Feature: Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Junior High Girl Strip Search Case
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, a case that originated in a school administrator's decision to subject then 13-year-old Savannah Redding to a strip search after another student said she had obtained prescription-strength Ibuprofen tablets from her.
[inline:supremecourt1.jpg align=left caption="US Supreme Court"]The case began when administrators in Safford, Arizona, received a tip from a student and his parents that another child possessed the tablets and planned to give them to other students at lunch. Authorities confronted the second student and found Ibuprofen tablets in her possession. The second student told administrators she had obtained the pills from Redding.
Redding was escorted to the principal's office, and Redding's backpack and outer clothes were searched, but no pills were found. She was then told to remove her outer clothing in front of the school nurse and an administrative assistant, both female. Standing in her underwear, she was ordered to pull out her bra and underwear to allow any hidden pills to fall free. None did.
Redding and her parents then sued the school district for violating her constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. Redding won in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, and the school district appealed to the Supreme Court.
The justices' questions during oral arguments Tuesday suggested that, as they sought to find a balance between student privacy and public school safety, they were tilting toward the latter. They appeared inclined to give school administrators broad authority to do what is necessary to protect kids from drugs.
That's what attorneys for the school district argued. "Searching any place where she might be reasonably hiding that contraband was constitutionally permissible" because the school district was acting as guardian, not law enforcement, said Matthew Wright, counsel for the district. "It's not like a criminal issue where they're trying to prosecute. This is a case where they're trying to protect," Wright said. "It is best for this Court to defer to their judgment... and not second-guess those rules."
Justice David Souter, noting that the drug at issue was Ibuprofen, interjected that, "At some point, this gets silly."
Still, Souter also remarked that it could have been a more dangerous drug, and the consequences of not acting could be tragic: "My thought process is, I would rather have the kid embarrassed by a strip search, if we can't find anything short of that, than to have some other kids dead because the stuff is distributed at lunchtime and things go awry."
Justice Antonin Scalia pressed Wright about whether a body cavity search would be permissible. While Wright tried to dance around that question, saying body cavity searches were not done because school officials were not trained to do them, Scalia kept pressing. In the end, Wright conceded that "I could see that result."
Despite concerns about how far school administrators could go in searching for drugs, the justices seemed even more concerned about more dangerous drugs. The justices repeatedly asked hypothetical questions about what if it had been heroin or methamphetamine instead of Ibuprofen.
When it came time for Redding's side of the case to be argued, a Justice Department attorney took the lead. "We believe that without some particularized suspicion or some specific indication that this, the location, was a likely one to contain the drugs, that this search was excessively intrusive," said attorney David O'Neil. "And this is not a new standard."
"We agree with the federal government that before conducting an intrusive strip search a school needs to have location-specific information," argued Adam Wolf of the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project. "And while this case can begin and end with that well-accepted proposition, it's also important to recognize that a school needs greater -- a greater degree of suspicion to conduct a strip search than to conduct an ordinary backpack search. This search violated the clearly established point that in order to conduct an intrusive search of one's body, the searching official needs to at least reasonably believe that the object is located underneath the undergarments. The Fourth Amendment does not account -- it does not countenance the rummaging on or around a 13-year-old girl's naked body."
Justice Stephen Breyer tried to get Wolf to elaborate on "how bad" such searches really were, noting that students often changed clothes at school for gym class, but that only inspired Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the court, to intervene. "It wasn't just that they were stripped to their underwear," she said incredulously, referring to Redding and another girl similarly searched at the school. "They were asked to shake their bra out, to stretch the top of their pants and shake that out."
While the justices were weighing constitutional rights and student safety, youth rights advocates had little trouble sorting out the issues. "Strip searching eighth graders is way over the line," said Amber Langston, eastern region outreach director for Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). "This kind of thing is a horrid example of the failure of our drug search policies in public schools. They said they were trying to protect the children, but who was protecting Savannah Redding from the humiliation inflicted on her by school officials?"
Students deserve the same constitutional rights as anyone else, said youth sociologist and Youth Facts founder Michael Males. And school districts should be making better choices, he added.
"Students should only be detained or searched under the same rules applied to adults," Males said. "If authorities have probable cause to suspect illegal behavior that would satisfy standards of reasonable suspicion, they can detain and search suspects. School strip searches require a very high level of probable cause, yet they typically seem based on gossip."
Males called the Redding case "particularly bizarre," noting that it only involved Ibuprofen. "School officials didn't seem interested in searching lockers, desks, or anywhere except inside the girl's underwear," he noted. "These kinds of traumatic cases are, again, why I keep arguing against raising hysteria about teenage drug use."
"Adults inspecting children's private parts is something we should be very wary of," said SSDP's Langston. "This was all over prescription-strength Ibuprofen, there was no evidence Savannah even had it except for the word of another student who was in trouble herself. If the Supreme Court allows this to stand, we will have given too much power to school officials to conduct such searches."
It's not just students but the school districts themselves that suffer from overbroad search policies, Males said. "These types of school searches have wound up costing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in legal costs and, to my knowledge, virtually never find anything, which raises questions of why administrators are allocating scarce education resources to them."
