Case Name: April REDDING, legal guardian of minor child, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1; Kerry Wilson, husband; Jane Doe Wilson, wife; Helen Romero, wife; John Doe Romero, husband; Peggy Schwallier, wife; John Doe Schwallier, husband, Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2008-07-11
Citations: 531 F.3d 1071
Docket Number: No. 05-15759
Parties: April REDDING, legal guardian of minor child, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT # 1; Kerry Wilson, husband; Jane Doe Wilson, wife; Helen Romero, wife; John Doe Romero, husband; Peggy Schwallier, wife; John Doe Schwallier, husband, Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before: ALEX KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, HARRY PREGERSON, MICHAEL DALY HAWKINS, BARRY G. SILVERMAN, KIM McLANE WARDLAW, RAYMOND C. FISHER, RONALD M. GOULD, RICHARD A. PAEZ, CARLOS T. BEA, MILAN D. SMITH, JR., N. RANDY SMITH, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: Federal Reporter 3d Series
Volume: 531
Pages: 1071–1113

Head Matter:
April REDDING, legal guardian of minor child, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT # 1; Kerry Wilson, husband; Jane Doe Wilson, wife; Helen Romero, wife; John Doe Romero, husband; Peggy Schwallier, wife; John Doe Schwallier, husband, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 05-15759.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted March 26, 2008.
Filed July 11, 2008.
Graham A. Boyd, M. Allen Hopper, Adam B. Wolf, ACLU Foundation, Santa Cruz, CA; Andrew J. Petersen (argued), Humphrey & Peterson, P.C., Tucson, AZ; Bruce G. MacDonald, McNamara, Goldsmith, Jackson & MacDonald, Tucson, AZ; Daniel Joseph Pochoda, ACLU of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Matthew W. Wright (argued), David K. Pauole, Holm Wright Hyde & Hays PLC, Phoenix, AZ, for the defendants-appellees.
Carolyn I. Polowy, Sherri Morgan, National Association of Social Workers, Washington, D.C.; David A. Honzo, Julie M. Carpenter, Michael A. Hoffman, Jenner & Block LLP, Washington, D.C., for amici curiae The National Association of Social Workers and the National Association of Social Workers, Arizona Chapter.
Clint Bolick, The Rose Law Group, Scottsdale, AZ; John W. Whitehead, Douglas R. McKusick, The Rutherford Institute, Charlottesville, VA, for amicus curiae The Rutherford Institute.
Before: ALEX KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, HARRY PREGERSON, MICHAEL DALY HAWKINS, BARRY G. SILVERMAN, KIM McLANE WARDLAW, RAYMOND C. FISHER, RONALD M. GOULD, RICHARD A. PAEZ, CARLOS T. BEA, MILAN D. SMITH, JR., N. RANDY SMITH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
Opinion by Judge Wardlaw: Dissents by Judges Gould and Hawkins
WARDLAW, Circuit Judge,
with whom Judges PREGERSON, FISHER, PAEZ, MILAN D. SMITH, JR., and N.R. SMITH join:
On the basis of an uncorroborated tip from the culpable eighth grader, public middle school officials searched futilely for prescription-strength ibuprofen by strip-searching thirteen-year-old honor student Savana Redding. We conclude that the school officials violated Savana's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The strip search of Savana was neither "justified at its inception," New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 341, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985), nor, as a grossly intrusive search of a middle school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules, "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances" giving rise to its initiation. Id. Because these constitutional principles were clearly established at the time that middle school officials directed and conducted the search, the school official in charge is not entitled to qualified immunity from suit for the unconstitutional strip search of Savana.
I. BACKGROUND
Nestled next to the Pinaleno Mountains in southeastern Arizona, Safford is a small community of slightly under 10,000 residents. With a modest population, Safford maintains a single middle school that draws additional students from other neighboring small towns. In the late summer of 2003, Savana began a new school year as an eighth grader at Safford Middle School along with approximately 200 other thirteen and fourteen-year-old classmates.
On October 8, Savana was attending math class when Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson opened the classroom door and instructed her to pack up her belongings and accompany him to his office. Savana complied, gathered her things and followed Wilson down the hallway. Upon arriving at Wilson's office, Savana noticed a planner that she had lent a few days earlier to her classmate, Marissa, sitting open on the assistant principal's desk. While Savana immediately recognized the planner, she had not previously seen the objects contained in the planner, including knives, a lighter and a cigarette. None of the objects belonged to Savana.
