(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2008 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1 ET AL. v. 

REDDING

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

No. 08–479. Argued April 21, 2009—Decided June 25, 2009 

After escorting 13-year-old Savana Redding from her middle school 

classroom to his office, Assistant Principal Wilson showed her a day 

planner containing knives and other contraband. She admitted owning the planner, but said that she had lent it to her friend Marissa

and that the contraband was not hers. He then produced four prescription-strength, and one over-the-counter, pain relief pills, all of

which are banned under school rules without advance permission.

She denied knowledge of them, but Wilson said that he had a report

that she was giving pills to fellow students. She denied it and agreed 

to let him search her belongings. He and Helen Romero, an administrative assistant, searched Savana’s backpack, finding nothing. Wilson then had Romero take Savana to the school nurse’s office to 

search her clothes for pills. After Romero and the nurse, Peggy 

Schwallier, had Savana remove her outer clothing, they told her to

pull her bra out and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. 

No pills were found. Savana’s mother filed suit against petitioner 

school district (Safford), Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier, alleging

that the strip search violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Claiming qualified immunity, the individuals (hereinafter petitioners) moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted the 

motion, finding that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and 

the en banc Ninth Circuit reversed. Following the protocol for evaluating qualified immunity claims, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 

200, the court held that the strip search was unjustified under the 

Fourth Amendment test for searches of children by school officials set 

out in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325. It then applied the test 
2 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Syllabus 

for qualified immunity. Finding that Savana’s right was clearly established at the time of the search, it reversed the summary judgment as to Wilson, but affirmed as to Schwallier and Romero because 

they were not independent decisionmakers. 

Held: 

1. The search of Savana’s underwear violated the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 3–11.

(a) For school searches, “the public interest is best served by a

Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of

probable cause.” T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 341. Under the resulting reasonable suspicion standard, a school search “will be permissible . . . 

when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives 

of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex 

of the student and the nature of the infraction.” Id., at 342. The required knowledge component of reasonable suspicion for a school administrator’s evidence search is that it raise a moderate chance of 

finding evidence of wrongdoing. Pp. 3–5.

(b) Wilson had sufficient suspicion to justify searching Savana’s

backpack and outer clothing. A week earlier, a student, Jordan, had 

told the principal and Wilson that students were bringing drugs and 

weapons to school and that he had gotten sick from some pills. On 

the day of the search, Jordan gave Wilson a pill that he said came

from Marissa. Learning that the pill was prescription strength, Wilson called Marissa out of class and was handed the day planner. 

Once in his office, Wilson, with Romero present, had Marissa turn 

out her pockets and open her wallet, producing, inter alia, an overthe-counter pill that Marissa claimed was Savana’s. She also denied 

knowing about the day planner’s contents. Wilson did not ask her 

when she received the pills from Savana or where Savana might be

hiding them. After a search of Marissa’s underwear by Romero and 

Schwallier revealed no additional pills, Wilson called Savana into his

office. He showed her the day planner and confirmed her relationship with Marissa. He knew that the girls had been identified as 

part of an unusually rowdy group at a school dance, during which alcohol and cigarettes were found in the girls’ bathroom. He had other 

reasons to connect them with this contraband, for Jordan had told 

the principal that before the dance, he had attended a party at Savana’s house where alcohol was served. Thus, Marissa’s statement 

that the pills came from Savana was sufficiently plausible to warrant

suspicion that Savana was involved in pill distribution. A student 

who is reasonably suspected of giving out contraband pills is reasonably suspected of carrying them on her person and in her backpack. Looking into Savana’s bag, in her presence and in the relative

privacy of Wilson’s office, was not excessively intrusive, any more 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 3 

Syllabus 

than Romero’s subsequent search of her outer clothing. Pp. 5–8.

(c) Because the suspected facts pointing to Savana did not indicate that the drugs presented a danger to students or were concealed 

in her underwear, Wilson did not have sufficient suspicion to warrant 

extending the search to the point of making Savana pull out her underwear. Romero and Schwallier said that they did not see anything

when Savana pulled out her underwear, but a strip search and its

Fourth Amendment consequences are not defined by who was looking 

and how much was seen. Savana’s actions in their presence necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to some degree, and both

subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy

support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings. Savana’s subjective expectation of privacy is inherent in her account of 

it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her expectation is indicated by the common reaction of other 

young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the exposure’s patent intrusiveness. Its indignity does not

outlaw the search, but it does implicate the rule that “the search [be]

‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the

interference in the first place.’ ” T. L. O., supra, at 341. Here, the 

content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion. Because Wilson knew that the pills were common pain relievers, he

must have known of their nature and limited threat and had no reason to suspect that large amounts were being passed around or that

individual students had great quantities. Nor could he have suspected that Savana was hiding common painkillers in her underwear.

When suspected facts must support the categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search down to an adolescent’s body, petitioners’ general 

belief that students hide contraband in their clothing falls short; a

reasonable search that extensive calls for suspicion that it will succeed. Nondangerous school contraband does not conjure up the specter of stashes in intimate places, and there is no evidence of such behavior at the school; neither Jordan nor Marissa suggested that 

Savana was doing that, and the search of Marissa yielded nothing. 

Wilson also never determined when Marissa had received the pills 

from Savana; had it been a few days before, that would weigh heavily

against any reasonable conclusion that Savana presently had the 

pills on her person, much less in her underwear. Pp. 8–11.

2. Although the strip search violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment 

rights, petitioners Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier are protected from

liability by qualified immunity because “clearly established law [did]

not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment,” Pearson 
4 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Syllabus 

v. Callahan, 555 U. S. ___, ___. The intrusiveness of the strip search 

here cannot, under T. L. O., be seen as justifiably related to the circumstances, but lower court cases viewing school strip searches differently are numerous enough, with well-reasoned majority and dissenting opinions, to counsel doubt about the clarity with which the 

right was previously stated. Pp. 11–13. 

3. The issue of petitioner Safford’s liability under Monell v. New 

York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 694, should be addressed on remand. P. 13. 

531 F. 3d 1071, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. 

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, 

C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, BREYER, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and in 

which STEVENS and GINSBURG, JJ., joined as to Parts I–III. STEVENS, J., 

filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which 

GINSBURG, J., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in part 

and dissenting in part. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the 

judgment in part and dissenting in part. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–479 

SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1, ET AL., 

PETITIONERS v. APRIL REDDING

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[June 25, 2009] 

JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court. 

The issue here is whether a 13-year-old student’s Fourth

Amendment right was violated when she was subjected to

a search of her bra and underpants by school officials

acting on reasonable suspicion that she had brought forbidden prescription and over-the-counter drugs to school. 

Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear, we 

hold that the search did violate the Constitution, but 

because there is reason to question the clarity with which

the right was established, the official who ordered the 

unconstitutional search is entitled to qualified immunity 

from liability. 

I 

The events immediately prior to the search in question 

began in 13-year-old Savana Redding’s math class at 

Safford Middle School one October day in 2003. The assistant principal of the school, Kerry Wilson, came into the

room and asked Savana to go to his office. There, he 

showed her a day planner, unzipped and open flat on his 

desk, in which there were several knives, lighters, a per-
2 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of the Court 

manent marker, and a cigarette. Wilson asked Savana 

whether the planner was hers; she said it was, but that a 

few days before she had lent it to her friend, Marissa

Glines. Savana stated that none of the items in the planner belonged to her.

Wilson then showed Savana four white prescriptionstrength ibuprofen 400-mg pills, and one over-the-counter 

blue naproxen 200-mg pill, all used for pain and inflammation but banned under school rules without advance 

permission. He asked Savana if she knew anything about 

the pills. Savana answered that she did not. Wilson then 

told Savana that he had received a report that she was 

giving these pills to fellow students; Savana denied it and 

agreed to let Wilson search her belongings. Helen Romero, an administrative assistant, came into the office, 

and together with Wilson they searched Savana’s backpack, finding nothing. 

At that point, Wilson instructed Romero to take Savana

to the school nurse’s office to search her clothes for pills.

Romero and the nurse, Peggy Schwallier, asked Savana to 

remove her jacket, socks, and shoes, leaving her in stretch

pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was

then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull

her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out 

the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts

and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found.

Savana’s mother filed suit against Safford Unified

School District #1, Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier for 

conducting a strip search in violation of Savana’s Fourth

Amendment rights. The individuals (hereinafter petitioners) moved for summary judgment, raising a defense of 

qualified immunity. The District Court for the District of 

Arizona granted the motion on the ground that there was 

no Fourth Amendment violation, and a panel of the Ninth

Circuit affirmed. 504 F. 3d 828 (2007).

