A fifteen-year-old Maryland girl forced to undergo a humiliating and degrading strip search at the hands of local sheriff’s deputies courageously spoke out against the abuse at a recent school board meeting. The Kent County High School student is one of two teen girls ordered by police to remove clothing while standing in front of an open window and while a school administrator looked on.

The pat-down and search, which involved several drug-sniffing dogs, uncovered no drugs on any of the sixteen students.

"I am a sophomore at Kent County High School, and on April 16, I was forced to endure a partial strip-search due to a drug search carried out by the Kent County Sheriff's Office,” the tearful student* told the board, according to the Washington Post. “The humiliation that I endured that day, and that I am still enduring, is overwhelming."

The student said that a female deputy, Marcellene Beck, told her to take off her skirt, lifted her tank top to expose her breasts, and pulled at her underwear. Just a week after studying the breasts, bras, and panties of the girls, the school system unconscionably allowed Beck to return to the school as a substitute teacher.

While the Kent County High School Handbook for the current school year is not yet posted online, the Middle School version makes clear that police may have violated several school policies during the search, including “Violations Against Persons” that consist of “any threatening touch to a student's clothes or body.”

This is but one of an increasing number of harmful and degrading school drug searches in which students have been needlessly humiliated and emotionally scarred – their breasts, genitals, and undergarments exposed at school before strange adults without the benefit of a parent being present or informed.

*The Drug Policy Alliance does not publish the name of possible victims of sexual assault.