Wilson then began interrogating Savana. Wilson first reminded her of the impor tance of truth and asked her who owned the planner. Savana admitted that she owned the planner and had lent it to Marissa. Upon further questioning, Savana insisted that none of the objects contained in the planner belonged to her.
Wilson then directed Savana's attention to a few small white ibuprofen pills sitting on his desk. Possession of these pills violated school rule J-3050's prohibition against bringing any prescription or over-the-counter drug onto campus without prior permission. He asked Savana if she had anything to do with the pills. Savana replied that she had never seen those pills before entering Wilson's office. Further, she assured Wilson that she had never brought any prescription pills into the middle school or provided any students with ibuprofen.
Dissatisfied with the results of his questioning, Wilson asked Savana whether he could search her belongings. Savana agreed to this search. Along with his administrative assistant, Helen Romero, Wilson rummaged through Savana's backpack and found nothing. Even though this first search of Savana's backpack supported her statement that she had not brought pills onto campus, and despite Savana's discipline-free history at the school, Wilson asked Romero to take Savana to the nurse's office for a second, more thorough search.
There, at Wilson's behest, Romero and the school nurse, Peggy Schwallier, conducted a strip search of Savana. The officials had Savana peel off each layer of clothing in turn. First, Savana removed her socks, shoes and jacket for inspection for ibuprofen. The officials found nothing. Then, Romero asked Savana to remove her T-shirt and stretch pants. Embarrassed and scared, Savana complied and sat in her bra and underwear while the two adults examined her clothes. Again, the officials found nothing. Still progressing with the search, despite receiving only corroboration of Savana's pleas that she did not have any ibuprofen, Romero instructed Savana to pull her bra out to the side and shake it. Savana followed the instructions, exposing her naked breasts in the process. The shaking failed to dislodge any pills. Romero next requested that Savana pull out her underwear at the crotch and shake it. Hiding her head so that the adults could not see that she was about to cry, Savana complied and pulled out her underwear, revealing her pelvic area. No ibuprofen was found. The school officials finally stopped and told Savana to put her clothes back on and accompany Romero back to Wilson's office. Savana did not freely agree to this search. She was "embarrassed and scared, but felt [she] would be in more trouble if [she] did not do what they asked." In her affidavit, Savana described the experience as "the most humiliating experience" of her short life, and felt "violated by the strip search."
The long and attenuated route to Savana began at the school dance held to celebrate the beginning of the new academic year. There, school officials detected the smell of alcohol around a small group of students, including Savana and her classmate Marissa, and became concerned that they may have drunk alcohol either before or during the school function. Increasing their suspicion of alcohol use that night, school officials found a bottle of alcohol, along with a pack of cigarettes, in the girls' bathroom. Nothing, however, specifically linked Savana or any other individual student to the empty bottle. Nevertheless, school officials remained wary that students were violating school rule J-3050, which prohibits the possession of alcohol and the non-medical use, possession, or sale of a drug, among other school rules. Enforcement of these school regulations drove the public school officials' increased efforts toward rooting out the ibuprofen.
On October 1, nearly a month and a half after the dance, and a week before the search of Savana, Jordan, a student at Safford Middle School, and his mother requested a meeting with Principal Robert Beeman and Wilson. During the meeting, Jordan's mother recounted how her son had become violent and gotten sick to his stomach a few nights earlier. Jordan had confessed to his mother that he became sick after ingesting pills he received from some unspecified classmate. More generally, Jordan advised the school administrators that "certain students" brought drugs and weapons on campus. Nothing in the record indicates that Jordan suggested Sa-vana was among the students bringing drugs into the middle school. To the contrary, Jordan brought up Savana's name only to accuse her family of providing alcohol to other students before the opening dance, an allegation the Reddings deny.