A closely divided Circuit sitting en banc, however, re-
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

versed. Following the two-step protocol for evaluating 

claims of qualified immunity, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 

U. S. 194, 200 (2001), the Ninth Circuit held that the strip

search was unjustified under the Fourth Amendment test

for searches of children by school officials set out in New 

Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985). 531 F. 3d 1071, 

1081–1087 (2008). The Circuit then applied the test for 

qualified immunity, and found that Savana’s right was 

clearly established at the time of the search: “‘[t]hese 

notions of personal privacy are “clearly established” in

that they inhere in all of us, particularly middle school 

teenagers, and are inherent in the privacy component of 

the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unreasonable searches.’” Id., at 1088–1089 (quoting Brannum v. 

Overton Cty. School Bd., 516 F. 3d 489, 499 (CA6 2008)). 

The upshot was reversal of summary judgment as to 

Wilson, while affirming the judgments in favor of Schwallier, the school nurse, and Romero, the administrative 

assistant, since they had not acted as independent decisionmakers. 531 F. 3d, at 1089. 

We granted certiorari, 555 U. S. ___ (2009), and now 

affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand. 

II 

The Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure 

in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and 

seizures” generally requires a law enforcement officer to

have probable cause for conducting a search. “Probable 

cause exists where ‘the facts and circumstances within [an 

officer’s] knowledge and of which [he] had reasonably 

trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to 

warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that’ an 

offense has been or is being committed,” Brinegar v. 

United States, 338 U. S. 160, 175–176 (1949) (quoting 

Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 162 (1925)), and 

that evidence bearing on that offense will be found in the 
4 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of the Court 

place to be searched. 

In T. L. O., we recognized that the school setting “requires some modification of the level of suspicion of illicit

activity needed to justify a search,” 469 U. S., at 340, and 

held that for searches by school officials “a careful balancing of governmental and private interests suggests that

the public interest is best served by a Fourth Amendment 

standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable 

cause,” id., at 341. We have thus applied a standard of

reasonable suspicion to determine the legality of a school 

administrator’s search of a student, id., at 342, 345, and 

have held that a school search “will be permissible in its 

scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related

to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the 

nature of the infraction,” id., at 342. 

A number of our cases on probable cause have an implicit bearing on the reliable knowledge element of reasonable suspicion, as we have attempted to flesh out the 

knowledge component by looking to the degree to which 

known facts imply prohibited conduct, see, e.g., Adams v. 

Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 148 (1972); id., at 160, n. 9 (Marshall, J., dissenting), the specificity of the information 

received, see, e.g., Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410, 

416–417 (1969), and the reliability of its source, see, e.g., 

Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108, 114 (1964). At the end of 

the day, however, we have realized that these factors 

cannot rigidly control, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 230 

(1983), and we have come back to saying that the standards are “fluid concepts that take their substantive content from the particular contexts” in which they are being

assessed. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U. S. 690, 696 

(1996).

Perhaps the best that can be said generally about the

required knowledge component of probable cause for a law 

enforcement officer’s evidence search is that it raise a “fair 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

probability,” Gates, 462 U. S., at 238, or a “substantial 

chance,” id., at 244, n. 13, of discovering evidence of criminal activity. The lesser standard for school searches could 

as readily be described as a moderate chance of finding 

evidence of wrongdoing. 

III 

A 

In this case, the school’s policies strictly prohibit the

nonmedical use, possession, or sale of any drug on school

grounds, including “‘[a]ny prescription or over-the-counter 

drug, except those for which permission to use in school 

has been granted pursuant to Board policy.’” App. to Pet.

for Cert. 128a.1 A week before Savana was searched, 

another student, Jordan Romero (no relation of the 

school’s administrative assistant), told the principal and

Assistant Principal Wilson that “certain students were 

bringing drugs and weapons on campus,” and that he had 

been sick after taking some pills that “he got from a 

classmate.” App. 8a. On the morning of October 8, the 

same boy handed Wilson a white pill that he said Marissa

Glines had given him. He told Wilson that students were 

—————— 

1When the object of a school search is the enforcement of a school 

rule, a valid search assumes, of course, the rule’s legitimacy. But the 

legitimacy of the rule usually goes without saying as it does here. The 

Court said plainly in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 342, n. 9 

(1985), that standards of conduct for schools are for school administrators to determine without second-guessing by courts lacking the experience to appreciate what may be needed. Except in patently arbitrary 

instances, Fourth Amendment analysis takes the rule as a given, as it

obviously should do in this case. There is no need here either to explain

the imperative of keeping drugs out of schools, or to explain the reasons 

for the school’s rule banning all drugs, no matter how benign, without 

advance permission. Teachers are not pharmacologists trained to 

identify pills and powders, and an effective drug ban has to be enforceable fast. The plenary ban makes sense, and there is no basis to claim

that the search was unreasonable owing to some defect or shortcoming 

of the rule it was aimed at enforcing. 
6 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of the Court 

planning to take the pills at lunch.

Wilson learned from Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse,

that the pill was Ibuprofen 400 mg, available only by 

prescription. Wilson then called Marissa out of class. 

Outside the classroom, Marissa’s teacher handed Wilson 

the day planner, found within Marissa’s reach, containing

various contraband items. Wilson escorted Marissa back 

to his office. 

In the presence of Helen Romero, Wilson requested

Marissa to turn out her pockets and open her wallet.

Marissa produced a blue pill, several white ones, and a

razor blade. Wilson asked where the blue pill came from, 

and Marissa answered, “‘I guess it slipped in when she 

gave me the IBU 400s.’” Id., at 13a. When Wilson asked 

whom she meant, Marissa replied, “‘Savana Redding.’” 

Ibid. Wilson then enquired about the day planner and its

contents; Marissa denied knowing anything about them. 

Wilson did not ask Marissa any followup questions to

determine whether there was any likelihood that Savana 

presently had pills: neither asking when Marissa received 

the pills from Savana nor where Savana might be hiding 

them. 

Schwallier did not immediately recognize the blue pill, 

but information provided through a poison control hotline2 

indicated that the pill was a 200-mg dose of an antiinflammatory drug, generically called naproxen, available

over the counter. At Wilson’s direction, Marissa was then 

subjected to a search of her bra and underpants by Romero and Schwallier, as Savana was later on. The search 

revealed no additional pills. 

—————— 

2Poison control centers across the country maintain 24-hour help

hotlines to provide “immediate access to poison exposure management

instructions and information on potential poisons.” American Association of Poison Control Centers, online at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/

About/tabid/74/Default.aspx (all Internet materials as visited June 19, 

2009, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

It was at this juncture that Wilson called Savana into 

his office and showed her the day planner. Their conversation established that Savana and Marissa were on 

friendly terms: while she denied knowledge of the contraband, Savana admitted that the day planner was hers and 

that she had lent it to Marissa. Wilson had other reports

of their friendship from staff members, who had identified

Savana and Marissa as part of an unusually rowdy group

at the school’s opening dance in August, during which 

alcohol and cigarettes were found in the girls’ bathroom. 

Wilson had reason to connect the girls with this contraband, for Wilson knew that Jordan Romero had told the 

principal that before the dance, he had been at a party at 

Savana’s house where alcohol was served. Marissa’s 

statement that the pills came from Savana was thus sufficiently plausible to warrant suspicion that Savana was 

involved in pill distribution.

This suspicion of Wilson’s was enough to justify a search 

of Savana’s backpack and outer clothing.3 If a student is 

reasonably suspected of giving out contraband pills, she is

reasonably suspected of carrying them on her person and 

in the carryall that has become an item of student uniform

in most places today. If Wilson’s reasonable suspicion of 

pill distribution were not understood to support searches

of outer clothes and backpack, it would not justify any 

search worth making. And the look into Savana’s bag, in

her presence and in the relative privacy of Wilson’s office,

was not excessively intrusive, any more than Romero’s

subsequent search of her outer clothing. 

