SAFFORD, Ariz., April 20, 2009
Student Strip Search Heads To High Court
Justices To Hear Case Of 13-Year-Old Ariz. Girl Who Underwent Invasive Search For Ibuprofen Pills
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Thirteen-year-old Savana Redding, an eighth-grade honor student in Safford, Ariz., was strip-searched when a classmate who was found carrying ibuprofen pills tried to blame Savana as the source. (CBS)
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Play CBS Video Video 13-Year-Old Strip Searched The NCLU is suing a school for strip searching a 13-year-old girl. The Supreme Court will hear the case and their decision will set national precedent. Hattie Kauffman reports.
Savana Redding and her mother have been fighting the Safford Unified School District in Safford, Ariz., since 2003.
That's when Savana - then a 13-year-old honor student - was called to the principal's office.
"Once they got me into my underwear I thought they would let me put my clothes back on," she told CBS News correspondent Hattie Kauffman. "But then they told me to pull out my bra and shake it, and my underwear as well."
When another student was found with ibuprofen pills, she blamed Savana. After a search of her backpack came up empty, the school nurse and a female secretary performed a strip search.
Kauffman asked Redding what she was thinking after the procedure.
"You know, I couldn't think about going back to school," she said. "I didn't want to see those people ever again."
The search didn't turn up any drugs. The ACLU sued the district and will argue Savannah's case before the Supreme Court.
"Child health experts are backing Savana in this case," said ACLU attorney Adam Wolf. "They agree that a strip search of a child inflicts trauma similar in kind and degree to sexual abuse."
School administrators said they have to be able to protect the entire student body from individuals who may bring drugs or guns to school.
"The search was done following all the necessary constitutional standards, and really with care that the student's dignity was respected," said Francisco Negron of the National School Boards Association.
(CBS)
"I gave myself ulcers, bleeding ulcers, and I was always worried, mostly about going to school," she said.
Her mother, April Redding, told Kauffman, "They changed my kid, and they need to understand what they took away from her."
Last July the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2007 decision that the school district had not violated Savana's constitutional rights, and held officials were not immune from her suit::
"We conclude that the school officials violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The strip search of Savana was neither "justified at its inception, … nor, as a grossly intrusive search of a middle school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules, reasonably related in scope to the circumstances giving rise to its initiation."The school district appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, saying that the Ninth Circuit's ruling "upsets the longstanding tradition of deferring to the judgment and expertise of school officials in highly discretionary matters. The result is an opinion wholly uninformed about a disturbing new trend - teens’ abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs."
The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case and will hear arguments on Tuesday.
Savana and her mother will be in attendance.
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See all 361 CommentsI know in my parent's generation, if the police could get to the perpetrators
before the victm's father had beat them within an inch of their lives,
they'd either be jailed for life or run out of town on a rail.
They didn't need to tattle to lawyers to get justice.
If the USA can go back to those days, minus the racial issues, we might save the country.
The school will strip searches for ibuprofrin, but will allow the global warming myth to be taught as fact, showing that political movie from AlGore?
The school will strip seach looking for ibuprofin, but will have no issue with mandating the kids read "Jane has Two Mommies" or "Caleb has Two Daddy's"?
Looks like that "Zero Tolerance Policy" idea works as good as the Feds telling me I just got my taxes cut, but don't worry about the impending "Cap and Trade Policy"
Messrs all. Don't Tread on Me, or her!
You really don't get it do you? This isn't only about what was exposed. This was about the manner in which she was made to expose it. There's a world of difference between changing in the locker room with other students and being forced against your will to undress in front of school administrators (who may or may not be lesbian for all we know) when you've done nothing wrong. One you choose to do, while the other you're forced to do. One is a normal common everyday activity, while the other is the hallmark of a police state.
Wake up! You live in a country where we have a fourth amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. That freedom was bought with a price (several million lives to be exact, and yes, some of them were children), and like so many other things, it continues at a price. It may be that some kid will eventually die because the school couldn't strip search an honor student with no disciplinary record, but you're talking about potentially destroying some innocent person psychologically in order to protect against this invisible boogieman, that quite frankly is blown way out of proportion, and in doing so you're teaching children that they have no rights as human beings. Those who are raised with the belief that they have no rights will not be willing to assert them as adults. That is how sheep and slaves are made.