Before the opening bell on the day of the strip search, Jordan approached Assistant Principal Wilson with a small white pill. Jordan explained that Marissa—he did not mention Savana's name—had just given him the pill, and that a group of students planned to take the pills at lunchtime. Consistent with events he recounted during his meeting with Wilson the previous week, Jordan did not link Savana with possession of any pills or the plan for their distribution that day. Wilson then walked down the hall to ask Nurse Schwallier if she could identify the pill. Schwallier recognized it as 400 mg ibuprofen, obtainable only by prescription. Ibuprofen is most commonly found in over-the-counter Advil or Motrin in 200 mg pills to treat headaches, muscle-aches, or, for many young women, menstrual cramps. See PDR for Nonprescription Drugs, Dietary Supplements, and Herbs 725-26 (29th ed.2008).
Wilson then walked toward Marissa's classroom to question her about the ibuprofen. Interrupting the class, Wilson asked Marissa to gather her things and accompany him to his office. As Marissa collected her belongings, Wilson noticed a black planner in the desk situated next to her. He asked the classroom teacher to determine the owner of the planner. Opening the planner, the classroom teacher found small knives, a cigarette lighter and a cigarette. No pills, however, were found in the planner. Wilson took the planner and Marissa to his office.
Once back in his office, Wilson asked Romero to observe while Marissa followed Wilson's direction to turn out her pockets and open her wallet. This search revealed several white ibuprofen pills identical to the one turned over by Jordan, along with a blue Naprosyn 200 mg pill. Wilson asked Marissa how she obtained the blue pill. Caught red-handed with pills in violation of school rules, Marissa responded, "I guess it slipped in when she gave me the IBU 400s." Wilson asked, "Who is she?" Marissa responded "Savana Redding." Marissa, however, did not indicate to Wilson that Savana currently had any pills on her person, or, more specifically, had hidden pills in a place where a strip search would locate them.
Wilson then asked Romero to escort Marissa down to Nurse Schwallier's office for a more intensive search for additional ibuprofen pills. Romero asked Marissa to remove her socks and shoes so that they could be searched. Marissa complied. Then Romero asked Marissa to pull up her shirt and pull out the band of her bra. Finding nothing, Romero lastly asked Marissa to take off her pants and stretch out the elastic on her underwear. The search failed to reveal any additional ibuprofen. After this search, Wilson and the school officials turned their attention to Savana.
The crucial link—indeed, the only link— between Savana and the ibuprofen was Marissa's statement upon being caught with the pills that the ibuprofen (and the blame) was not hers, but rather was Savana's. Before Marissa implicated Savana, there had been no connection between Savana and the circulating rumors of prescription drugs on campus. Savana had never been disciplined for any infraction of school rules, let alone possession or distribution of drugs. The tip provided by Jordan only linked Marissa to the ibuprofen and failed to include any mention of Savana. Indeed, even the planner Savana lent to Marissa failed to provide any connection between Savana and any ibuprofen because the pills had been found on Marissa's person, not inside the planner. Nevertheless, on the sole basis of Marissa's attempt to shift the school officials' focus off herself and onto Savana, and without additional questioning or investigation, Wilson directed his assistant and the school nurse to require a thirteen-year-old to disrobe.
Upset after hearing what happened to her daughter, April Redding, Savana's mother, made an appointment with the school administrators. Apparently unsatisfied by the meeting, the Reddings brought suit in the District Court for the District of Arizona against Safford Unified School District # 1, Wilson, Romero and Schwallier (collectively, "Appellees").
Appellees ultimately filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that the defense of qualified immunity precluded them from suit. Defendants' motion relied solely on the argument that the strip search did not violate Savana's Fourth Amendment rights, and "because there was no constitutional violation, no further inquiry is necessary." In a series of declarations, Wilson, Romero and Schwallier attempted to justify the strip search of Savana with a general concern that "[t]he school has a history of problems with students using and distributing prohibited and illegal substances on campus," and a uniform recounting of events—none of which remotely connected Savana with the presence of ibuprofen on the middle school campus that day.
The district court ruled for defendants entirely on the basis that there was no violation of Savana's constitutional right, as established by T.L.O., to be free from unreasonable searches in school. It accepted as sufficient Appellees' representation that Savana's decision to lend Marissa her planner provided a sufficient nexus between the two girls to corroborate Marissa's tip. The district court reasoned that this connection justified the strip search at its inception by providing Appellees with reasonable grounds for suspecting that a strip search of Savana would turn up the ibuprofen. Moreover, the district court concluded that the need to locate the ibuprofen was sufficiently urgent that the strip search was "reasonably related" to the search's objective and was not "excessively intrusive." The conclusion that Sa-vana's constitutional rights were not violated rendered consideration of the second step of qualified immunity—whether the right was clearly established—unnecessary.
