The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana today filed a lawsuit on behalf of a seventh-grade student, identified as K.S., who was required to expose her bra during an invasive search, in front of multiple school officials at Jay County Jr-Sr High School.
According to the ACLU of Indiana complaint, the Dean of Students, Bradley Milliman, removed a 13-year-old girl from class, without any explanation, and preceded to escort her to the school nurse’s office, where the nurse required K.S. to lift her shirt up, exposing her bra. The search was conducted in front of the school nurse and Dean Milliman. The lawsuit claims that this very intrusive search violates the Fourth Amendment and has caused emotional and mental harm to K.S.
K.S. has not returned to the school and is now being schooled at home as a result of this traumatizing experience.
“No parent wants to see their child suffer like this. My daughter has been involved in multiple school sports teams, but now that she no longer feels safe in school, it breaks my heart to think she may never be able to participate in school activities again,” said Nicholas Stout, the plaintiff’s father. “Moving forward, we want to ensure that this never happens to another child again. We want school officials across this great country to know that they are not above our Constitution or the law.”
Dean Milliman later explained that a student had falsely reported that K.S. had a weapon. The search took place even though the student who made the false report had made a similar false report before and even though there were many less invasive means available to conduct a search.
“The actions taken by these school officials were taken with reckless or callous indifference to K.S.’s rights,” said Ken Falk, legal director at the ACLU of Indiana. “The Fourth Amendment applies to school officials and requires them to have reasonable suspicion for any search of a student and requires further that the search be appropriate in its scope.
