Jonathan Tomberg, 2L
Supreme Court Reporter
On a fall day, not too long ago, in a place called America, Savanna Redding, honors student, sat in her math class at Safford Middle School. It was a calm day, like any other. But Savanna’s school was under attack. Earlier that day, another student at the school had been caught with the most insidious and dangerous drug that has plagued our cities for decades: ibuprofen. Or as it is known in the street, Advil. But this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill ibuprofen. No. This was prescription strength. Oh, and she had a knife. Once caught and questioned, this student immediately confessed that the drugs had been given to her by Savanna.
After brief consultation with CTU Agent Jack Bauer, the school officials removed young Savanna from her classroom to ask her some questions. Savanna denied any knowledge of where the ibuprofen came from. She acquiesced to a search of her person and her book bag, which yielded no contraband. But it wouldn’t end there. The school officials had seen the effects of ibuprofen before: the lying, the stealing, the headache-relieving. Anything for another hit. So they did what any rational school officials would do when acting on a tip from a student who had been caught with pills and a knife earlier in the day: based on a wild hunch that she had pills in her panties, they strip searched the honors student who had denied culpability. Sounds reasonable.
Needless to say, Savanna sued the school, and the Supreme Court heard arguments in her case, Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, on April 21. Two issues were presented for review. First, the Court will determine whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits school officials from conducting a search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus in violation of a school policy. Second, the Court will decide if the Ninth Circuit departed from established principles of qualified immunity in holding that a public school administrator may be liable in a damages suit under 42 U.S. § 1983 for conducting a search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus.
Applying the reasonableness standard of New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985), which called for a balancing of a student’s rights against a school’s right to preserve order, the Ninth Circuit determined that the school officials did not act “according to the dictates of reason and common sense.” Simply put, a strip search was not an appropriate response to a bare accusation that a student had at one time in the past possessed prescription drugs. There was no reasonable ground for the school officials to assume that a strip search would reveal drugs because the first search of Savanna’s book bag had revealed no evidence of drugs and the mere statement of the other student did not constitute enough evidence for the school to conduct a strip search. The search was unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment.
The Ninth Circuit also found that the Fourth Amendment rights of school children were clearly established at the time of the search because of cases like T.L.O., which stand for the proposition that school children do not leave their rights at the schoolhouse door. Therefore, the school could not claim a qualified immunity defense and shield itself from damages under Section 1983.
It is hard to imagine that the Supreme Court will overrule the Ninth Circuit. However, the Roberts Court has limited the rights of students in the past, particularly in Morse v. Frederick (2007), where the court determined that a student’s free speech rights were not violated when his school suspended him for holding up a “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner during a school event. In that case, the sign’s reference to drugs was a critical fact and the majority cited the “important—indeed, perhaps compelling interest” that schools have in preventing drug use. Perhaps the court will extend this line of reasoning to school searches. If it does, any rights students have from unreasonable searches while they are in school will be seriously eroded. In the present case, it does not seem likely that even the Roberts Court, in its fervor to prevent drug use amongst the nation’s youth, could possibly determine that the search of Savanna was reasonable. If that search is reasonable, what is unreasonable? A full cavity search?