Supreme Court to Consider Constitutionality of Student’s Strip Search
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments April 21 in a suit that contends a strip search of a 13-year-old student violated the Fourth Amendment.
Savana Redding stayed home for months after the search by a school nurse and secretary, the New York Times reports. Finally, she transferred to another school. An assistant principal had suspected that she was hiding prescription-strength ibuprofen pills, but the search found nothing.
“The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation,” the Times says.
The cert petition (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) takes issue with the decision in the case by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“In a decision that defies this court’s precedents, the 9th Circuit now requires probable cause for some searches in the school setting that may be deemed more intrusive,” the petition says. “This abrupt change casts a roadblock to the type of swift and effective response that is too often needed to protect the very safety of students, particularly from the threats posed by drugs and weapons.”
The school cites a near fatality in 2002 when a student passed out prescription drugs to friends. It also cites “unusually rowdy behavior” by Redding and her friends at a school dance, and the later discovery of “a liquor bottle and a pack of cigarettes” in the trash in the girls’ bathroom.
Redding told the Times her behavior at the dance was nothing more than the “goofy” antics of kids, and said a former friend had falsely accused her of having the ibuprofen pills.
The Supreme Court last issued a major decision on school searches based on individual suspicion in 1985, ruling that a student’s purse could be searched based on reasonable suspicions.
The case is Safford Unified School District v. Redding.