—————— 

3There is no question here that justification for the school officials’

search was required in accordance with the T. L. O. standard of reasonable suspicion, for it is common ground that Savana had a reasonable 

expectation of privacy covering the personal things she chose to carry in

her backpack, cf. 469 U. S., at 339, and that Wilson’s decision to look 

through it was a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 
8 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING

Opinion of the Court 

B 

Here it is that the parties part company, with Savana’s

claim that extending the search at Wilson’s behest to the 

point of making her pull out her underwear was constitutionally unreasonable. The exact label for this final step 

in the intrusion is not important, though strip search is a 

fair way to speak of it. Romero and Schwallier directed 

Savana to remove her clothes down to her underwear, and 

then “pull out” her bra and the elastic band on her underpants. Id., at 23a. Although Romero and Schwallier

stated that they did not see anything when Savana followed their instructions, App. to Pet. for Cert. 135a, we 

would not define strip search and its Fourth Amendment 

consequences in a way that would guarantee litigation

about who was looking and how much was seen. The very

fact of Savana’s pulling her underwear away from her 

body in the presence of the two officials who were able to 

see her necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to 

some degree, and both subjective and reasonable societal

expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of

such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct

elements of justification on the part of school authorities

for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings. 

Savana’s subjective expectation of privacy against such 

a search is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing,

frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her 

expectation (required by the Fourth Amendment standard) is indicated by the consistent experiences of other 

young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the patent intrusiveness of the exposure. 

See Brief for National Association of Social Workers et al. 

as Amici Curiae 6–14; Hyman & Perone, The Other Side of 

School Violence: Educator Policies and Practices that may 

Contribute to Student Misbehavior, 36 J. School Psychology 7, 13 (1998) (strip search can “result in serious emotional damage”). The common reaction of these adoles-
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

cents simply registers the obviously different meaning of a 

search exposing the body from the experience of nakedness or near undress in other school circumstances. 

Changing for gym is getting ready for play; exposing for a 

search is responding to an accusation reserved for suspected wrongdoers and fairly understood as so degrading 

that a number of communities have decided that strip 

searches in schools are never reasonable and have 

banned them no matter what the facts may

be, see, e.g., New York City Dept. of Education, Reg. No. 

A–432, p. 2 (2005), online at http://docs.nycenet.edu/ 

docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-21/A-432.pdf (“Under no 

circumstances shall a strip-search of a student be 

conducted”).

The indignity of the search does not, of course, outlaw it, 

but it does implicate the rule of reasonableness as stated

in T. L. O., that “the search as actually conducted [be] 

reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which

justified the interference in the first place.” 469 U. S., at 

341 (internal quotation marks omitted). The scope will be

permissible, that is, when it is “not excessively intrusive in

light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of

the infraction.” Id., at 342. 

Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the

degree of intrusion. Wilson knew beforehand that the pills

were prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter 

naproxen, common pain relievers equivalent to two Advil,

or one Aleve.4 He must have been aware of the nature and 

limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, 

and while just about anything can be taken in quantities

that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect 

—————— 

4An Advil tablet, caplet, or gel caplet, contains 200 mg of ibuprofen.

See Physicians’ Desk Reference for Nonprescription Drugs, Dietary 

Supplements, and Herbs 674 (28th ed. 2006). An Aleve caplet contains 

200 mg naproxen and 20 mg sodium. See id., at 675. 
10 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of the Court 

that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, 

or that individual students were receiving great numbers

of pills.

Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana was

hiding common painkillers in her underwear. Petitioners 

suggest, as a truth universally acknowledged, that “students . . . hid[e] contraband in or under their clothing,” 

Reply Brief for Petitioners 8, and cite a smattering of

cases of students with contraband in their underwear, id., 

at 8–9. But when the categorically extreme intrusiveness

of a search down to the body of an adolescent requires

some justification in suspected facts, general background 

possibilities fall short; a reasonable search that extensive

calls for suspicion that it will pay off. But nondangerous

school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in

intimate places, and there is no evidence in the record of 

any general practice among Safford Middle School students of hiding that sort of thing in underwear; neither 

Jordan nor Marissa suggested to Wilson that Savana was 

doing that, and the preceding search of Marissa that 

Wilson ordered yielded nothing. Wilson never even determined when Marissa had received the pills from Savana; if it had been a few days before, that would weigh 

heavily against any reasonable conclusion that Savana 

presently had the pills on her person, much less in her 

underwear. 

In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that 

pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the

students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, 

and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills 

in her underwear. We think that the combination of these 

deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable. 

In so holding, we mean to cast no ill reflection on the 

assistant principal, for the record raises no doubt that his

motive throughout was to eliminate drugs from his school 

and protect students from what Jordan Romero had gone 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

through. Parents are known to overreact to protect their

children from danger, and a school official with responsibility for safety may tend to do the same. The difference is 

that the Fourth Amendment places limits on the official, 

even with the high degree of deference that courts must

pay to the educator’s professional judgment. 

We do mean, though, to make it clear that the T. L. O. 

concern to limit a school search to reasonable scope requires the support of reasonable suspicion of danger or of 

resort to underwear for hiding evidence of wrongdoing 

before a search can reasonably make the quantum leap 

from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate 

parts. The meaning of such a search, and the degradation

its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific

suspicions. 

IV 

A school official searching a student is “entitled to qualified immunity where clearly established law does not show

that the search violated the Fourth Amendment.” Pearson 

v. Callahan, 555 U. S. __, __ (2009) (slip op., at 18). To be 

established clearly, however, there is no need that “the

very action in question [have] previously been held unlawful.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 615 (1999). The 

unconstitutionality of outrageous conduct obviously will be

unconstitutional, this being the reason, as Judge Posner 

has said, that “[t]he easiest cases don’t even arise.” K. H. 

v. Morgan, 914 F. 2d 846, 851 (CA7 1990). But even as to 

action less than an outrage, “officials can still be on notice

that their conduct violates established law . . . in novel 

factual circumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U. S. 730, 741 

(2002). 

T. L. O. directed school officials to limit the intrusiveness of a search, “in light of the age and sex of the student 

and the nature of the infraction,” 469 U. S., at 342, and as 
12 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of the Court 

we have just said at some length, the intrusiveness of the

strip search here cannot be seen as justifiably related to

the circumstances. But we realize that the lower courts 

have reached divergent conclusions regarding how the 

T. L. O. standard applies to such searches. 

A number of judges have read T. L. O. as the en banc 

minority of the Ninth Circuit did here. The Sixth Circuit 

upheld a strip search of a high school student for a drug, 

without any suspicion that drugs were hidden next to her 

body. Williams v. Ellington, 936 F. 2d 881, 882–883, 887 

(1991). And other courts considering qualified immunity 

for strip searches have read T. L. O. as “a series of abstractions, on the one hand, and a declaration of seeming 

deference to the judgments of school officials, on the 

other,” Jenkins v. Talladega City Bd. of Ed., 115 F. 3d 821, 

828 (CA11 1997) (en banc), which made it impossible “to

establish clearly the contours of a Fourth Amendment

right . . . [in] the wide variety of possible school settings 

different from those involved in T. L. O.” itself. Ibid. See 

also Thomas v. Roberts, 323 F. 3d 950 (CA11 2003) (granting qualified immunity to a teacher and police officer who

conducted a group strip search of a fifth grade class when 

looking for a missing $26). 

We think these differences of opinion from our own are

substantial enough to require immunity for the school 

officials in this case. We would not suggest that entitlement to qualified immunity is the guaranteed product of 

disuniform views of the law in the other federal, or state, 

courts, and the fact that a single judge, or even a group of

judges, disagrees about the contours of a right does not

automatically render the law unclear if we have been

clear. That said, however, the cases viewing school strip

searches differently from the way we see them are numerous enough, with well-reasoned majority and dissenting 

opinions, to counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear

in the prior statement of law. We conclude that qualified 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

immunity is warranted. 

V 

The strip search of Savana Redding was unreasonable

and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but petitioners

Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier are nevertheless protected from liability through qualified immunity. Our 

conclusions here do not resolve, however, the question of 

the liability of petitioner Safford Unified School District #1

under Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 

U. S. 658, 694 (1978), a claim the Ninth Circuit did not 

address. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is therefore

affirmed in part and reversed in part, and this case is

remanded for consideration of the Monell claim. 

It is so ordered. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 1 

Opinion of STEVENS, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–479 

SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1, ET AL., 

PETITIONERS v. APRIL REDDING

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[June 25, 2009] 

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins,

concurring in part and dissenting in part. 

In New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985), the

Court established a two-step inquiry for determining the 

reasonableness of a school official’s decision to search a 

student. First, the Court explained, the search must be

“‘justified at its inception’” by the presence of “reasonable 

grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either 

the law or the rules of the school.” Id., at 342. Second, the 

search must be “permissible in its scope,” which is 

achieved “when the measures adopted are reasonably 

related to the objectives of the search and not excessively 

intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the 

nature of the infraction.” Ibid. (emphasis added). 

