SAVANA REDDING was just 13 in 2003 when she was ordered to a nurse’s office at her Arizona high school for an ordeal that would lead her to a hearing before the US supreme court yesterday.
A fellow pupil had told teachers that Ms Redding had given her prescription-strength Ibuprofen – a common painkiller – in breach of the school’s anti-drug rules.
Ms Redding denied the accusation but school officials wanted to be sure, so they told her to remove most of her clothes and shake out her bra and underwear to prove she was not hiding anything.
No pills were found, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took up Ms Redding’s case, arguing that the school’s action was too intrusive and contravened the fourth amendment of the US constitution, which bans unreasonable searches.
A federal magistrate dismissed the lawsuit and a federal appeals panel agreed the search did not violate her rights.
Last year, however, a full panel of the ninth US circuit court of appeals found the search was an invasion of constitutional rights.
ACLU lawyer Adam Wolf told the supreme court yesterday that the school had not searched Ms Redding’s locker or questioned any pupils apart from her accuser.
“There needs to be suspicion that the object is under the clothes,” he said.
The US justice department argued that strip searches should be out of bounds unless officials have strong, clear evidence that a student is hiding something dangerous in his or her underwear.
The court yesterday appeared unwilling to impose any restrictions on the school, with even the most liberal justices suggesting that the risk of drugs in school was so great it justified extreme caution.
“If the school official’s thought process was, ‘I’d rather have a kid embarrassed rather than some other kid dead’, isn’t that reasonable under the fourth amendment?” justice David Souter asked. Chief justice John Roberts said the Arizona school should be shielded from being sued since the law governing school searches had not been clear.
Ms Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, described yesterday’s supreme court hearing as an “overwhelming” experience, adding that she was considering a career as a school counsellor.
Asked how she would handle a situation like her own as a counsellor, she said she would call the pupil’s parents first.