No Strip Searches of Middle School Students!
The Supreme Court ruled in Safford Unified School District v. Redding on this day that a strip search of a middle school female student violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.
Thirteen-year old Savana Redding had given a classmate four prescription-level pills and some over-the-counter medicine. Based on the suspicion that she had more drugs, school officials searched her, and at one point made her strip down to her underwear, pull out her bra and shake it, and also pull out her underpants and shake them. Officials did not contact her parents prior to the search. School policy prohibited the possession of any prescription drugs on campus without prior school approval.
Justice David Souter for the Court: “Savana [Reddings]’s subjective expectation of privacy against such a search is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her expectation (required by the Fourth Amendment standard) is indicated by the consistent experiences of other young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the patent intrusiveness of the exposure.”
Learn about the rights of students from the ACLU
Listen to the oral arguments in the case: http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2008/2008_08_479
Learn more about students’ rights
Learn more at First Amendment Schools: http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/about/aboutindex.aspx