Nothing the Court decides today alters this basic 

framework. It simply applies T. L. O. to declare unconstitutional a strip search of a 13-year-old honors student that 

was based on a groundless suspicion that she might be

hiding medicine in her underwear. This is, in essence, a 

case in which clearly established law meets clearly outrageous conduct. I have long believed that “‘[i]t does not

require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude 

search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude.’” Id., at 382, n. 25 
2 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of STEVENS, J. 

(STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) 

(quoting Doe v. Renfrow, 631 F. 2d 91, 92–93 (CA7 1980)). 

The strip search of Savana Redding in this case was both

more intrusive and less justified than the search of the

student’s purse in T. L. O. Therefore, while I join Parts I–

III of the Court’s opinion, I disagree with its decision to

extend qualified immunity to the school official who authorized this unconstitutional search. 

The Court reaches a contrary conclusion about qualified 

immunity based on the fact that various Courts of Appeals

have adopted seemingly divergent views about T. L. O.’s 

application to strip searches. Ante, at 12. But the clarity

of a well-established right should not depend on whether 

jurists have misread our precedents. And while our cases 

have previously noted the “divergence of views” among 

courts in deciding whether to extend qualified immunity, 

e.g., Pearson v. Callahan, (2009) 555 U. S., ___, ___ (slip 

op., at 20) (noting the unsettled constitutionality of the socalled “consent-once-removed” doctrine); Wilson v. Layne, 

526 U. S. 603, 618 (1999) (considering conflicting views on

the constitutionality of law enforcement’s practice of allowing the media to enter a private home to observe and 

film attempted arrests), we have relied on that consideration only to spare officials from having “‘to predict the 

future course of constitutional law,’” Id., at 617 (quoting 

Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U. S. 555, 562 (1978); emphasis added). In this case, by contrast, we chart no new 

constitutional path. We merely decide whether the decision to strip search Savana Redding, on these facts, was

prohibited under T. L. O. Our conclusion leaves the 

boundaries of the law undisturbed.* 

—————— 

* In fact, in T. L. O. we cited with approval a Ninth Circuit case, Bilbrey v. Brown, 738 F. 2d 1462 (1984), which held that a strip search

performed under similar circumstances violated the Constitution. New 

Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 332, n. 2 (1985); id., at 341, and n. 6 

(adopting Bilbrey’s reasonable suspicion standard). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 3 

Opinion of STEVENS, J. 

The Court of Appeals properly rejected the school official’s qualified immunity defense, and I would affirm that 

court’s judgment in its entirety. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 1 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–479 

SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1, ET AL., 

PETITIONERS v. APRIL REDDING

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[June 25, 2009] 

JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring in part and dissenting in 

part. 

I agree with the Court that Assistant Principal Wilson’s 

subjection of 13-year-old Savana Redding to a humiliating 

stripdown search violated the Fourth Amendment. But I 

also agree with JUSTICE STEVENS, ante, at 1–2, that our 

opinion in New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985),

“clearly established” the law governing this case.

Fellow student Marissa Glines, caught with pills in her 

pocket, accused Redding of supplying them. App. 13a.

Asked where the blue pill among several white pills in 

Glines’s pocket came from, Glines answered: “I guess it 

slipped in when she gave me the IBU 400s.” Ibid. Asked 

next “who is she?”, Glines responded: “Savana Redding.” 

Ibid. As the Court observes, ante, at 6, 10, no followup 

questions were asked. Wilson did not test Glines’s accusation for veracity by asking Glines when did Redding give

her the pills, where, for what purpose. Any reasonable

search for the pills would have ended when inspection of 

Redding’s backpack and jacket pockets yielded nothing. 

Wilson had no cause to suspect, based on prior experience 

at the school or clues in this case, that Redding had hidden pills—containing the equivalent of two Advils or one 

Aleve—in her underwear or body. To make matters 

worse, Wilson did not release Redding, to return to class 
2 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

or to go home, after the search. Instead, he made her sit 

on a chair outside his office for over two hours. At no 

point did he attempt to call her parent. Abuse of authority 

of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.

In contrast to T. L. O., where a teacher discovered a 

student smoking in the lavatory, and where the search

was confined to the student’s purse, the search of Redding

involved her body and rested on the bare accusation of

another student whose reliability the Assistant Principal

had no reason to trust. The Court’s opinion in T. L. O. 

plainly stated the controlling Fourth Amendment law: A 

search ordered by a school official, even if “justified at its 

inception,” crosses the constitutional boundary if it becomes “excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of 

the student and the nature of the infraction.” 469 U. S., at 

342 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Here, “the nature of the [supposed] infraction,” the slim

basis for suspecting Savana Redding, and her “age and 

sex,” ibid., establish beyond doubt that Assistant Principal

Wilson’s order cannot be reconciled with this Court’s 

opinion in T. L. O. Wilson’s treatment of Redding was

abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that 

the law permitted it. I join JUSTICE STEVENS in dissenting 

from the Court’s acceptance of Wilson’s qualified immunity plea, and would affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment in all respects. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 1 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 08–479 

SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1, ET AL., 

PETITIONERS v. APRIL REDDING

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 

APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[June 25, 2009] 

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring in the judgment in part

and dissenting in part. 

I agree with the Court that the judgment against the

school officials with respect to qualified immunity should

be reversed. See ante, at 11–13. Unlike the majority,

however, I would hold that the search of Savana Redding 

did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The majority

imposes a vague and amorphous standard on school administrators. It also grants judges sweeping authority to

second-guess the measures that these officials take to

maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health 

and safety of the students in their charge. This deep

intrusion into the administration of public schools exemplifies why the Court should return to the common-law 

doctrine of in loco parentis under which “the judiciary was

reluctant to interfere in the routine business of school 

administration, allowing schools and teachers to set and

enforce rules and to maintain order.” Morse v. Frederick, 

551 U. S. 393, 414 (2007) (THOMAS, J., concurring). But 

even under the prevailing Fourth Amendment test established by New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 (1985), all 

petitioners, including the school district, are entitled to

judgment as a matter of law in their favor. 
2 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

I 

“Although the underlying command of the Fourth 

Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable, what is reasonable depends on the context within 

which a search takes place.” Id., at 337. Thus, although

public school students retain Fourth Amendment rights

under this Court’s precedent, see id., at 333–337, those 

rights “are different . . . than elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disregard the schools’ custodial and 

tutelary responsibility for children,” Vernonia School Dist. 

47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 656 (1995); see also T. L. O., 

469 U. S., at 339 (identifying “the substantial interest of 

teachers and administrators in maintaining discipline in

the classroom and on school grounds”). For nearly 25

years this Court has understood that “[m]aintaining order

in the classroom has never been easy, but in more recent

years, school disorder has often taken particularly ugly

forms: drug use and violent crime in the schools have 

become major social problems.” Ibid. In schools, “[e]vents 

calling for discipline are frequent occurrences and sometimes require immediate, effective action.” Goss v. Lopez, 

419 U. S. 565, 580 (1975); see also T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 

340 (explaining that schools have a “legitimate need to

maintain an environment in which learning can take 

place”).

For this reason, school officials retain broad authority 

to protect students and preserve “order and a proper 

educational environment” under the Fourth Amendment. 

Id., at 339. This authority requires that school officials be

able to engage in the “close supervision of schoolchildren, 

as well as . . . enforc[e] rules against conduct that would 

be perfectly permissible if undertaken by an adult.” Ibid. 

Seeking to reconcile the Fourth Amendment with this 

unique public school setting, the Court in T. L. O. held 

that a school search is “reasonable” if it is “‘justified at its

inception’” and “‘reasonably related in scope to the cir-
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 3 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

cumstances which justified the interference in the first 

place.’” Id., at 341–342 (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 

1, 20 (1968)). The search under review easily meets this 

standard. 

A 

A “search of a student by a teacher or other school official will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn 

up evidence that the student has violated or is violating 

either the law or the rules of the school.” T. L. O., supra, 

at 341–342 (footnote omitted). As the majority rightly 

concedes, this search was justified at its inception because 

there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Redding

possessed medication that violated school rules. See ante, 

at 7. A finding of reasonable suspicion “does not deal with

hard certainties, but with probabilities.” United States v. 

Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 418 (1981); see also T. L. O., supra, 

at 346 (“[T]he requirement of reasonable suspicion is not a 

requirement of absolute certainty”). To satisfy this standard, more than a mere “hunch” of wrongdoing is required,

but “considerably” less suspicion is needed than would be

required to “satisf[y] a preponderance of the evidence 

standard.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U. S. 266, 274 

(2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Furthermore, in evaluating whether there is a reasonable “particularized and objective” basis for conducting a

search based on suspected wrongdoing, government officials must consider the “totality of the circumstances.” Id., 

at 273 (internal quotation marks omitted). School officials 

have a specialized understanding of the school environment, the habits of the students, and the concerns of the 

community, which enables them to “‘formulat[e] certain 

common-sense conclusions about human behavior.’” 

United States v. Sokolow, 490 U. S. 1, 8 (1989) (quoting 

Cortez, supra, at 418). And like police officers, school 
4 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

officials are “entitled to make an assessment of the situation in light of [this] specialized training and familiarity 

with the customs of the [school].” See Arvizu, supra, at 

276. 

Here, petitioners had reasonable grounds to suspect 

that Redding was in possession of prescription and nonprescription drugs in violation of the school’s prohibition of 

the “non-medical use, possession, or sale of a drug” on

school property or at school events. 531 F. 3d 1071, 1076 

(CA9 2008) (en banc); see also id., at 1107 (Hawkins, J.,

dissenting) (explaining that the school policy defined 

“drugs” to include “‘[a]ny prescription or over-the-counter 

drug, except those for which permission to use in school 

has been granted’”). As an initial matter, school officials 

were aware that a few years earlier, a student had become

“seriously ill” and “spent several days in intensive care” 

after ingesting prescription medication obtained from a

classmate. App. 10a. Fourth Amendment searches do not 

occur in a vacuum; rather, context must inform the judicial inquiry. See Cortez, supra, at 417–418. In this instance, the suspicion of drug possession arose at a middle

school that had “a history of problems with students using

and distributing prohibited and illegal substances on 

campus.” App. 7a, 10a.

The school’s substance-abuse problems had not abated

by the 2003–2004 school year, which is when the challenged search of Redding took place. School officials had 

found alcohol and cigarettes in the girls’ bathroom during

the first school dance of the year and noticed that a group 

of students including Redding and Marissa Glines smelled

of alcohol. Ibid. Several weeks later, another student, 

Jordan Romero, reported that Redding had hosted a party 

before the dance where she served whiskey, vodka, and 

tequila. Id., at 8a, 11a. Romero had provided this report

to school officials as a result of a meeting his mother 

scheduled with the officials after Romero “bec[a]me vio-
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 5 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

lent” and “sick to his stomach” one night and admitted 

that “he had taken some pills that he had got[ten] from a 

classmate.” Id., at 7a–8a, 10a–11a. At that meeting,

Romero admitted that “certain students were bringing

drugs and weapons on campus.” Id., at 8a, 11a. One week 

later, Romero handed the assistant principal a white pill

that he said he had received from Glines. Id., at 11a. He 

reported “that a group of students [were] planning on

taking the pills at lunch.” Ibid. 

School officials justifiably took quick action in light of

the lunchtime deadline. The assistant principal took the 

pill to the school nurse who identified it as prescriptionstrength 400-mg Ibuprofen. Id., at 12a. A subsequent

search of Glines and her belongings produced a razor 

blade, a Naproxen 200-mg pill, and several Ibuprofen 400-

mg pills. Id., at 13a. When asked, Glines claimed that 

she had received the pills from Redding. Ibid. A search of 

Redding’s planner, which Glines had borrowed, then uncovered “several knives, several lighters, a cigarette, and a 

permanent marker.” Id., at 12a, 14a, 22a. Thus, as the 

majority acknowledges, ante, at 7, the totality of relevant

circumstances justified a search of Redding for pills.1 

B 

The remaining question is whether the search was

reasonable in scope. Under T. L. O., “a search will be 

permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are 

reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not 

excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the 

—————— 

1To be sure, Redding denied knowledge of the pills and the materials

in her planner. App. 14a. But her denial alone does not negate the 

reasonable suspicion held by school officials. See New Jersey v. 

T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 345 (1985) (finding search reasonable even

though “T. L. O. had been accused of smoking, and had denied the

accusation in the strongest possible terms when she stated that she did

not smoke at all”). 
6 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

student and the nature of the infraction.” 469 U. S., at 

342. The majority concludes that the school officials’ 

search of Redding’s underwear was not “‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the

interference in the first place,’” see ante, at 8–11, notwithstanding the officials’ reasonable suspicion that Redding

“was involved in pill distribution,” ante, at 7. According to

the majority, to be reasonable, this school search required 

a showing of “danger to the students from the power of the

drugs or their quantity” or a “reason to suppose that [Redding] was carrying pills in her underwear.” Ante, at 10. 

Each of these additional requirements is an unjustifiable 

departure from bedrock Fourth Amendment law in the

school setting, where this Court has heretofore read the

Fourth Amendment to grant considerable leeway to school 

officials. Because the school officials searched in a location where the pills could have been hidden, the search 

was reasonable in scope under T. L. O. 

1 

The majority finds that “subjective and reasonable

societal expectations of personal privacy support . . . 

treat[ing]” this type of search, which it labels a “strip

search,” as “categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for 

going beyond a search of clothing and belongings.” Ante, 

at 8.2 Thus, in the majority’s view, although the school 

officials had reasonable suspicion to believe that Redding 

—————— 

2Like the dissent below, “I would reserve the term ‘strip search’ for a

search that required its subject to fully disrobe in view of officials.” 531 

F. 3d 1071, 1091, n. 1 (CA9 2008) (opinion of Hawkins, J.). The distinction between a strip search and the search at issue in this case may be

slight, but it is a distinction that the law has drawn. See, e.g., Sandin 

v. Conner, 515 U. S. 472, 475 (1995) (“The officer subjected Conner to a

strip search, complete with inspection of the rectal area”); Bell v. 

Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 558, and n. 39 (1979) (describing visual inspection of body cavities as “part of a strip search”). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 7 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

had the pills on her person, see ante, at 7, they needed 

some greater level of particularized suspicion to conduct 

this “strip search.” There is no support for this contortion 

of the Fourth Amendment. 

The Court has generally held that the reasonableness of 

a search’s scope depends only on whether it is limited to

the area that is capable of concealing the object of the

search. See, e.g., Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 

307 (1999) (Police officers “may inspect passengers’ belongings found in the car that are capable of concealing

the object of the search”); Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U. S. 248, 

251 (1991) (“The scope of a search is generally defined by

its expressed object”); United States v. Johns, 469 U. S. 

478, 487 (1985) (search reasonable because “there is no

plausible argument that the object of the search could not 

have been concealed in the packages”); United States v. 

Ross, 456 U. S. 798, 820 (1982) (“A lawful search . . . generally extends to the entire area in which the object of the

search may be found”).3 

In keeping with this longstanding rule, the “nature of

the infraction” referenced in T. L. O. delineates the proper

scope of a search of students in a way that is identical to 

that permitted for searches outside the school—i.e., the 

search must be limited to the areas where the object of 

that infraction could be concealed. See Horton v. California, 496 U. S. 128, 141 (1990) (“Police with a warrant for a

rifle may search only places where rifles might be” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Ross, supra, at 824 

(“[P]robable cause to believe that undocumented aliens are 

being transported in a van will not justify a warrantless 

—————— 

3The Court has adopted a different standard for searches involving 

an “intrusio[n] into the human body.” Schmerber v. California, 384 

U. S. 757, 770 (1966). The search here does not implicate the Court’s

cases governing bodily intrusions, however, because it did not involve a 

“physical intrusion, penetrating beneath the skin,” Skinner v. Railway 

Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 616 (1989). 
8 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

search of a suitcase”). A search of a student therefore is 

permissible in scope under T. L. O. so long as it is objectively reasonable to believe that the area searched could 

conceal the contraband. The dissenting opinion below 

correctly captured this Fourth Amendment standard,

noting that “if a student brought a baseball bat on campus

in violation of school policy, a search of that student’s shirt 

pocket would be patently unjustified.” 531 F. 3d, at 1104 

(opinion of Hawkins, J.). 

The analysis of whether the scope of the search here was

permissible under that standard is straightforward.

Indeed, the majority does not dispute that “general background possibilities” establish that students conceal “contraband in their underwear.” Ante, at 10. It acknowledges

that school officials had reasonable suspicion to look in

Redding’s backpack and outer clothing because if “Wilson’s

reasonable suspicion of pill distribution were not understood to support searches of outer clothes and backpack, it 

would not justify any search worth making.” Ante, at 7. 

