ACLU Sues Federal Officials for Illegal
Strip Search of Job Corps Participants
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 1998
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado (ACLU) filed suit today in federal court charging that federal Job Corps officials conducted an illegal strip search of a busload of young Job Corps participants at the federal agency’s facility in Collbran, Colorado, last year.
According to the lawsuit, 25 to 30 young persons were forced to submit to the strip search when they returned to the Collbran Job Corps Center after spending a weekend outside of the live-in facility. The Collbran Center, operated by the U.S. Department of Labor, provides a residential education and vocational training program for disadvantaged youth.
The suit alleges that Job Corps officials acted on nothing more than a "rumor" that one of the program participants might be bringing drugs into the facility. No drugs were ever found.
The ACLU sued on behalf of Alisha McKay, who was seventeen years old and five months pregnant on March 30, 1997, when the search occurred. She has no criminal record and no history of involvement with illegal drugs.
After the bus arrived at the Center, the suit alleges, each teenager’s backpack was searched, but no contraband was found. Federal officials divided the males and females into separate groups. The young Job Corps participants were then ordered, two at a time, into a small bathroom, where the searches were conducted. Outside the room where the boys were searched, a Job Corps official snapped a rubber glove and taunted the young people.
Once inside the girls’ bathroom, the lawsuit alleges, Ms. McKay and another young woman were ordered to stand side by side, remove their clothes, spread their legs apart, and squat as a Job Corps official inspected their genitals. The plaintiff was told that if she did not submit to the strip search and body cavity inspection, she would be terminated from the Job Corps program "on the spot."
"Once again, constitutional rights are the innocent casualties of the war on drugs," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches. A mere rumor that some unspecified individual might have drugs does not authorize the government to conduct a blanket strip search of an entire busload of passengers. It certainly cannot justify subjecting two dozen teenagers to this senseless, degrading ordeal."
"Our client, a pregnant minor, was angry, upset, and humiliated," said Greg Whitehair of the law firm of Patton Boggs, who, along with Susan Brienza, is serving as an ACLU volunteer cooperating attorney. "She has asked us to hold these government officials fully accountable for this blatant violation of the Constitution, so that no Job Corps participants will ever have to endure what she went through."
The lawsuit names five Job Corps employees as defendants and asks for compensation, punitive damages, and an injunction to prevent similar incidents in the future.