Upon appeal, a divided panel of our court upheld the grant of summary judgment in favor judgAppellees. The two-judge majority—in a now vacated opinion—concluded that "[ajmple facts supported Marissa's conas an informant," justifying Wilson's Marsearch of Savana, including her ownership of the planner and indisputed allegations of her distribution of alcohol to students. Redding v. Safford Unified Sch. Dist. # 1, 504 F.8d 828, 834 (9th Dist. r'hg en banc granted, 514 F.3d 1383. The majority found the strip search permissible in scope because "the strong interest" in protecting students from prescription drugs outweighed the intrusion caused by the search the panel thought was conducted in a "reasonable manner." In dissent, Judge Thomas asserted that the majority had misapplied Supreme asauthority. While a search may have been justified, the panel failed to undertake "the appropriate inquiry[of] whether a strip search was justified." Id. at 837 (Thomas, J. dissenting). Because it "was unreasonable to force Savana, a thirteen-year-old girl, to expose her breasts and pubic area to school officials" while they searched for ibuprofen, Judge Thomas concluded that the strip search failed to meet constitutional muster under T.L.O. Id. at 838.
A majority of our judges in regular active service voted to reconsider en banc whether the strip search violated Savana's Fourth Amendment rights, and, if so, whether those rights were clearly established in October 2003, when the school officials conducted the strip search. See Fed. R. App. P. 35. We now consider these questions en banc.
II. DISCUSSION
The Supreme Court has instructed that lower courts follow a careful two-step process when evaluating assertions of qualified immunity. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). First, we determine whether "[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, . the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right." Clement v. Gomez, 298 F.3d 898, 903 (9th Cir.2002) (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151). If we answer that question in the affirmative, we then answer whether the violated right was "clearly established." Id. We review de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. Blankenhorn v. City of Orange, 485 F.3d 463, 470 (9th Cir.2007).
A. The Constitutionality of the Strip Search
In 1985, the United States Supreme Court held: "It is now beyond dispute that the Federal Constitution, by the virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers. Equally indisputable is the proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights of students against encroachment by public school officials." T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 334, 105 S.Ct. 733 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The Court stated "[t]hat[schools] are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes." Id. (citing W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 637, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943)).
To implement these principles, the Court established "the proper standard for assessing the legality of searches conducted by public school officials." Id. at 328, 105 S.Ct. 733. Whether school officials subject a student to a search of her purse, as in T.L.O., or strip a student of clothing, the Constitution mandates that the search meet the generalized requirement of "reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search." Id. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733. The Court recognized that what is reasonable requires a balancing of interests: "On one side of the balance are arrayed the individual's legitimate expectations of privacy and personal security; on the other, the government's need for effective methods to deal with breaches of public order." Id. at 337, 105 S.Ct. 733. Noting that "even a limited search of the person is a substantial invasion of privacy," id. (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 24-25, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)), the Court emphasized that "[a] search of a child's person or of a closed purse or other bag carried on her person, no less than a similar search carried out on an adult, is undoubtedly a severe violation of subjective expectations of privacy." Id. at 337-38, 105 S.Ct. 733. Weighed against the students' substantial interest in privacy is the "substantial interest of teachers and administrators in maintaining discipline in the classroom and on school grounds." Id. at 339, 105 S.Ct. 733. To accommodate the school context, the Court concluded that the "public interest is best served by a Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause." Id. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733.
The Court set forth a twofold inquiry to gauge reasonableness: "[F]irst, one must consider 'whether the . action was justified at its inception;' second, one must determine whether the search as actually conducted "was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.' " Id. (citations omitted). The Court further held that 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 student and the nature of the infraction." Id. at 342, 105 S.Ct. 733. The Court crafted this test to "neither unduly burden the efforts of school authorities to maintain order in their schools nor authorize unrestrained intrusions upon the privacy of school children." Id. at 342-43, 105 S.Ct. 733.
