Media Blog 1 Strip Search In the School Systems

When dose strip searching at school crosses the limit from reasonable search to an embarrassing, freighting, and humiliating search? That’s what Savanna Redding at the age of 13 felt when a mandatory strip search conducted by school officials at her middle school accused her of giving away ibuprofen. Two female school officials conducted a strip search on Ms. Redding and made her disrobe all of her garments including both of her undergarments exposing her naked body. Ultimately they did not find any pills and it should not have caused a degrading strip search because the extent of danger of the pills weren’t sufficient enough to conduct this type of rigorous strip search. After many years in court Ms. Redding now 19 years old, the court ruled in her favor that it was in violation of her constitutional rights.

I read this article in The New York Times and I was intrigued by this notion that the defense made a comment that it was “comparable to her changing into gym clothes” (The New York Times). I was astonished to have had read this that the defense was able to turn the accusation around like it was a playful matter and make the victim feelings seem worthless. By doing this she is becoming more oppressed and the act itself is dehumanizing. “Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it” (Paulo Freire). At the innocent age of 13 a transition period from childhood to puberty can be the most fragile years for a young lady to go through. Because of that the case was gendered bias that the defense mostly male they don’t understand the pain she endured. At the end she regains back her self worth/power of what was stripped away from her on that horrible day at school.

As for the school system should be allowed to execute this type of behavior no. While strip searches were implemented to keep the schools safe, there was a boundary that they crossed and after this example should eliminate strip searches in school unless the district is looking for a lawsuit that is bound to happen. Some school districts don’t feel that way because they believe that the law is behind them and it makes there actions justifiable. Schools function part as an “Ideological State Apparatus and function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic” (Louis Althusser).

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. “On the Reproduction of the Conditions of Production.” Lenin and Philosophy

and Other Essays Monthly Review Press 1971

Freire, Paulo. “Chapter One,” Pedagogy of the Oppressed

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/idelogy.htm

Liptak, Adam. "Supreme Court Says Child's Rights Violated by Strip Search." The New York

Times 25 June 2009, Education sec.