Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear the case of Savana Redding - a young woman who was strip-searched by two female school officials in 2003 while attending eighth grade at Safford Middle School in Arizona. Here’s the basic story (according to the Washington Post):

A male student at Safford Middle School told school officials that he was given prescription-strength ibuprofen (equivalent to two Advils) by a friend of Redding’s. When that friend was caught with said pills, she said she received them directly from Redding. Vice Principal Wilson pulled Savana (an honor-roll student with a spotless disciplinary record) out of class, and once in his office, she allowed him to search her backpack. When he found nothing, he sent her into the nurse’s office with two female staff members who told her to strip down to her underwear, shake her bra from side to side, and stretch out the waistband of her underwear. After the incident, no one apologized to Savana or her family. She never returned to classes at Safford again, and ended up dropping out of high school. Savana’s mother is in the process of suing both the school system and Vice Principal Wilson individually, claiming that they violated her daughter’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches.

To me, the case poses two important questions: whether school officials at this particular school in this particular instance had the right to strip search Savana Redding, and the more general question of where to draw the line between protecting students’ rights to privacy and protecting entire schools from harmful and illegal substances.

As to the first question, I think Vice Principal Wilson’s response to the incident was an egregious abuse of power and a violation of Savana Redding’s constitutional rights (not to mention her dignity!) Granted, I understand that school officials at Safford were on high alert in 2003 since the year before a student nearly died after taking prescription meds acquired from a friend. And I agree that school officials had every right to question Savana, and even to search her backpack. But a forced strip search? Surely they could have instead called her mother in for a meeting. It’s not as if they suspected Savana of concealing dangerous weapons. We’re talking about extra strength ibuprofen here!

Today’s Washington Post features an editorial calling for the Supreme Court to strike down the 9th Circuit’s decision (by a 6 to 5 vote) that Savana’s constitutional rights had indeed been breached and that Vice Principal Wilson could be held personally liable for monetary damages. Their argument: “School officials must have the flexibility to act quickly and decisively to avert all manner of danger. Fear of being sued for making reasonable if controversial judgment calls will only chill these efforts.” I disagree with this argument. Vice principal Wilson’s judgment call was far from reasonable. There’s a huge line between searching a student’s locker/ backpack and searching a student’s body!!! And I do hope this verdict will discourage school officials from taking strip searches lightly in the future.

As to the more general question of where schools should draw the line between privacy and protection, a precedent for this case is the 1985 Supreme Court decision stating that school officials only need to have “reasonable suspicions” rather than “probable cause” to search individual students. Given that when it comes to school safety, the lives of so many children are stake, I agree with the justices so far – especially when we’re talking about searching a student’s purse, locker, or backpack.

The court then further cautions against a search that is “excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction,” which I think is what happened to Savana. The Justices argued that a more intrusive search must be “justified at its inception” and “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” I think Adam Wolf, Savana Redding’s lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union, put it best when he said: “The school official here heard an accusation that Savana previously possessed ibuprofen at some unknown location at some unknown time and jumped to the conclusion that Savana was presently storing ibuprofen and that she was storing it against her genitalia.” Doesn’t sound like grounds for a justifiable strip search to me.

takepart in reading more about this story, and here too. Also, take a moment to visit the American Civil Liberty Union’s website.

(Photo: adotjdotsmith’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)