While Judge Hawkins's dissenting opinion characterizes T.L.O.'s standard as designed to "spare teachers and school officials the necessity of schooling themselves in the niceties of probable cause and permit them to regulate their conduct according to the dictates of reason and common sense," Hawkins Dissent infra at 1091, it pays scant attention to the critically important statement of the Court that immediately follows this quoted sentence in the T.L.O. opinion: "At the same time, the reasonableness standard should ensure that the interests of students will be invaded no more than is necessary to achieve the legitimate end of preserving order in the schools." Id. at 343, 105 S.Ct. 733 (emphasis added).
Nowhere does the T.L.O. Court tell us to accord school officials' judgments unblinking deference. Nor does T.L.O. provide blanket approval of strip searches of thirteen-year-olds remotely rumored to have had Advil merely because of a generalized drug problem. Rather, the Court made it clear that while it did not require school officials to apply a probable cause standard to a purse search, it plainly required them to act "according to the dictates of reason and common sense." Id. As discussed below, the public school officials who strip searched Savana acted contrary to all reason and common sense as they trampled over her legitimate and substantial interests in privacy and security of her person.
1. Public School Officials Conducted a Strip Search of Savana.
Let there be no doubt: the Safford school officials conducted a strip search of Savana. Judge Hawkins's dissenting opinion squeamishly avoids facing the reality of the nature of the search. Our designation of Savana's search as a strip search is supported by federal and state law, as well as secondary authority. Savana did not have to be completely naked for the school officials to have strip searched her. The Eleventh Circuit has considered a police officer's direction for someone to strip down to their underwear to be a "strip search." See Justice v. City of Peachtree City, 961 F.2d 188, 190 (11th Cir.1992). Likewise, the Fourth Circuit understands a search of an adult arrestee in his boxer shorts to be a strip search. See Amaechi v. West, 237 F.3d 356, 363 (4th Cir.2001) (citing United States v. Dorlouis, 107 F.3d 248, 256 (4th Cir.1997)). The First Circuit "recognize[s] that a strip search may occur even when an inmate is not fully disrobed." See Wood v. Hancock County Sheriffs Dep't., 354 F.3d 57, 63 n. 10 (1st Cir.2003).
Statutes defining a strip search in several states confirm our understanding of the term "strip search." California, for instance, defines the term as "requiring] a person to remove or arrange some or all of his or her clothing so as to permit a visual inspection of the underclothing, breasts, buttocks, or genitalia of such person." Cal. Penal Code § 4030 (emphasis supplied); see also, e.g., Conn.Gen. Stat. § 54-33k;725 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/103-1; Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.193; N.J. Stat. Ann. 2A:161A-3; Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-59.1; Wash. Rev. Code § 10.79.070. The Fourth Circuit has recognized that this definition of a strip search is "uniform" throughout the Union. See Amaechi, 237 F.3d at 365 n. 15.
Black's Law Dictionary defines a "strip search" as "[a] search of a person conducted after that person's clothes have been removed, the purpose usually being to find any contraband the person might be hiding." See Black's Law Dictionary 1378-79 (8th ed.2004).
Savana was required by the public school officials to disrobe and expose the parts of her body underneath her underwear so that school officials could potentially find ibuprofen. The term may unsettle the sensibilities of our dissenting colleagues; however, the accuracy of the designation merely cements the intrusiveness of what occurred. And, even if our dissenting friends want to quibble about the term, the search of Savana by any other name would be equally as unreasonable.
2. Was the Strip Search Justified at Its Inception ?
"Under ordinary circumstances, 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., 469 U.S. at 341-42, 105 S.Ct. 733. Reasonableness, of course, depends on context. We agree with the Seventh Circuit that T.L.O. requires that "as the intrusiveness of the search of a student intensifies, so too does the standard of Fourth Amendment reasonableness. What may constitute reasonable suspicion for a search of a locker or even a pocket or pocketbook may fall well short of reasonableness for a nude search." Cornfield by Lewis v. Consol. High Sch. Dist. No. 230, 991 F.2d 1316, 1321 (7th Cir.1993). The Second Circuit also agrees with this approach: "Although T.L.O. held that reasonable suspicion is the governing standard, the reasonableness of the suspicion is informed by the very intrusive nature of a strip search, requiring for its justification a high level of suspicion." Phaneuf v. Fraikin, 448 F.3d 591, 596 (2d Cir.2006) (citation omitted).
