, if not most schools, have no policy addressing strip searches. And as dehumanizing as it may be, it is not illegal, as long as there was reasonable cause to conduct the search. Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court wrote that the “content of suspicion” must “match the degree of intrusion.”

Fighting to Protect Your Rights 

At Lobo Law, our experienced Las Vegas criminal defense attorneys are dedicated to protecting your rights.  If you believe they have been violated, give us a call in our Las Vegas office today.

Source:

americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-rights/archive/strip-searching-children-state-imposed-trauma/