You try to generalize that it's ok to destroy that kid's psyche because it's for the good of the many, but this country was founded on individual rights, and to destroy one innocent person's life to save the lives of a few others is not a trade I'd be willing to make. People keep forgetting that we're in the USA where individual rights are among the most important. There is a price for having them, and that price may be the lives of certain people, some of which may be children. That's the price we pay for the right to be free from unreasonable governmental searches of our persons. That's the price we pay in order to avoid becoming a police state. If you don't like it, you know where the door is. Make way for those of us who are willing to bear those risks, teach our children about the dangers of drugs, and trust them to make the right decisions about them. That is our job as parents right?
I refuse to live in a society where individual rights are thrown out the window and innocent lives are destroyed in some war on an invisible enemy that cannot be defeated except through knowledge and teaching. I'd rather die than live in a police state like China or Russia. My children certainly won't be taught that this is ok, and they will have my permission to do whatever is necessary, up to and including the use of physical force, to prevent such a violation of their person. Should the court hold that such searches are legal, I will home school them or send them to a school district that does not permit such violations. I will also be speaking with Canada's immigration services to see about getting the hell out of here before the first and second amendments go out the door as well.
Posted by springfieldzoo at 1:49 PM
Huh, What. Did you bother to read to story?? She didn't have any pills at all, prescription or over the counter. She was accused by one other student, that's it!!
According to your logic, if the one other student had said ---"Every body in the school has pills', would the school have strip searched every student on her say so? I don't think so. The school officials should have used a little common sense, instead they are going to have to pay up.
I did not have the tools to learn. I just had to sit in class as it was the law. I did not care for All I heard was Barbara ye can't yer a girl a my teachers telling me they not teach me and made means to get the large print books needed. Only once and a boy whined and the next day the books were not at my desk. They were replaced with small print. I was pissed and hurt. The boys needed to come first they were to grow up to be head of home and girls were groomed to be what I felt I would never be and told them so. 9 stared school at age 10. There was no chaging their minds. I heard the line do as yer told in every home I was moved to . I was even sexually abused in them and forced at 15 to go to mormon cult meetings. I
I do think there should be dress codes at school. Yep. I don't means dess/skirts as I would not wears them. To this day I won't. I am 54. They now let trangendered boys go to school in girls things, I am female and had to wear girls slacks/blouse.
I needed sp needs things and they failed to have and failed to school me and so a friend got a computer to show how uneducated I be. Sure they graduated me..
I have to wonder if this girl was targeted for not being mormon even tho the article never said..
People have said troghen up-men. I used leave class in tears as they bulled me for being blind. i BORN THIS WAY.
tHAT IF AN ADULT DID WHAT THE STAFF TOLD THAT CHILD TO DO WELL I don't to tell ye what they do. The staff that made that child do this is not fit to hold the jobs they have. Teachers are to teach. They are not suppost to cross that line. I went to schools where they did not have a nurse..
Here is the problem..parents put children on meds by have Dr write as they don't want to raise them. There is school in Portland ME wanting to put girls on birth control. I was appalled about that. That is not for the schools.
Teachers are to teach the lessons they be hined to. If the schools are so worried about apupil's clothes,go to a school uniform. Frankly an adult would have to give out otc ,his/her caretaker. Parents.
There are teens that won't They should not. America has fallen and fear has taken over. people have let it,
Yes the constution is written on paper BUT it is more than that. It is want shoulde continue to guide this nation. Yet ye vote in people who do not wish to follow it. bush . he did not help.
The home is where the parents need to know what their child in taking or not taking to school. .
The schools have a duty to educate not pull this,We all pay for the schools even us that are childless. And as long as we all are forced to pay for it I voice my say.