The majority nevertheless concludes that proceeding any 

further with the search was unreasonable. See ante, at 8– 

10; see also ante, at 1 (GINSBURG, J., concurring in part 

and dissenting in part) (“Any reasonable search for the

pills would have ended when inspection of Redding’s

backpack and jacket pockets yielded nothing”). But there 

is no support for this conclusion. The reasonable suspicion

that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes

did not dissipate simply because the search of her backpack turned up nothing. It was eminently reasonable to 

conclude that the backpack was empty because Redding 

was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would 

look. See Ross, supra, at 820 (“Contraband goods rarely 

are strewn” about in plain view; “by their very nature such

goods must be withheld from public view”).

Redding would not have been the first person to conceal

pills in her undergarments. See Hicks, Man Gets 17-Year 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 9 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

Drug Sentence, [Corbin, KY] Times-Tribune, Oct. 7, 2008,

p. 1 (Drug courier “told officials she had the [Oxycontin] 

pills concealed in her crotch”); Conley, Whitehaven: Traffic 

Stop Yields Hydrocodone Pills, [Memphis] Commercial 

Appeal, Aug. 3, 2007, p. B3 (“An additional 40 hydrocodone pills were found in her pants”); Caywood, Police

Vehicle Chase Leads to Drug Arrests, [Worcester] Telegram & Gazette, June 7, 2008, p. A7 (25-year-old “allegedly had a cigar tube stuffed with pills tucked into the

waistband of his pants”); Hubartt, 23-Year-Old Charged 

With Dealing Ecstasy, The [Fort Wayne] Journal Gazette, 

Aug. 8, 2007, p. C2 (“[W]hile he was being put into a squad 

car, his pants fell down and a plastic bag containing pink 

and orange pills fell on the ground”); Sebastian Residents 

Arrested in Drug Sting, Vero Beach Press Journal, Sept.

16, 2006, p. B2 (Arrestee “told them he had more pills 

‘down my pants’”). Nor will she be the last after today’s

decision, which announces the safest place to secrete 

contraband in school. 

2 

The majority compounds its error by reading the “nature

of the infraction” aspect of the T. L. O. test as a license to 

limit searches based on a judge’s assessment of a particular school policy. According to the majority, the scope of

the search was impermissible because the school official 

“must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of 

the specific drugs he was searching for” and because he 

“had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs

were being passed around, or that individual students 

were receiving great numbers of pills.” Ante, at 9–10. 

Thus, in order to locate a rationale for finding a Fourth 

Amendment violation in this case, the majority retreats

from its observation that the school’s firm no-drug policy 

“makes sense, and there is no basis to claim that the 

search was unreasonable owing to some defect or short-
10 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

coming of the rule it was aimed at enforcing.” Ante, at 5, 

n. 1. 

Even accepting the majority’s assurances that it is not

attacking the rule’s reasonableness, it certainly is attacking the rule’s importance. This approach directly conflicts 

with T. L. O. in which the Court was “unwilling to adopt a 

standard under which the legality of a search is dependent 

upon a judge’s evaluation of the relative importance of

school rules.” 469 U. S., at 342, n. 9. Indeed, the Court in 

T. L. O. expressly rejected the proposition that the majority seemingly endorses—that “some rules regarding student conduct are by nature too ‘trivial’ to justify a search

based upon reasonable suspicion.” Ibid.; see also id., at 

343, n. 9 (“The promulgation of a rule forbidding specified 

conduct presumably reflects a judgment on the part of 

school officials that such conduct is destructive of school 

order or of a proper educational environment. Absent any 

suggestion that the rule violates some substantive constitutional guarantee, the courts should as a general matter, 

defer to that judgment”). 

The majority’s decision in this regard also departs from

another basic principle of the Fourth Amendment: that

law enforcement officials can enforce with the same vigor 

all rules and regulations irrespective of the perceived

importance of any of those rules. “In a long line of cases, 

we have said that when an officer has probable cause to

believe a person committed even a minor crime in his

presence, the balancing of private and public interests is

not in doubt. The arrest is constitutionally reasonable.” 

Virginia v. Moore, 553 U. S. ___, ___ (2008) (slip op., at 6). 

The Fourth Amendment rule for searches is the same: 

Police officers are entitled to search regardless of the

perceived triviality of the underlying law. As we have 

explained, requiring police to make “sensitive, case-bycase determinations of government need,” Atwater v. Lago 

Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 347 (2001), for a particular prohibi-
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 11 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

tion before conducting a search would “place police in an 

almost impossible spot,” id., at 350. 

The majority has placed school officials in this “impossible spot” by questioning whether possession of Ibuprofen 

and Naproxen causes a severe enough threat to warrant

investigation. Had the suspected infraction involved a

street drug, the majority implies that it would have approved the scope of the search. See ante, at 9 (relying on

the “limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching 

for”); ante, at 10 (relying on the limited “power of the 

drugs” involved). In effect, then, the majority has replaced

a school rule that draws no distinction among drugs with a

new one that does. As a result, a full search of a student’s 

person for prohibited drugs will be permitted only if the

Court agrees that the drug in question was sufficiently 

dangerous. Such a test is unworkable and unsound. 

School officials cannot be expected to halt searches based 

on the possibility that a court might later find that the

particular infraction at issue is not severe enough to warrant an intrusive investigation.4 

—————— 

4 JUSTICE GINSBURG suggests that requiring Redding to “sit on a chair

outside [the assistant principal’s] office for over two hours” and failing 

to call her parents before conducting the search constitutes an “[a]buse

of authority” that “should not be shielded by official immunity.” See 

ante, at 1–2. But the school was under no constitutional obligation to

call Redding’s parents before conducting the search: “[R]easonableness

under the Fourth Amendment does not require employing the least 

intrusive means, because the logic of such elaborate less-restrictivealternative arguments could raise insuperable barriers to the exercise 

of virtually all search-and-seizure powers.” Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls, 536 U. S. 822, 837 

(2002) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). For the same 

reason, the Constitution did not require school officials to ask “followup 

questions” after they had already developed reasonable suspicion that

Redding possessed drugs. See ante, at 6, 10 (majority opinion); ante, at 

1 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). In any event, the suggestion that requiring

Redding to sit in a chair for two hours amounted to a deprivation of her 

constitutional rights, or that school officials are required to engage in 
12 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

A rule promulgated by a school board represents the 

judgment of school officials that the rule is needed to

maintain “school order” and “a proper educational environment.” T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 343, n. 9. Teachers, 

administrators, and the local school board are called upon

both to “protect the . . . safety of students and school personnel” and “maintain an environment conducive to learning.” Id., at 353 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment).

They are tasked with “watch[ing] over a large number of

students” who “are inclined to test the outer boundaries of 

acceptable conduct and to imitate the misbehavior of a

peer if that misbehavior is not dealt with quickly.” Id., at 

352. In such an environment, something as simple as a

“water pistol or peashooter can wreak [havoc] until it is

taken away.” Ibid. The danger posed by unchecked distribution and consumption of prescription pills by students 

certainly needs no elaboration.

Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment. Such institutional judgments, like those concerning the selection of the best methods for “restrain[ing 

students] from assaulting one another, abusing drugs and 

alcohol, and committing other crimes,” id., at 342, n. 9, 

“involve a host of policy choices that must be made by 

locally elected representatives, rather than by federal

judges interpreting the basic charter of Government for 

the entire country.” Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 

115, 129 (1992); cf. Regents of Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 

U. S. 214, 226 (1985) (observing that federal courts are not 

“suited to evaluat[ing] the substance of the multitude of 

academic decisions” or disciplinary decisions “that are 

—————— 

detailed interrogations before conducting searches for drugs, only

reinforces the conclusion that the Judiciary is ill-equipped to secondguess the daily decisions made by public administrators. Cf. Beard v. 

Banks, 548 U. S. 521, 536–537 (2006) (THOMAS, J., concurring in 

judgment). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 13 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

made daily by faculty members of public educational 

institutions”). It is a mistake for judges to assume the 

responsibility for deciding which school rules are important enough to allow for invasive searches and which rules 

are not. 

3 

Even if this Court were authorized to second-guess the

importance of school rules, the Court’s assessment of the 

importance of this district’s policy is flawed. It is a crime 

to possess or use prescription-strength Ibuprofen without 

a prescription. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13–3406(A)(1) 

(West Supp. 2008) (“A person shall not knowingly . . .

