US Supreme Court to hear school drug search case

The United States Supreme Court will review whether a strip search for prescription-strength Ibuprofen violated a 13-year-old student’s constitutional rights. The issue before the court is whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits public school officials from conducting a strip search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing a prescription drug on campus in violation of school policy.

Last year, the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled 8-3 in favor of Savana Redding, who was subjected to a strip search based on a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that she was hiding the pills. The court split 6-5 in favor of allowing her to sue the school official who ordered the search.

Redding was an eighth-grade student at the Safford Middle School in Safford, Ariz., when she was ordered to the school nurse’s office and told to strip to her underwear, move her bra to the side and pull her underwear out, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called Redding’s ordeal “a grossly intrusive search of a middle-school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules.” The United States Supreme Court will get its chance to weigh in on this issue after it hears oral arguments in April.

To view the petition filed with the United States Supreme Court, click here. To view the brief filed by the National School Boards Association, click here. To view the Boston Globe report on the case, click here.