Student Strip Search Heads To High Court

Justices To Hear Case Of 13-Year-Old Ariz. Girl Who Underwent Invasive Search For Ibuprofen Pills

(CBS)  The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear the case of a young Arizona honor student who was strip-searched in the eighth grade by school officials looking for ibuprofen pills.

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.

Today, Savana (left) is in community college. It's been six years since the search, but the memory of it still haunts her.

"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.

I smell some pervs in that school. Why did this have to go to SCOTUS?
I 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.

[keevers5]

The school strip searches for ibuprofin, but will allow the girl to get an abortion without informing her parents?

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!

[aceturner]

Okay everyone stop and think for a second. If this was YOUR child how would you feel? I have a first grade daughter. If her school ever thought about strip searching her for ANY reason, I think I'd loose it. I agree that drugs are a problem, however strip searching a CHILD is repulsive and wrong.

[DarlingNancy]

The school went to far. I am sorry. The girl has a right to fight this and she will probably win. If I were still in school and that happened to me I would be scared for life. I think the ones whomade her do that should be charged for sexual abuse, not the school. These "drugs" are over the counter and are not illegal. Even if the drugs were illegal the school should've contacted police. At worse the school should've just called police and/or just contacted the suspect students parents. The strip search was a really bad idea. At least the nurses were female, but that still doesn't justify what they did. If it were my child I would probably take physical action with my fist. I'd be angry. I mean that's my child they strip searched. Sickos. It's different if you are the one in the situation. They say she's a teenage.... but she's only 13 that's hardly a teenager. That's equal to child abuse.

[vsavatar]

If she had the prescription stregth pills than I have no problem with the search. They can be considered painkillers and at 13 there was no need for her to have them. This is another tragic case of kid and parent trying to work the system and sue who they can. The strip search is no different than changing for gym class, which I'm sure she did. She was probably ridiculed more in the girls locker room than in front of the two female nurses doing their job to protect students from someone bringing drugs to school. Keep suing the school system so we can underpay our teachers more, way to go white trash america.... Posted by springfieldzoo

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.

[thgdriver]

If she had the prescription stregth pills than I have no problem with the search.
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.

[springfieldzoo]

If she had the prescription stregth pills than I have no problem with the search. They can be considered painkillers and at 13 there was no need for her to have them. This is another tragic case of kid and parent trying to work the system and sue who they can. The strip search is no different than changing for gym class, which I'm sure she did. She was probably ridiculed more in the girls locker room than in front of the two female nurses doing their job to protect students from someone bringing drugs to school. Keep suing the school system so we can underpay our teachers more, way to go white trash america....

[barbaram99]

It is the duty of the school to educare and student to learn. I want to try to learn in my day but,,
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..

[bluesky9]

I dont understand why the urgent need to find IBUPROFEN. Why didnt these people call the girls parents? Where was the principal? And what happened to the kid who actually had the ibuprofen. Parents need to tell their kids that just because the teachers are to be respected that it doesn't mean they can't defend themselves against them, respectfully. Im not about kids ignoring ,cussing or being in anyway disrespectful to anyone.I tell my kids that just because they are the teachers that it doesnt mean they cant respectfully defend themselves or call me or tell the teacher to call me. Why didnt this little girl say, can I call my mom?

[gunownerdan]

Anyone who thinks they need to strip-search children must be a pedophile and should be treated as such!!!