[p]ossess or use a prescription-only drug unless the person

obtains the prescription-only drug pursuant to a valid

prescription of a prescriber who is licensed pursuant to 

[state law]”).5 By prohibiting unauthorized prescription

drugs on school grounds—and conducting a search to

ensure students abide by that prohibition—the school rule 

here was consistent with a routine provision of the state

criminal code. It hardly seems unreasonable for school 

officials to enforce a rule that, in effect, proscribes conduct

that amounts to a crime. 

—————— 

5Arizona’s law is not idiosyncratic; many States have separately

criminalized the unauthorized possession of prescription drugs. See, 

e.g., Mo. Rev. Stat. §577.628(1) (Supp. 2008) (“No person less than

twenty-one years of age shall possess upon the real property comprising 

a public or private elementary or secondary school or school bus prescription medication without a valid prescription for such medication”);

Okla. Stat., Tit. 59, §353.24(2) (Supp. 2008) (“It shall be unlawful for

any person, firm or corporation to . . . [s]ell, offer for sale, barter or give 

away any unused quantity of drugs obtained by prescription, except . . .

as provided by the State Board of Pharmacy”); Utah Code Ann. §58–

17b–501(12) (Lexis 2007) (“ ‘Unlawful conduct’ includes: using a prescription drug . . . for himself that was not lawfully prescribed for him

by a practitioner”); see also Ala. Code §34–23–7 (2002); Del. Code Ann., 

Tit. 16, §4754A(a)(4) (Supp. 2008); Fla. Stat. §499.005(14) (2007); N. H. 

Rev. Stat. Ann. §318:42(I) (Supp. 2008). 
14 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

Moreover, school districts have valid reasons for punishing the unauthorized possession of prescription drugs on

school property as severely as the possession of street

drugs; “[t]eenage abuse of over-the-counter and prescription drugs poses an increasingly alarming national crisis.” 

Get Teens Off Drugs, The Education Digest 75 (Dec. 2006).

As one study noted, “more young people ages 12–17 abuse 

prescription drugs than any illicit drug except marijuana—more than cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine 

combined.” Executive Office of the President, Office of 

National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Prescription for 

Danger 1 (Jan. 2008) (hereinafter Prescription for Danger). And according to a 2005 survey of teens, “nearly one

in five (19 percent or 4.5 million) admit abusing prescription drugs in their lifetime.” Columbia University, The

National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse 

(CASA), “You’ve Got Drugs!” V: Prescription Drug Pushers

on the Internet 2 (July 2008); see also Dept. of Health and 

Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse, High

School and Youth Trends 2 (Dec. 2008) (“In 2008, 15.4

percent of 12th-graders reported using a prescription drug

nonmedically within the past year”). 

School administrators can reasonably conclude that this 

high rate of drug abuse is being fueled, at least in part, by

the increasing presence of prescription drugs on school 

campuses. See, e.g., Gibson, Grand Forks Schools See Rise 

In Prescription Drug Abuse, Grand Forks Herald, Nov. 16,

2008, p. 1 (explaining that “prescription drug abuse is 

growing into a larger problem” as students “bring them to 

school and sell them or just give them to their friends”).

In a 2008 survey, “44 percent of teens sa[id] drugs are

used, kept or sold on the grounds of their schools.” CASA, 

National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance

Abuse XIII: Teens and Parents 19 (Aug. 2008) (hereinafter 

National Survey). The risks posed by the abuse of these

drugs are every bit as serious as the dangers of using a 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 15 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

typical street drug. 

Teenagers are nevertheless apt to “believe the myth that

these drugs provide a medically safe high.” ONDCP, 

Teens and Prescription Drugs: An Analysis of Recent

Trends on the Emerging Drug Threat 3 (Feb. 2007) (hereinafter Teens and Prescription Drugs). But since 1999, 

there has “been a dramatic increase in the number of 

poisonings and even deaths associated with the abuse of 

prescription drugs.” Prescription for Danger 4; see also 

Dept. of Health and Human Services, The NSDUH Report: 

Trends in Nonmedical Use of Prescription Pain Relievers:

2002 to 2007, p. 1 (Feb. 5, 2009) (“[A]pproximately 324,000

emergency department visits in 2006 involved the nonmedical use of pain relievers”); CASA, Under the Counter:

The Diversion and Abuse of Controlled Prescription Drugs 

in the U. S., p. 25 (July 2005) (“In 2002, abuse of controlled prescription drugs was implicated in at least 23 

percent of drug-related emergency department admissions 

and 20.4 percent of all single drug-related emergency 

department deaths”). At least some of these injuries and

deaths are likely due to the fact that “[m]ost controlled

prescription drug abusers are poly-substance abusers,” id., 

at 3, a habit that is especially likely to result in deadly 

drug combinations. Furthermore, even if a child is not 

immediately harmed by the abuse of prescription drugs, 

research suggests that prescription drugs have become 

“gateway drugs to other substances of abuse.” Id., at 4; 

Healy, Skipping the Street, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 15,

2008, p. F1 (“Boomers made marijuana their ‘gateway’ . . . 

but a younger generation finds prescription drugs an 

easier score”); see also National Survey 17 (noting that 

teens report “that prescription drugs are easier to buy

than beer”).

Admittedly, the Ibuprofen and Naproxen at issue in this

case are not the prescription painkillers at the forefront of 

the prescription-drug-abuse problem. See Prescription for 
16 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

Danger 3 (“Pain relievers like Vicodin and OxyContin are

the prescription drugs most commonly abused by teens”).

But they are not without their own dangers. As nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they pose a risk of

death from overdose. The Pill Book 821, 827 (H. Silverman,

ed., 13th ed. 2008) (observing that Ibuprofen and Naproxen

are NSAIDs and “[p]eople have died from NSAID overdoses”). Moreover, the side-effects caused by the use of

NSAIDs can be magnified if they are taken in combination 

with other drugs. See, e.g., Reactions Weekly, p. 18 (Issue

no. 1235, Jan. 17, 2009) (“A 17-year-old girl developed 

allergic interstitial nephritis and renal failure while receiving escitalopram and ibuprofen”); id., at 26 (Issue no. 

1232, Dec. 13, 2008) (“A 16-month-old boy developed iron

deficiency anaemia and hypoalbuminaemia during treatment with naproxen”); id., at 15 (Issue no. 1220, Sept. 20, 

2008) (18-year-old “was diagnosed with pill-induced oesophageal perforation” after taking ibuprofen “and was 

admitted to the [intensive care unit]”); id., at 20 (Issue no.

1170, Sept. 22, 2007) (“A 12-year-old boy developed anaphylaxis following ingestion of ibuprofen”). 

If a student with a previously unknown intolerance to

Ibuprofen or Naproxen were to take either drug and become ill, the public outrage would likely be directed toward the school for failing to take steps to prevent the

unmonitored use of the drug. In light of the risks involved, a school’s decision to establish and enforce a school 

prohibition on the possession of any unauthorized drug is 

thus a reasonable judgment.6 

—————— 

6Schools have a significant interest in protecting all students from 

prescription drug abuse; young female students are no exception. See 

Teens and Prescription Drugs 2 (“Prescription drugs are the most 

commonly abused drug among 12–13-year-olds”). In fact, among 12- to

17-year-olds, females are “more likely than boys to have abused prescription drugs” and have “higher rates of dependence or abuse involving prescription drugs.” Id., at 5. Thus, rather than undermining the 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 17 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

* * * 

In determining whether the search’s scope was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, it is therefore irrelevant whether officials suspected Redding of possessing 

prescription-strength Ibuprofen, nonprescription-strength 

Naproxen, or some harder street drug. Safford prohibited 

its possession on school property. Reasonable suspicion

that Redding was in possession of drugs in violation of 

these policies, therefore, justified a search extending to 

any area where small pills could be concealed. The search 

did not violate the Fourth Amendment. 

II 

By declaring the search unreasonable in this case, the 

majority has “‘surrender[ed] control of the American

public school system to public school students’” by invalidating school policies that treat all drugs equally and by

second-guessing swift disciplinary decisions made by

school officials. See Morse, 551 U. S., at 421 (THOMAS, J., 

concurring) (quoting Tinker v. Des Moines Independent 

Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 526 (1969) (Black, 

J., dissenting)). The Court’s interference in these matters 

of great concern to teachers, parents, and students illustrates why the most constitutionally sound approach to

the question of applying the Fourth Amendment in local

public schools would in fact be the complete restoration of 

the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis. 

