Court rejects school strip search (June 25, 2009)

The Supreme Court ruled today that a public school violated a 13-year-old Arizona girl's constitutional rights by conducting a strip search of her for ibuprofen.

Savana Redding, an eighth-grade student at the Safford Middle School in Safford, Ariz., , was accused by a classmate of hiding prescription-strength ibuprofen pills. Redding was sent to the school nurse's office and told to strip to her underwear, move her bra to the side and pull her underwear out, exposing her breasts and pelvic area.

No pills were discovered, and Redding’s mother filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf.

School officials contend that the search was reasonable, pointing out that the pills had been found on campus and said a similar incident had sent a student to the hospital.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled for the school district, holding that school officials did not violate Redding’s Fourth Amendment rights in any respect as the search complied with the standard set forth by the 9th Circuit in New Jersey v. TL.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985).

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed. The majority held that “the strip search of Savana was neither ‘justified at its inception,’ New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 341 (1985), nor, as a grossly intrusive search of a middle school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules, ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances’ giving rise to its initiation.”

On June 25, the Supreme Court affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded the case to the lower court.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

In addition, the majority found that school officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. The justices left it up to the lower courts to decide whether the school district could be found liable.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas warned that the majority decision might backfire:

"Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he wrote. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

Question presented: Whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits public school officials from conducting a strip search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus in violation of school policy.