Safford Unified School District v. Redding

Safford Unified School District v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364 (2009), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a strip search of a middle school student by school officials violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures .

On October 8, 2003, the assistant principal of Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona , informed 13-year-old Savana Redding that another student had accused her of distributing prescription-strength ibuprofen , which was disallowed without prior permission by school rules. Redding denied this accusation, and after a search of her belongings did not reveal any pills, school officials instructed her to remove her outer clothing and pull out her bra and underpants, which also did not reveal any pills.

Redding's mother sued the Safford Unified School District and the school officials who searched her daughter, arguing that they had violated the Fourth Amendment. On June 25, 2009, in an 8–1 decision authored by Justice David Souter , the Supreme Court held that the search failed to meet the "reasonable suspicion " standard for searches of students in a school setting established by the Court in _New Jersey v. T. L. O. _ (1985), stating that the school lacked reasons to suspect either that the drugs presented a danger or that they were concealed in her underwear. However, the Court also found that because there was sufficient doubt as to whether the law was clearly established at the time of the search, the school officials were shielded from liability by qualified immunity .

The case garnered nationwide interest and sparked debates over the extent to which school officials should enforce zero-tolerance policies in schools . Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only female justice at the time and discussed the case in an interview while a decision was still pending; observers have described Ginsburg's role in the case as emphasizing the need for more diversity on the Supreme Court.

Contents

• 1 Background

  • 1.1 Prior case law

  • 1.2 Facts of the case

  • 1.3 Lower court proceedings

• 2 Supreme Court

  • 2.1 Opinion of the Court

    • 2.1.1 Fourth Amendment

    • 2.1.2 Qualified immunity

  • 2.2 Concurrence and dissent

• 3 Analysis

  • 3.1 Effect on school administrators

    • 3.1.1 Definition of a strip search

  • 3.2 Effect on qualified immunity

• 4 Reception

  • 4.1 Reactions

  • 4.2 Role of Justice Ginsburg

• 5 See also

• 6 Footnotes

• 7 References

• 8 External links

Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Safford_Unified_School_District_v._Redding&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Background")

Prior case law

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Safford_Unified_School_District_v._Redding&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Prior case law")

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the federal government, and the Fourteenth Amendment extends this prohibition to state governments under the incorporation doctrine . In most cases, the Fourth Amendment requires government officials to have probable cause in order to conduct a search. In the context of searches of children by school officials, however, the U.S. Supreme Court held in _New Jersey v. T. L. O. _ (1985) that the public interest in maintaining the school environment "'is best served by a Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause'".

Instead, in T. L. O. the Court held that the reasonableness standard for searches conducted by school officials in a school environment is that of "reasonable suspicion ". Additionally, the Court stated in T. L. O. that "a school search 'will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction'". In general, the doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials, including school officials, from facing individual liability for unreasonable searches, unless their conduct violated law that was "clearly established" at the time of the search.

Facts of the case

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Safford_Unified_School_District_v._Redding&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Facts of the case")

On October 8, 2003, Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal of Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona , asked 13-year-old student Savana Redding to come to his office. Wilson showed Redding a day planner which had "several knives, lighters, a permanent marker, and a cigarette" inside, and he asked if it was hers. Redding stated that the planner belonged to her, but not any of the items inside. She also stated that she had lent the planner to her friend, Marissa Glines, a few days beforehand.

Wilson then showed Redding "four white prescription-strength ibuprofen 400-mg pills, and one over-the-counter blue naproxen 200-mg pill, all used for pain and inflammation but banned under school rules without advanced permission". Wilson informed her that someone had reported her for distributing these pills to other students, which Redding denied. Redding agreed to let Wilson and an administrative assistant named Helen Romero search her backpack, which did not reveal any pills. At Wilson's direction, Romero then took Redding to the office of Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse, where Romero and Schwallier asked Redding to remove her jacket, socks, and shoes. They then asked her to remove her t-shirt and stretch pants, neither of which had pockets. Finally, Redding "was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree". The search did not reveal any pills.

A week before Redding was searched, another student had reported to Wilson that "certain students were bringing drugs and weapons on campus", and furthermore, the student re

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