It wasn’t enough that school officials asked then-thirteen year old Savana Redding to strip down to her underwear and bra.  Ms. Redding had been brought before school officials because an assistant principal suspected the honors student of bringing prescription-strength ibuprofen to school.  In order to properly enforce the schools zero-tolerance drug policy Ms. Redding was told she would need to remove her bra and underwear as well.  According to the school, the only way to ensure that Ms. Redding had not violated school policy was a nude search of the eighth grader.
   

Ms. Redding had no pills.  In fact, Ms. Redding was so traumatized by the encounter that she refused to return to school for over a month and eventually transferred.  Her parents were furious at the school district and sued.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the school violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.  According to the Ninth Circuit, there is nothing reasonable about nude searches of thirteen-year-olds in the name of school safety.

Apparently the Supreme Court disagrees, or at least has a question about whether Ms. Redding’s search was in fact unreasonable.  The Court will hear arguments on her case in April and will decide just how much room school officials should have in policing zero tolerance drug and violence policies.  To signify the importance of this decision, the federal government filed a brief on Ms. Redding’s behalf.  They attack the search conducted by school officials as unreasonable since there was no evidence to conclude that Ms. Redding was carrying pills in her underwear or on her naked body.  The scope of the search, according to the government, was simply too broad given Ms. Redding’s history and the nature of the allegations.  It does seem to be that simple, doesn’t it?  Not according to the Roberts’ Court.

Hopefully the decision will provide some guidance to school officials everywhere and reinforce the belief that above all, searches must be reasonable, especially in light of the fact that zero tolerance policies are the norm.  The Court’s last major decision concerning school searches was in 1985 and involved incidents where school officials had specific individual suspicion, not the kind of wide reaching dragnet style enforcement of school policies now before the Court.  

It should be obvious that the significance of Ms. Redding’s case centers on the reasonableness of the search.  All school officials had to support their actions were uncorroborated accusations of another student who had been caught with prescription-strength ibuprofen– the equivalent of two over-the-counter Advil–during a random school search.  Nothing more. 
 
School officials certainly have a vested interest in making sure schools are as free from drug abuse and violence as possible.  But strip-searching students based on nothing more than uncorroborated allegations?  Because they were looking for the equivalent of Advil?

The Supreme Court’s decision to review the case made news, mostly because the Ninth Circuit’s ruling seemed so clear.  It seems clear, the Court said, that if the Constitution protects anything it protects thirteen-year-olds from nude searches before school officials.  Let’s hope the Roberts Court sees the issue as clearly as the Ninth Circuit.