Strip Search at School: Was it assault?

I often debate as to whether this blog should be strictly tech-based, but then I read these articles that, well, get to me. To change the statistic that 25% of women are sexually assaulted, people need to start talking about it.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard argument on a case where a 13 year old girl - an honor student who had never been in trouble - was strip searched at school because she was suspected of having ibuprofen. Now, if that doesn't infuriate you already, listen to the facts of the case:

Redding says she was then asked to strip down to her underwear and stood there while the nurse and secretary inspected her clothes and shoes.

"Then, you know, I thought they were going to let me put my clothes back on, but instead they asked me to pull out my bra and shake it, and the crotch on my underwear, too," Redding says.

Redding says her whole body was visible to the school administrators. She kept her head down so the nurse and the secretary couldn't see her fighting back tears.

And all this for what is basically Advil. Ugh.

This was more than a strip search. This was assault:

1. A young girl was forced to show her private parts.
   
2. The school did not search the girl's locker or desk, but they did search the girl's crotch.
3. The harm in traumatizing a girl far outweighs the harm of a couple of students from taking ibuprofen.
   

When you look at these facts, you see that the school's search was not conducted in a way to find the ibuprofen (since they didn't search the girl's locker or desk), nor did they balance the harm of an invasive search against the risks of mild pain killers. Thus, it seems that the administrators were on a powertrip that ended in assaulting a girl.

I hope that the Supreme Court makes the right decision. While there is a time and place to do strip searches (eg, in jail), school officials are not trained to do so. If you think a student poses that much of a danger that an invasive search is required, then call the cops. Strip searches should never be conducted by school officials.

Skip School - Get an Ankle Bracelet

Creepy. From the New York Times:

The authorities will be able to track San Antonio students with a history of skipping school using ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring. Linda Penn, a justice of the peace, said she expected that some 50 students would wear the devices in a six-month pilot program. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the plan, but Ms. Penn linked truancy with later criminal activity. “We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on life,” she said. “I don’t want to see the latter.”

You're going to give kids ankle bracelets? To do what, exactly? It's not like you don't know if they skip school - the morning roll call already does that. It will, however, ensure that they're treated like criminals.

Forbes: College Ranking FAIL

It seems everyone wants to get a piece of the college ranking game, and Forbes is latest contender.

Let's look at how the Ivy League - the group of schools America loves to hate - fared in the newest contest:

College	US News	Forbes
Princeton	#1	#1
Harvard	#2	#3
Yale	#3	#9
Columbia	#9	#10
Brown	#14	#27
Penn	#5	#61
Cornell	#12	#121
Dartmouth	#11	#127

Yes, that's right - Wabash College (#12) and Centre College (#13) are all better than half of the Ivy League.

While I firmly believe that one can get a great education anywhere, something is just not right about these rankings.

It becomes quite apparent when you look at Forbes' methodology:

(1) Listing of Alumni in the 2008 Who's Who in America (25%)

Ironically, Forbes' itself wrote an article ("The Hall of Lame") criticizing that it "appears to contain a lot of relatively unaccomplished people who simply nominated themselves..." Apparently, the majority of those who apply are selected. Anyone want to be in Who's Who? Think of how you'll help your college!

(2) Student Evaluations of Professors from RateMyProfessors.com (25%)

Students' input about professors to RateMyProfessors is limited to four criteria: Clarity, Easiness, Helpfulness and Hotness. Nowhere in there do the students provide information about how much they learned. And this accounts for a whopping 25% of Forbes' rankings? At least Forbes decided not to include "hotness" as a criteria.

(3) Four- Year Graduation Rates (16 2/3%)

This criteria appears a tad more fair. But still, what about a school which has a large number of students pursuing double majors, simultaneous masters degrees, etc? Some school encourage these sorts of academic challenges which would drop their four year graduation rate, while other schools effectively prohibit it.

(4) Enrollment-adjusted numbers of students and faculty receiving nationally competitive awards (16 2/3%)

For once, I have no complaint about this criteria. Ok, ok, maybe just one: is the sample statistically size fair?

(5) Average four year accumulated student debt of those borrowing money (16 2/3%)

For the 64% of students who do borrow money for school, leave it to them to decide if going into debt is worth it.

This is like ranking cars based on the average debt of its owners.

Forbes should be embarrassed by their list. 50% of the rankings are derived from extremely unreliable sources, and another 16.6% is a financial consideration that is best left up to each individual student. If you took their list seriously, you would be led to believe that a small, liberal college is the only place to get a solid education in this country.

What's really shocking about this list is that no one at Forbes took a glance at this list and said, "Hey, guys, did we really mean to put Hampden-Sydney College over 250 spots above NYU?"

Shame on Forbes. I'd expect better statistics from such a source.