Milwaukee, WI – Yesterday, Liberty Counsel argued at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving a state worker who made two elementary children undress without parental consent.

The case is Michael C. v. Gresbach. The eight-year-old boy, his nine-year-old sister and their parents are represented by Stephen Crampton, Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel, and Wisconsin attorney Michael D. Dean. The appeals court panel, consisting of Judges Bauman, Bauer and Sykes, is expected to rule on this case in the spring.

The case involves Dana Gresbach, a social worker from the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, who, acting on a tip that Michael C. had spanked one of the children with a plastic stick, decided to examine the children at a Christian school. Gresbach entered the school and had the principal bring the children to a private room. She instructed the principal not to call their parents and insisted on seeing the children alone. Gresbach interrogated both students, forcing the boy to raise his shirt and the girl to lift her jumper and pull down her tights. Gresbach closed her investigation after finding no evidence of abuse.

The trial court ruled that there was an obvious violation of the students’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search. Gresbach appealed that ruling to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In another federal lawsuit against the same bureau, Doe v. Heck, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that it is “patently unconstitutional” for government officials to search and seize a child on private school premises without a warrant or an emergency.

Stephen Crampton, Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel, commented: “Government social workers, like police officers, must obtain a warrant, consent, or be acting in an emergency before performing intrusive searches. While the social workers should be empowered to protect against actual abuse, they should not be given carte blanche to barge into a private school on a whim and strip-search innocent children. We have enough trouble in this country trying to keep families together without the government pitting parents against children in their blundering investigations.”