Common sense..It went out the airlock as people hate common sense and manners. They rather thing of me first and do their own thing. Well maybe the teachers should teach the solial graces. Ladies and gentlemen and not the trash that is useless and the same in the home..
if our parents didnt like it they were given a choice either the child abides or them as the parent if they were liking COULD VERY WELL TAKE THE CHILD OUT AND EDUCATE THAT CHILD SOME PLACE ELESE...MOST PARENTS DIDNT REMOVE THE CHILD ...AND GUESS WHAT JUST ABOUT ALL THE CHILDREN CAME OUT OF SCHOOL EDUCATED,COULD READ WELL SPELL WELL WRITE WELL AMAZING
THE SCHOOL POSITION IS TO EDUCATE IF THE CHILD IS A STEADY PROBLEM ...THEN BYE BYE
While I won't say that anyone on here is an idiot, phoo has a good point here. The wheels of justice turn very slowly. It can take a year from the time a case is filed to even see a dispositive motion on it, sometimes longer. The appeals court dockets are filled and getting heard there can take over a year. Besides, let's not forget who brought this before the Supreme Court. It wasn't Savana, it was the school district. Savana won in the appeals court. So you could say the school district is the one dragging this case out.
I'd ask people on here to please consider that not everyone feels the same way about their bodies as you do. Some people are very self-conscious and protective of their bodies, and would feel that something like what happened to this young lady is akin to rape. Telling someone to simply "get over it" is like telling someone to get over being raped. Maybe some people can do it, but for others it can cause a life of emotional suffering and fear.
Posted by richardj3901
richard, your an idiot. six years is nothing in our legal system, and just walking away from this case would not only allow the same behavior to continue at that school, but would add legal precedent for any other schools who think this is the proper response. if it were my daughter, i wouldnt stop until i had my hands around thier throats. i dont see where the parents are looking for a payday here.
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EXACTLY, Jenn. Great post. This school really overstepped in this instance. One thing I disagree with you about is---the backpack and locker search should NOT have been the first step. The first step should have been call the parents of BOTH students to find out which household had the prescription ibuprofen in it. (Hopefully, only one of them did). This story neglects to mention the fact that these were prescription-strength pills. Finding out which student had access to the medicine could have cleared up the "she said/she said" factor in the situation
Posted by richardj3901 at 1:47 AM : Apr 21, 2009
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If my daughter's school were to do ANYTHING like this to my daughter, you can bet your head that I'd pursue justice for my daughter for however long it took - six years or sixty years. What this school did was so entirely wrong and it blows my mind that people are condemning this girl!
A strip search is a part of a legal search, only when the person being searched is in police custody and the search is conducted by a properly trained law enforcement officer. A school secretary and a school nurse are in NO way properly trained or legally authorized to do a strip search, and the first thing they should have done when the search of this girl's locker and bookbag turned up no medicine was call her parents.
The public schools in this country have taken entirely too much liberty with their authority over OUR children. NO ONE in the school should ever take a child into a private office for any kind of questioning or search without a parent, legal guardian, or legal representative present and the school's have no authority to force a child to do anything WITHOUT one of said people being present.
My daughter and my nieces, who live with me, have ALL been informed that the moment a principal, teacher, school nurse, school psychologist, or school investigator calls them into an office to "talk" they are to immediately say, "I want to call my mom/Aunt Jenn" and then refuse to say anything else until I arrive.
All of that being said, I am still trying to understand when having an ibuprofen became such a heinous crime? When I was in high school, I had a bottle of Tylenol, pure Aspirin, and Midol in my locker at all times and the school adminstrators and my teachers all knew it.
Freedom ends when a society starts turning away from incidents such as this under the guise of "the protection of the many outweigh the personal protection of the few."
Another way to look at this: violations of a person like this one, and the lack of action by the public on behalf of the person who was violated, are exactly why so many grow up to be criminals.
Yes, the school had a duty and a right to protect all of the children within its walls - but they also had a duty to protect THIS girl from a clearly humiliating and violating procedure that should only have been conducted with her parents present and by the police.
THAT is why this case has lasted six years.
Posted by richardj3901 at 1:47 AM : Apr 21, 2009
Absurd as it may be, justice is hardly the most expedient animal in nature. You're assuming the suit is only for the benefit of this singular victim. Consider future victims that may be protected because of a precedent in this ruling.
And what happened to the student who pointed to Savana? What happened to that student?
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