Issue date: 4/27/09 Section: Editorial/Opinion

When I was in high school, we had at least one threat, bomb or gun-related, per year. While that may be small potatoes to some, having the police come in and being under lockdown caused a commotion at my small high school.

I remember once all students' backpacks checked for weapons. I had none to hide, but felt awkward about someone going through my belongings.

That was just a backpack. I cannot imagine being strip searched because of what I may be hiding.

For someone else, it became a shocking reality.

In 2003, then-eighth grader Savanna Redding was suspected of having prescription-strength ibuprofen in her possession according to a USA Today article from April 16. After searching her backpack, two staff members of her Arizona school conducted a strip search. None were found.

Is this really how far people are willing to go in order to find certain materials, be it bombs or drugs?

As in Redding's case, yes. Normally, I'd be fine with that with extreme measures for public safety. But not this time.

Five years later, this issue has reached Capitol Hill last week in Safford Unified School District v. Redding, according to the article. Safford officials appealed a lower court decision which said that administrators not only breached Redding's constitutional rights (referring to unreasonable search and seizure or the Fourth Amendment) but should be held financially responsible.

First, I think the state of this country regarding drug abuse among everyone, including juveniles is deplorable and that a crackdown is necessary to eliminate, or at least downgrade this issue from schools.

However, the strip search of a minor is one step too far and not appropriate at all. According to AltLaw.org (a database for U.S. law), the text for the case at the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth circuit says that Redding's mother wasn't even contacted.

Minors are minors for a reason. Legally, you're not able to make the decisions that need to be made without the consent of an adult. And from the state of the case, Redding's mother never would have let her child be searched.

If officials deemed it necessary to perform a strip search, they should have contacted the minor's guardian. If they had done that, the case might not be at the doors of the highest court in the country.

Also, the strip search for pills was prompted by a student that had been caught with prescription-strength ibuprofen and told the assistant principal that she had gotten it from Redding, according to the article by USA Today.

But honestly, this issue seems like a lot of 'he said, she said' that the justices at several levels of the U.S. court system have dealt with and will deal with.

Going back to the necessity of the search, hearsay can be opinions or fact. Redding could have been picked because a fellow student wanted her to get in trouble, or she really did it. Further investigation in the matter should have occurred beforehand.

Unfortunately, it's a little late for what should have happened. The Supreme Court heard the case last Tuesday.

The Supreme Court needs to decide this is not OK and not grant the appeal to the defendants. Otherwise, there's a very good chance that minors may have more to fear from their schools than a bad grade.

Schossow is sophomore print journalism major and news editor for The Spectator.

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