When $50 went missing during the choir class’s sixth-grade field trip, Lanier Middle School’s police officer informed its assistant principal that sometimes “girls like to hide things in their bras and panties.” The assistant principal then ordered the choir’s 22 female members—it isn’t clear whether there were any boys in the choir—to report to the school nurse for strip searches.
Although the nurse “loosened their bras” and “checked around the waistband of their panties,” no money was found. The search at the Texas public school was in any case brazenly improper and probably violated the students’ rights.
That’s according to a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The girls had filed a federal lawsuit against the school district, which readily agreed that it had violated their rights under the Texas constitution. A federal judge nevertheless dismissed the lawsuit, concluding that the girls had failed to state a constitutional claim. The Fifth Circuit reversed that decision last week:
Read the rest at reason.com.
The Surveillance State Found Its Philosopher
There is a line in the Fourth Amendment that was supposed to settle this. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable...