“[I]n the early years of public schooling,” courts applied

the doctrine of in loco parentis to transfer to teachers the 

authority of a parent to “‘command obedience, to control 

stubbornness, to quicken diligence, and to reform bad 

habits.’” Morse, supra, at 413–414 (THOMAS, J., concur-

—————— 

relevant governmental interest here, Redding’s age and sex, if anything, increased the need for a search to prevent the reasonably suspected use of prescription drugs. 
18 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

ring) (quoting State v. Pendergrass, 19 N. C. 365, 365–366 

(1837)). So empowered, schoolteachers and administrators

had almost complete discretion to establish and enforce

the rules they believed were necessary to maintain control

over their classrooms. See 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on 

American Law 205 (1873) (“So the power allowed by law to 

the parent over the person of the child may be delegated to

a tutor or instructor, the better to accomplish the purpose 

of education”); 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the 

Laws of England 441 (1765) (“He may also delegate part of 

his parental authority, during his life, to the tutor or

schoolmaster of his child; who is then in loco parentis, and 

has such a portion of the parent committed to his charge, 

viz. that of restraint and correction, as may be necessary 

to answer the purposes for which he is employed”).7 The 

perils of judicial policymaking inherent in applying Fourth 

Amendment protections to public schools counsel in favor 

of a return to the understanding that existed in this Nation’s first public schools, which gave teachers discretion

to craft the rules needed to carry out the disciplinary

responsibilities delegated to them by parents.

If the common-law view that parents delegate to teachers their authority to discipline and maintain order were 

to be applied in this case, the search of Redding would 

stand. There can be no doubt that a parent would have

had the authority to conduct the search at issue in this 

case. Parents have “immunity from the strictures of the 

Fourth Amendment” when it comes to searches of a child 

—————— 

7The one aspect of school discipline with respect to which the judiciary at times became involved was the “imposition of excessive physical

punishment.” Morse, 551 U. S., at 416 (THOMAS, J., concurring). Some 

early courts found corporal punishment proper “as long as the teacher 

did not act with legal malice or cause permanent injury;” while other 

courts intervened only if the punishment was “clearly excessive.” Ibid. 

(emphasis deleted and internal quotation marks omitted) (collecting 

decisions). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 19 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

or that child’s belongings. T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 337; see 

also id., at 336 (A parent’s authority is “not subject to the

limits of the Fourth Amendment”); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 

483 U. S. 868, 876 (1987) (“[P]arental custodial authority” 

does not require “judicial approval for [a] search of a minor

child’s room”).

As acknowledged by this Court, this principle is based 

on the “societal understanding of superior and inferior”

with respect to the “parent and child” relationship. Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S. 103, 114 (2006). In light of this 

relationship, the Court has indicated that a parent can 

authorize a third-party search of a child by consenting to 

such a search, even if the child denies his consent. See 

ibid.; see also 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §8.3(d), p. 

160 (4th ed. 2004) (“[A] father, as the head of the household with the responsibility and the authority for the 

discipline, training and control of his children, has a superior interest in the family residence to that of his minor 

son, so that the father’s consent to search would be effective notwithstanding the son’s contemporaneous on-thescene objection” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Certainly, a search by the parent himself is no different,

regardless of whether or not a child would prefer to be left 

alone. See id., §8.4(b), at 202 (“[E]ven [if] a minor child 

. . . may think of a room as ‘his,’ the overall dominance will 

be in his parents” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

Restoring the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis

would not, however, leave public schools entirely free to

impose any rule they choose. “If parents do not like the

rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in 

school boards or legislatures; they can send their children

to private schools or home school them; or they can simply 

move.” See Morse, 551 U. S., at 419 (THOMAS, J., concurring). Indeed, parents and local government officials have

proved themselves quite capable of challenging overly

harsh school rules or the enforcement of sensible rules in 
20 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

insensible ways. 

For example, one community questioned a school policy 

that resulted in “an 11-year-old [being] arrested, handcuffed, and taken to jail for bringing a plastic butter knife

to school.” Downey, Zero Tolerance Doesn’t Always Add 

Up, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Apr. 6, 2009,

p. A11. In another, “[a]t least one school board member 

was outraged” when 14 elementary-school students were 

suspended for “imitating drug activity” after they combined Kool-Aid and sugar in plastic bags. Grant, Pupils

Trading Sweet Mix Get Sour Shot of Discipline, Pittsburgh 

Post-Gazette, May 18, 2006, p. B1. Individuals within yet

another school district protested a “‘zero-tolerance’ policy 

toward weapons” that had become “so rigid that it force[d]

schools to expel any student who belongs to a military 

organization, a drum-and-bugle corps or any other legitimate extracurricular group and is simply transporting

what amounts to harmless props.” Richardson, School 

Gun Case Sparks Cries For “Common Sense,” Washington 

Times, Feb. 13, 2009, p. A1.8 

These local efforts to change controversial school policies 

through democratic processes have proven successful in 

—————— 

8See also, e.g., Smydo, Allderdice Parents Decry Suspensions, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Apr. 16, 2009, p. B1 (Parents “believe a one-day

suspension for a first-time hallway infraction is an overreaction”); 

O’Brien & Buckham, Girl’s Smooch on School Bus Leads to Suspension,

Buffalo News, Jan. 6, 2008, p. B1 (Parents of 6-year-old say the “school

officials overreacted” when they punished their daughter for “kissing a 

second-grade boy”); Stewart, Camera Phone Controversy: Dad Says 

School Overreacted, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 12, 2007, p. B5 (“The

father of a 13-year-old . . . said the school district overstepped its 

bounds when it suspended his daughter for taking a cell phone photo of 

another cheerleader getting out of the shower during a sleepover in his 

home”); Dumenigo & Mueller, “Cops and Robbers” Suspension Criticized at Sayreville School, The [New Jersey] Star-Ledger, Apr. 6, 2000,

p. 15 (“ ‘I think it’s ridiculous,’ said the mother of one of the [kindergarten] boys. ‘They’re little boys playing with each other. . . . when did a 

finger become a weapon?”). 
Cite as: 557 U. S. ____ (2009) 21 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

many cases. See, e.g., Postal, Schools’ Zero Tolerance 

Could Lose Some Punch, Orlando Sentinel, Apr. 24, 2009,

p. B3 (“State lawmakers want schools to dial back strict 

zero-tolerance policies so students do not end up in juvenile detention for some ‘goofy thing’ ”); Richardson, Tolerance Waning for Zero-tolerance Rules, Washington Times,

Apr. 21, 2009, p. A3 (“[A] few states have moved to relax 

their laws. Utah now allows students to bring asthma

inhalers to school without violating the zero-tolerance 

policy on drugs”); see also Nussbaum, Becoming Fed Up 

With Zero Tolerance, New York Times, Sept. 3, 2000, 

Section 14, p. 1 (discussing a report that found that “widespread use of zero-tolerance discipline policies was creating as many problems as it was solving and that there

were many cases around the country in which students 

were harshly disciplined for infractions where there was 

no harm intended or done”).

In the end, the task of implementing and amending 

public school policies is beyond this Court’s function. 

Parents, teachers, school administrators, local politicians, 

and state officials are all better suited than judges to 

determine the appropriate limits on searches conducted by

school officials. Preservation of order, discipline, and

safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the

Constitution. And, common sense is not a judicial monopoly or a Constitutional imperative. 

III 

“[T]he nationwide drug epidemic makes the war against 

drugs a pressing concern in every school.” Board of Ed. of 

Independent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie Cty. v. 

Earls, 536 U. S. 822, 834 (2002). And yet the Court has 

limited the authority of school officials to conduct searches

for the drugs that the officials believe pose a serious safety

risk to their students. By doing so, the majority has confirmed that a return to the doctrine of in loco parentis is 
22 SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v. REDDING 

Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

required to keep the judiciary from essentially seizing 

control of public schools. Only then will teachers again be

able to “‘govern the[ir] pupils, quicken the slothful, spur 

the indolent, restrain the impetuous, and control the

stubborn’” by making “‘rules, giv[ing] commands, and 

punish[ing] disobedience’” without interference from 

judges. See Morse, supra, at 414. By deciding that it is

better equipped to decide what behavior should be permitted in schools, the Court has undercut student safety and

undermined the authority of school administrators and 

local officials. Even more troubling, it has done so in a 

case in which the underlying response by school administrators was reasonable and justified. I cannot join this 

regrettable decision. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from

the Court’s determination that this search violated the 

Fourth Amendment.