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Marjorie Cortez: Strip-search case is lesson for school officials

Frankly, I'm amazed at how many columnists and pundits have felt the need to weigh in on this, and with such energy. They keep saying it's a monumental victory, that it's a "lesson" for school officials, etc., etc. While this is all true, the scale is what gets me. It's as if students are getting strip-searched in school all the time all across our nation. Yet I've never heard of it happening once other than this, and none of these writers that I know of has pointed out that it is happening anywhere else on any kind of scale (I'm not saying it doesn't happen at all, just that it apparently happens very little and in certain places and circumstances).

Did the courts need to right a wrong here? Clearly. Did they need to clarify a point of law? Apparently. But this is hardly revolutionary. Most everything these writers have asserted so vigorously falls under the "well, duh" category.

The strip search was out of line, especially since the report was about Ibuprofen, not meth, marijuana or crack. I hope that vice principal gets what's coming to him.

I have never agreed with the zero tolerance policy the schools enforce on drugs and weapons because they go overboard. Common sense goes out the window at school.

Students should be allowed to have OTC antihistamines, Tylenol or Motrin in their possesion if they need it. Having a small pair of scissors should not get you suspended.

Zero tolerance = Zero intellingence.

The frightening thing about this case is, first that the vice-principal thought it was okay to strip-search a child, and second, that the school district thought so too, enough to spend six years and untold taxpayer dollars taking the case through all the way to the Supreme Court.

One United States Supreme Court Judge violently disagreed with the 8 others who determined this was not legal.

That is what is really scary! Unfortunately, that judge will still be on the US Supreme Court for the next ruling similar to this one.

@Arbitrary 8:44 a.m.:

"I have never agreed with the zero tolerance policy the schools enforce on drugs and weapons because they go overboard. Common sense goes out the window at school."

Zero tolerance is the simplest way to avoid spending all year in endless arguments with students as to what is and what is not the rules of the school.

What if the girl was reported to be concealing a knife or a gun in her underwear with secret aims to do some harm to either a teacher or student? What would have been the response of the court?

Zero tolerance is "common sense" personified.

Zero tolerance is common sense personified? Really? So, it's common sense to suspend kindergartners for bringing a tiny plastic 50-cent squirtgun to school? Or to call parents and humiliate a first grader because he plays cops and robbers and makes a gun-like gesture with his fingers? Or to call the cops and suspend a high school student with no history of trouble because they found a butter knife in his car in the parking lot? OR TO STRIP SEARCH A 13-YEAR-OLD FOR IBUPROFEN????

Zero tolerance is too often an excuse for lazy teachers and administrators to avoid the effort of thinking of individualized strategies and consequences.

I'll take teachers with uncommon sense any day.