Here, as in T.L.O., the school officials engaged in two related searches: first, a search of Savana's backpack and her pockets, which does not give rise to the claims in the complaint, and second, a strip search, which forms the basis of the complaint. See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 345, 105 S.Ct. 733 ("The incident that gave rise to this case actually involved two separate searches, with the first—the search for cigarettes—providing the suspicion that gave rise to the second-the search for marihuana."). A review of the facts found in T.L.O., and the Court's reasoning regarding the progression Of the first search of T.L.O. to the second, supports the conclusion that while reasonable suspicion may very well have justified the initial search of Savana's backpack and the emptying of her pockets, it was unreasonable to proceed from this first search to a strip search.
In T.L.O., a high school teacher discovered two girls smoking in a lavatory in violation of a school rule. 469 U.S. at 328, 105 S.Ct. 733. In response, the teacher brought the two girls down to the principal's office to discuss the infraction with the high school's vice principal. While T.L.O.'s friend admitted to smoking, in violation of a school rule, T.L.O. denied the allegation. Id. To determine whether to believe the denial, the vice principal brought T.L.O. into his private office and asked to see her purse. Id. As he opened the purse, the vice principal found a pack of cigarettes. Id. Reaching in for the cigarettes, the vice principal further discovered a package of rolling papers, closely associated with the use of marijuana. Id.
Having discovered indications that T.L.O.'s previous denial was false and that she possessed drug paraphernalia, the vice principal began a second and more intrusive search of T.L.O.'s purse. Id. This second search revealed "a small amount of marihuana, a pipe, a number of empty plastic bags, a substantial quantity of money in one-dollar bills, an index card that appeared to be a list of students who owed T.L.O. money, and two letters that implicated T.L.O. in marihuana dealing." Id.
The Court reasoned that the initial search of T.L.O.'s purse was reasonable because a teacher had reported that this particular student was smoking in the bathroom. Id. at 345-46, 105 S.Ct. 733. This report gave the vice principal reason to suspect T.L.O. had cigarettes on her person, and "if she did have cigarettes, her purse was the obvious place in which to find them." Id. at 346, 105 S.Ct. 733. This first search revealed not only corroboration of the vice principal's suspicion that T.L.O. was carrying cigarettes, but, by the discovery of rolling papers, also provided additional reasonable suspicion that T.L.O. may possess marijuana, thereby justifying a second, more intrusive search. Because the first search revealed information that supported reasonable suspicion that she possessed contraband, the Court concluded that "further exploration of T.L.O's purse" was justified. Id. at 347, 105 S.Ct. 733.
The causal link permitting the vice principal to proceed from his first, less intrusive search to a second, more thorough search—the discovery of cigarettes and rolling papers—is entirely absent here. The initial search of Savana's backpack (which, like T.L.O.'s purse, were "the obvious placets]" to find pills) did not turn up any ibuprofen. The T.L.O. Court concluded that the second search was reasonable because the preliminary search provided physical evidence supporting the vice principal's suspicion. Of course, the discovery of cigarettes also provided the vice principal with good reason to discount the veracity of T.L.O.'s denials. Here no such causal link existed. To the contrary: the initial search of Savana revealed nothing to suggest she possessed pills or that she was anything less than truthful when she emphatically stated she had never brought pills into the school. Following the logic of T.L.O., the initial search of Savana's backpack and her pockets may have been constitutionally permissible. That initial search, however, is not the search currently before us. Rather, we must analyze whether the subsequent strip search was justified at its inception.