The Supreme Court will decide the case later this summer. All indications are it will reverse the appeals court and uphold this expansion of school administrators' authority to do "whatever it takes" to protect students from drugs.
Comments
Home Schooling is usually the Best Choice
If you have the time.... and energy... nothing beats home schooling.
No intrusive gov't officials, no gang banging boneheads, no peer pressure from adolescent children.
Besides traditional students waste about 25% of their time waddling from class to class.
It's also the only way to teach your children real math... and why gov't rarely adds up... because gov't is based on mythmatics!
In reply to Home Schooling is usually the Best Choice by Anonymous (not verified)
in response to yours
I agree "NOW" it didn't used to be like this.
In reply to Home Schooling is usually the Best Choice by Anonymous (not verified)
Fo Sho
tru dat! home grown is always the best way.
In reply to Home Schooling is usually the Best Choice by Anonymous (not verified)
My question is why are kids
My question is why are kids to afraid to say fuck off cause I swear if one of my teachers tried to strip search me for drugs I would punch them straight in the face
Snitches...
Fuckin' school Nazis...!
If you can't Sexually
emasculate children what is the fun of authoritarianism?
This "NEWS"
My question is how does this kind of crap make it into the media in the first place.Of course these administraters went too too far.Strip searching a little girl for ibruprofen no less!Some other kid wanted to get her in trouble and did.Now you may expect repurcussions from this young girl.Our government and local administrations are all gone to shit.I thoughrt this was a good country to live in.Sometimes I really really wonder!
This subjet reminds me of a great song
Hey Teachers leave them kids alone !!!
madd
A LITTLE OFF SUBJECT BUT MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING
Cause more pain and suffering than all the drunk driving "killers" by thier holier than thow legislation.I'm not for intoxicated driving at all but I do see the damage caused by the legislation uninformed masses like MADD create.
MADD Encourages Drunk Driving
with the idiotic practice of police busting drunks who are sleeping it off in their cars!!!!
better to just chance it by driving home instead to reduce one's exposure... just more crap from our criminal police romish masonic fraternal organizations that favor alcohol over MJ!
This is exactly the kind of bullying that breeds violence
Double standards lead to violent retribution. If people who run schools are allowed to force little kids to strip off their clothes and have some absolute power trip,then whats gonna happen is many kids parents will home and/or alternative school their children. Another thing that bullying by school officials might provoke is revenge;the deadly kind of revenge. Respect for others is as respect for others does. Simple physics. Simple common sense.
Have fun
Watching the schools burn to the ground with this kind of behavior toward children!
This should have been a no-brainer
What shocks me about this is that it actually made it to the Supreme Court. This should have been a no-brainer. NO it's not OK for school officials to strip search a 13 year old. See that was easy.
Prohibition Porn
What is it with Scalia and his obsession with cavity searches for 13 year old girls?
Justice Antonin Scalia pressed Wright about whether a body cavity search would be permissible.....Scalia kept pressing. In the end, Wright conceded that "I could see that result."
Perhaps he wants to witness the fresh unsullied cavities for himself and wants to make sure what the outcome of the court decision could be before he chews on the social consequences of the verdict.
In the next paragraph, "....the justices seemed even more concerned about more dangerous drugs. The justices repeatedly asked hypothetical questions about what if it had been heroin or methamphetamine instead of Ibuprofen."
Here is a hypothetical question for the justices, If the government removed organized crime from the drug trade might we see a reduction in drug availability to America's children? Or how about this one, If one can score heroin or methamphetamine in a US prison is it realistic to conclude that we can stop drugs from crossing the border?
The drug war will be used to restrict the Fourth Ammendment, Second Ammendment, The Posse-Comitatus Act paving a way to a new world order. Alot hangs on this decision my money is on the oligarchs the same ones who deal in the large quantities themselves.
In reply to Prohibition Porn by Anonymous (not verified)
comments about scalia
if you actually read the transcript, and logically follow what scalia was getting at was that scalia would be against strip-searches of children in the school. if the 9th Circuit's decision is overturned, the SC will be saying strip searches in the school are ok, with no limitation (cavity search, etc). scalia was making the point that if they overturn the 9th Circuit's decision, won't school officials and other Courts interpret the opinion to say body cavity searches are also okay.
read the transcripts, the briefs, and the lower Court decision, before making claims that somehow scalia is interested in performing cavity searches on individuals.
Coast to Coast AM Sunday April 26 Cathy O'brien& Mark Phillips
Government mind controlled sex slaves expose'. These guests have alot of interesting/appalling information on the drug warriors who are involved in mind controlled all ages sex slavery,drug running, you name it. Gerald Ford,Dick,Cheney,Donald Rumsfeld,Ronald Reagan,and many more worse than Dr. Evil terrorists in power positions over people. Spread this around and hopefully something will get done to expedite these sickos' removal from forced worship! This little girls strip search is part of this problem of double standards used to fragment peoples personalities. Help!
