A ruling soon to come from the Supreme Court could change the way school board administrators handle student drug problems indefinitely. The case currently being reviewed, “Safford Unified School District vs. Redding,” will decide whether to uphold the current policy, which gives school board administrators the right to strip search students suspected of possessing illegal substance, or overturn the strip search policy on the basis of student’s privacy.
The litigation stems from an incident in 2003, when Savana Redding was strip searched at Safford Middle School after a fellow student had tipped off administrators that she was carrying unauthorized prescription drugs. Still disturbed by the event, she tells of how she was pulled from class, asked to strip to her under wear, and then asked to pull open her bra and panties so they could see whether she was hiding any pills. None were ever found.
Still, Safford school district officials (outside Tucson Arizona) say that the strip searches are vital to their “decades-long war against drug abuse among students,” which includes a prescription drug crisis seen in most middle schools and high schools across the nation. School administrators across the US, showing support against Redding’s Case, cite a 2006 Office of National Drug Control Policy report, which claims that more than 2.1 million teens abused prescription drugs in 2005.
Next Tuesday, nine Supreme Court justices will hear and decide whether Redding’s case, which argues on the basis of the Fourth Amendment’s “protection against unreasonable searches,” is just and worthy of overturning the long-standing policy. However, it isn’t the first time. In 1985, the Supreme Court did rule in favor of similar case based on the Fourth Amendment’s “protection against unreasonable searches” to students. That case involved a New Jersey freshman who had her purse searched after she was caught smoking in a bathroom.