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http://dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/01/20060201-E1-04.html
Class-action suit filed on behalf of girls who were strip-searched
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Mary Beth Lane
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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A nursing student and parents of four of her classmates have filed a lawsuit saying the students’ rights were violated when 20 girls were strip-searched at school.
Eighteen-year-old Misty Knisley and her classmates’ parents filed the class-action lawsuit Monday in Pike County Common Pleas Court against the Vern Riffe Career Technology Center in Piketon, 60 miles south of Columbus, and the county Joint Vocational School District.
The lawsuit says that the Jan. 20 search violated the students’ civil rights and caused them emotional distress, psychological damage and humiliation. It seeks more than $50,000 in damages for each of the 20 students.
The suit was filed as a class action because the claims and damages are the same for the group, said Portsmouth attorney Robert R. Dever, who is representing the families with Columbus attorney Dan Volkema.
District Superintendent Stephen E. Martin declined to comment on the lawsuit yesterday but said it was not unexpected.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has offered legal aid to the families, said litigation coordinator Gary Daniels.
Martin has said that the search was conducted in accordance with school policy, and that the district lawyer has advised him that the policy is legal.
The search was prompted by a report that money, a credit card and a gift card were missing. The items were not found.
While concluding that the policy was legal and properly followed, Martin wrote in a report this week that teachers and other employees will be given additional training on performing student searches "to ensure that we comply with the law."
School Director Keith Smith led a search of the classroom, then the girls’ purses and other personal effects, and then their shoes, pockets and lockers.
After a student said the missing items were hidden in bras or undergarments, Smith had instructor Toni Fout, a registered nurse, take each student into the bathroom individually.
Fout asked each girl to unsnap her bra and shake it, without removing her shirt, and then asked each to pull her scrub pants to mid-thigh, wrote Martin, adding he did not consider these strip searches.
Martin said the search was warranted because there were reasonable grounds to believe that a theft had occurred, and the scope of the search was appropriate because there were reasonable grounds to believe that the missing items were hidden in a student’s undergarment.
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