Woooooooooooow
you guys are all pussies!!!!!!!! I'm in 8th grade and I seriously wouldn't give a shit if i was strip searched. Drugs are such a problem in middle school that I see someone that's high every day. All that emotional bullshit that that chick is saying about herself getting stripped is all nonsense she's just sad because some nurse found her dick under her fat.
re Woooooooow
Their high on the drugs Oliver North and the Psychiatrists push on them ya little fascist and we know you are not in eighth grade.
Welcome to the Police State
"Stop. Spread 'em.
Because I say so.
Or you will be arrested because of my discretion."
She should have kicked the bastards where it hurts.
Watch this one closely.
Keep the faith,
Angelo Caiazzo
Protection from drugs or sexual predators?
MR. WRIGHT: Well, Your Honor, if -- if an administrator in their judgment, in their reasonable judgment, believes that any -- any drug poses a potential health and safety risk, because they have the custodial and tutelary responsibilities for those kids -- and it's not like a criminal issue where they're trying to prosecute; this is a case where they're trying to protect -- because they have those kinds of obligations to provide for the safety of children, to provide an orderly educational environment, it is best for this Court to defer to their judgment when they believe that certain rules are important and not second-guess those rules. -- in oral argument
In Washington, which is obsessed with both drugs and sexual predators, I wonder if such a case would have very early raised issues about balancing student protection from drugs vs. student protection from sexual predators? Just recently Washington "closed a loophole in sexual predator laws" which was simply that there was no law against adult students and adult teachers having consensual sex like any other adults. I don't recall if the student and teacher have to have a direct student/teacher relationship or even attend and teach at the same school. Indeed, I don't recall much about it except the "loophole" was big news on the local TV stations for a while.
If I was the parent of a 13 year old in this state, I'd be concerned about going to prison for doing what strangers at school did. Arguing that I was searching for ibuprophen rather than sexually molesting/abusing my child isn't something I'd feel confident of convincing the D.A.; even worse if a body cavity search was involved and the Supreme Court may be ruling on whether this search would have been lawful if it had been a cavity search.
As far as the basic Fourth Amendment issue goes, it's disturbing that the school thought it could make the search and that some courts have agreed but the War On Drugs has always been a War On The Bill Of Rights and a War On The American People so I don't find the matter surprising.
--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
Simple solution
SCREAM RAPE!
Unless in LEGAL custody and a parent gives approval and oversight any person seeking to disrobe a child, for any reason other than immediate medical emergency, is assaulting that child. No matter what the rationale or intent the act is an assault. Stripping the child makes it a sexual assault.
Do we now send children to school to learn when the government can sexually assault children?
Must the entire public school system go Catholic just because we have too many Catholics on the Supreme court?
In reply to Simple solution by aahpat (not verified)
That can't be serious!
Going Catholic can't really be seriously considered either. IMO But, I guess it would be the little boys in more danger, in that institution! "Religious" types can be just as sexually perverted, as everyone else. And, it is not limited to the Catholic Church, either!!
In reply to That can't be serious! by mlang52 (not verified)
compartmentalizing
It was not just little boys who were abused by Catholic priests.
There is far more sexual deviance hidden behind religious piety that anywhere else.
There are five Catholics on the U.S. Supreme Court. Four are considered activist/devout Catholics. Based on this alone I would say that this case will go in favor of the school because there is no perversion against children that can't be rationalized by the Catholic church and its minions.
In reply to compartmentalizing by aahpat (not verified)
Understood
Why is it that they cannot see that it is wrong, in so many ways, to do this? Especially when it was KNOWN that the drug was IBUPROFEN!?!?
I used to do physicals for grade school, and high school, athletes. The children were not required to disrobe, out of common sense! It was just for athletic participation, anyway! The physicals revealed something, once, in twenty years, that needed further evaluation. And that was just a heart murmur! They were just another, questionable expense for the parents that the public school system "required".
They perverted coca-cocaine
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/07/anti-christ-cocaine-prohibition.html
The time line is undeniable- apparently Angelo Mariani said no to something they offered him...
Uncle Ernie
We could be calling this policy for what it is an Uncle Ernie policy.
Drug war sanctioned pedophiles
Schools, government and the United States Supreme Court have no business rationalizing the conditions under which it can strip search children for anything other than weapons. NOTHING else is public safety related.
This is just an excuse to strip naked young children, stare at them and even poke fingers into them.
a 13 year old stripped by
a 13 year old stripped by non-parental school officials? and the court finds nothing wrong with this? no child should have to go through being stripped by a stranger, whether school official or not, nurse or not, and the same goes for other areas of authority.
NO FUKIN KID CAN BE STRIPPED NAKED. PERIOD. unless its a medical emergency in a hospital and you have to operate or something.
What happened should have been considered statutory rape and the nurses should be charged with raping a 13 year old girl.
this court is ridiculous. and the justices dont have the balls enough to fix this goddamn country. this is the exact opposite of freedoms running wild, this is freedoms being stripped from children and americans alike.
F ALL THESE IDIOTS. Justices, cops, schools, they are all goddamn immoral fuks.
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