Supreme Court Says Strip Search Of 13-Year-Old Was Unconstitutional
Posted by: Justine Fields
Filed in:
news
10:40AM, Thursday June 25th 2009
In 2003, Savanna Redding was 13 when a classmate was caught with prescription strength ibuprofen and told her school administrators she bought the pills from Savanna. So school officials searched Savanna’s backpack. When they found nothing, two female employees took her to the bathroom and strip-searched her to her bra and underwear. Still nothing. So they had Savanna take off her undies and shake them out.
Redding’s mother sued the school district for violating her daughter’s 4th amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. And the case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court. It’s taken six years, but the court has finally made a ruling: this strip search was not okay.
The court voted 8-1 against the school district. In the decision, Justice Souter said, “Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear, we hold that the search did violate the Constitution.”
Uh, yeah. I mean we’re talking about ibuprofen here—is that even illegal? I hope Savanna wasn’t traumatized for life. Thinking back on the old hags who worked in my middle school, I feel lucky it didn’t happen to me. On the other hand, if they would have let that hot English teacher Mr. Ryan do the searching, it might have been the best day of my life… but I’m not from Florida, so it’s good that didn’t happen. [Wall Street Journal]
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emflow
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 10:50 am: [report]
Check your facts - I read that they did not have her remove her underwear, instead she was told to pull the elastic loose so that any pills would fall out.
Also in a larger context it’s not much of a victory. If a student says “Jenny Everygirl had extacy pills tucked in a baggy in her undewear” that student’s word is apparently still enough cause for a search, right? Or am I missing some details?
joyy
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 11:33 am: [report]
emflow is right - the girl didn’t take her underwear off, the news stuff I read reported that she had to pull the elastic band away from her so that it could be seen if she was hiding pills or not.
And ibuprofen isn’t illegal ... but possession of it would still violate many schools’ zero-tolerance “drug-free zone” policies.
tattooed_redhead
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 02:21 pm: [report]
Does it really matter if she only had to stretch out the elastic on her underwear instead of removing it? Imagine how humiliated she would have been. Imagine your 13 yr old daughter coming home and telling you that this happened. As a teacher, I’m shocked that this happened to her at the hands of her teachers. Locker and backpack searches are one thing, strip searches are not for educators to perform.
40yrolddad
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 02:28 pm: [report]
it’s a hollow victory - they ruled the search was illegal but that she couldn’t sue the vice-principal so w/o any consequences what’s the disincentive for school admins? I’m no fan of ambulance-chasing lawyers but it doesn’t sound like much of a victory when schools can take away from this that all they’ll get is a stern finger-wave…
friskyman68
wrote on June 26 2009 @ 05:22 am: [report]
maybe it is a bit of a hollow victory but it is a start right? maybe people are finally starting to realize the insanity and down right unhumane attitudes we have about “drugs” in our schools. I would love for this zero tolerance crap to get tossed out. Maybe this is the start.