Victory: Federal Court Agrees that North Carolina School Officials Should be Held Accountable for Strip-Searching 10-Year-Old Boy for Lost $20 Bill
September 10, 2013
CLINTON, N.C. — A federal court has agreed to hold school officials accountable for stripping a 10-year-old boy down to his underwear in an aggressive strip-search that included rimming the edge of his underwear, allegedly in an attempt to find another student’s missing $20 bill (which was later found on the cafeteria floor). The Rutherford Institute had challenged the school’s attempt to have the lawsuit against it dismissed, insisting that there is no justification for the school’s decision to so egregiously violate the fifth-grader’s Fourth Amendment rights or for the alleged failure to train school employees in how to appropriately deal with such matters.
In issuing a recommendation and a report in Cox v. Sampson County Board of Education, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Webb agreed with arguments made by Rutherford Institute attorneys that there is no justification for the school’s decision to so egregiously violate the privacy of a fifth grader because student strip searches are allowed only in the interest of school safety. Magistrate Webb also upheld claims against the defendants for battery and invasion of privacy.
“Such outrageous conduct by school officials not only dehumanizes students but it also deprives them of the fundamental right of privacy under our Constitution,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. “These types of searches clearly illustrate the danger inherent in giving school administrators carte blanche authority to violate the civil liberties and privacy rights of students. Do we really want young people to be taught that they have no true rights and that government authorities have total power and can violate their rights as they see fit?”
