HISD officials investigate strip-search of student

From the Houston Chronicle:

Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott confirmed today that a student at Harper Alternative School was strip-searched but said school officials had "reasonable cause" to conduct the search. The student, however, has complained that the search was inappropriate.

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When is there ever "reasonable cause" for a school official to strip search a student? The answer is clearly "never." Teachers and principals aren't cops, for god's sake. However, this rather extreme example shows that, institutionally, there are massive incentives to make these people think that they are, indeed, cops. I've written exhaustively about how the authoritarian culture of public schools overwhelms any true educational concerns and results in what amounts to zones of American totalitarianism. That is, schools are mini police states, even though most people don't think of them that way. As a teacher, I, myself, all the while understanding the institutional dynamic taking place, found myself often seized by a strange rule-enforcement zeal: it's pretty infectious in that atmosphere, and "educators" often cross ethical lines while trying to live up to the strong mandate of obedience and authoritarianism. I'm sure that the HISD employee behind the strip search believed he was just doing his job, and trying to do it well. This time it looks as though laws were broken, but what about the countless humiliations and years of anti-democratic social conditioning that aren't illegal? Why isn't anybody reporting about that?

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