When does a police search of a student cross the line?
by Guest blogger on Mar 05 2012 Posted in Community voices
This guest blog post comes from Harold Jordan,Notebook board chair and staff member at ACLU of Pennsylvania.
The issue of how far a police search of a student can go may play out in a Philadelphia courtroom as result of a federal lawsuit filed against the School District of Philadelphia.
According to the suit, Conover v. Schools District of Philadelphia, et. al., a 13-year-old female middle school student was subjected to improper touching by school police as a part of a search. During a two-hour search of more than 100 students, a male school police officer is alleged to have placed his hand down the female student’s blouse and touched her chest after running a metal detector wand across her body with negative results. Another female student had a similar experience. The student’s lawyer told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she was told that police were searching for a BB gun, but no contraband was found. The District has denied these allegations.
Would it have been proper for school police to respond this way? Probably not. This type of search is known as a “strip search” – where clothing is removed or