On April 21st, the United States Supreme Court will hear its first major case involving school searches based on individual suspicion since its 1985 decision to allow warrantless searches of student’s purses. Not surprisingly, the case in question originates from California’s infamous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has long served as a consistent provider of controversial decisions. However, what might be surprising in this case is how uncontroversial their original finding in fact was, and yet that this in no way assures that the Supreme Court will arrive at the correct conclusion once it is presented with the case.
Our legal system is built upon a foundation of common law, which simply put means that we care a whole lot about precedents. Past decisions create legal frameworks within which our system operates, and therefore each ruling informs and in many ways dictates future rulings involving similar fact patterns. By operating in such a manner, we create order and stability through sacrificing a certain element of subjectivity. In certain instances, justice is compromised in the case at hand so as to create a precedent that might deliver the most justice in aggregate (i.e. Think about when evidence is thrown out due to illegal search and seizures. This does not help to assure that the criminal in a particular case is brought to justice, but it instead works towards protecting society as a whole against violations of privacy and private property).
But, unfortunately, in sacrificing justice on a case-by-case basis, the legal system loses an element of credibility with the general public. Much the same way that students lack trust in a teacher who is simply an “academic” without real-world experience, or an athlete pays less attention to a coach without “game experience” of his own, legal professionals and institutions fall prey to occasionally seeming disconnected from the practical application of their study. Rather than produce the result best suited for a particular case, they prognosticate and predict what will most assuredly advance us as a society. They become concerned more with theory than application, much like a career academic.
I say all of this in order to preface my feelings and fears with respect to the case that will be presented to the Supreme Court next month. Because, in this case, justice cannot be delivered by an academic with a theory and a book full of precedents, but it instead must be viewed through the lens of a regular human being, someone unafraid to bring justice today without concern for a ripple effect into tomorrow.
In this case a 13 year old student, Savana Redding (now 19), was accused by a fellow student of having had prescription-strength ibuprofen pills at school. As a result, and in an attempt to enforce a strict anti-drug policy, two female school officials conducted a strip search of the student. They forced her to undress down to her underwear, and then to expose her chest and her genitals in order to search for pills that she might have hidden. They found no pills, and Savana Redding never again attended the school. After months of humiliation and unwillingness to go back, she transferred.
The case becomes even more fascinating when you consider both Savana Redding herself and the school’s response to the entire incident. For Savana’s part, she had no prior disciplinary record at all. No accusations of misconduct and no history of misbehavior. For the school’s part, administration officials seemed to not only disregard this as unimportant, but saw the mention of Savana’s clean record as an opportunity to try to tarnish her character.
First, school officials claimed that Savana and other students had been “unusually rowdy” at a school dance and members of the staff suspected alcohol use (right…because it is completely absurd that a 13 year old might be somewhat “rowdy” with friends at a dance, and also because such information is entirely relevant to a subsequent strip search…).
Second, officials claimed that a student informed them Ms. Redding had served alcohol at a party at her house before the dance, but they failed to mention the accuser by name (and I think we should obviously assume that the accusation is credible, kind of like the accusation that was made about Savana having drugs at school that proved so completely correct).
Third, with regards to Savana’s lack of a prior disciplinary record, school officials actually argued that “Her assertion should not be misread to infer that she never broke school rules, only that she was never caught” (Actual quote!)
And lastly, school officials stated that their search was “not excessively intrusive in light of Redding’s age and sex and the nature of her infraction”.
Legal pundits have argued that the core of this case rests on the question of whether or not we should expand or contract the ability of schools to proactively combat drug use and misconduct. To this point, many legal experts suggest that the Supreme Court tread lightly here, and not create a precedent that enables students and parents to “seek monetary damages against educators in such school-specific matters where reasonable people can disagree about what is appropriate under the circumstances” (Rich Arum, NYU). But, the obvious shortcoming of such concerns is that there can be no question about whether or not the actions taken by the school were appropriate, because they just weren’t. They were humiliating, degrading, disgusting, and reprehensible. What the school did was exactly the kind of behavior that our legal system has been designed to reprimand, and that it should be principally concerned with.
I am by no means a raging liberal who agrees in a right to privacy above all else. I believe in protecting people and in ensuring safety and security in a broad social context, which is exactly what the school claims that it was trying to do in this case. But the problem here is that the school did the exact opposite. The emotional damage done to this one student far exceeded any potential benefit that might have been gained even if the school had found her to be in possession of two Advil. In choosing between having a society where a teenager is at risk of exposure to recreational drugs or periodic strip searches by adults, I’ll take the risk associated with the Advil every time. Most parents have some vague idea of how to discuss drugs with their children, but where do you start when your kid tells you they were stripped naked and searched for drugs by a teacher?
There is no knowing what the Supreme Court will decide in this case, and I would be inclined to think that it might likely agree with me to a large extent. However, in the case that they consider a different outcome, I think that the court needs to be mindful of the message it sends with this decision. Not in terms of legal precedent or application of case law, but rather in terms of whether or not this institution is able to view cases outside of a legal vacuum and instead through the lens of common sense. What the school did was wrong, and no other concern should matter.