Absent the sort of physical evidence found in T.L.O., the primary purported justification for the strip search was Marissa's statement that Savana had given her the ibuprofen that she was caught with in violation of the school's rule. This self-serving statement, which shifted the culpability for bringing the pills to school from Marissa to Savana, does not justify initiating a highly invasive strip search of a student who bore no other connection to the pills in question. We do not treat all informants' tips as equal in their reliability. See Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 147, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Rather, "[w]hen a court is considering whether an informant's tip is sufficient to support a finding of probable cause or reasonable suspicion, the court must employ a 'totality-of-the-circumstances approach' that takes into consideration the informant's 'veracity' or 'reliability' and his 'basis of knowledge.' " United States v. Rowland, 464 F.3d 899, 907 (9th Cir.2006). For good reason, we are most suspicious of those self-exculpatory tips that might unload potential punishment on a third party. See Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 133, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999) ("It is clear that our cases consistently have viewed an accomplice's statements that shift or spread the blame to a criminal defendant as falling outside the realm of those[categories of trustworthy statements]."). Our concerns are heightened when the informant is a frightened eighth grader caught red-handed by a principal. This is particularly so when the student implicates another who has not previously been tied to the contraband and, more generally, has no disciplinary history whatsoever at the school. More succinctly, the self-serving statement of a cornered teenager facing significant punishment does not meet the heavy burden necessary to justify a search accurately described by the Seventh Circuit as "demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant [and] embarrassing." Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263, 1272 (7th Cir.1983).
At a minimum, Assistant Principal Wilson should have conducted additional investigation to corroborate Marissa's "tip" before directing Savana into the nurse's office for disrobing. See Williams by Williams v. Ellington, 936 F.2d 881, 888-89 (6th Cir.1991) ("While there is concern that students will be motivated by malice and falsely implicate other students in wrongdoing, that type of situation would be analogous to the anonymous tip. Because the tip lacks reliability, school officials would be required to further investigate the matter before a search or seizure would be warranted."); Phaneuf, 448 F.3d at 598-99 ("While the uncorroborated tip no doubt justified additional inquiry and investigation by school officials, we are not convinced that it justified a step as intrusive as a strip search."). This need for further investigation is particularly heightened here because the initial tip provided no information as to whether Savana currently possessed ibuprofen pills or was hiding them in a place where a strip search would reveal them. See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 346, 105 S.Ct. 733 (recognizing distinction between reasonable places to search— such as purses—and other, less reasonable places). Several avenues were available for Wilson to follow up on Savana's general statement, including discussions with Sava-na's teachers, conversations with Savana's parents, or further questioning of other students. Certainly, the only "corroboration" Wilson received-Savana's adamant denial of possessing ibuprofen and a fruitless search of her backpack—did not serve to bolster the tip's reliability to a degree sufficient to justify a further and more intrusive search.
Nor are we persuaded that either Sava-na's admission that she lent Marissa the planner or any disputed allegation that she served alcohol six weeks before Marissa was found with the pills provided reasonable grounds to believe that a strip search of Savana would reveal ibuprofen. The planner that Savana lent to Marissa had not been used by Marissa to conceal ibuprofen. The ibuprofen, rather, had been concealed in Marissa's pockets, consistent with the information provided by Jordan linking Marissa alone to the ibuprofen. That Savana lent a planner to Marissa—in which Marissa concealed objects that violated Safford school rules—does not make it significantly more likely that Savana had anything to do with the pills carried in Marissa's pockets. Judge Hawkins's dissenting opinion appears satisfied that the planner cements Savana's friendly relationship with Marissa, and therefore makes Savana's involvement in pill distribution more likely. This is nothing more than "guilt-by-association," certainly too thin of a reed for such a substantial intrusion into Savana's expectations of privacy. See Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 178, 71 S.Ct. 624, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) ("The technique is guilt by association—one of the most odious institutions of history.... Guilt in our system is personal."). Moreover, Marissa's compounding number of school rule violations should reasonably have cast more suspicion on her own culpability, further undermining the reliability of her accusation of Savana. Further, Savana's mother had denied the family's involvement in providing alcohol to any student before the August school dance. Nevertheless, even if Savana had provided alcohol to students in August, that event does not make it more likely that an October strip search would reveal ibuprofen pills hidden in Savana's underwear. See Phaneuf, 448 F.3d at 600 ("The school acted unreasonably in treating all contraband alike: Surely, a discovery of cigarettes cannot alone support a suspicion that a student is carrying a firearm or is bootlegging gin. Without further explanation, the school cannot vault from the finding of one type of (commonly used) contraband, to a suspicion involving the smuggling of another.").
Comparing the facts leading to Savana's strip search to justifications offered for similar searches examined by our sister circuits further bolsters our conclusion that this strip search was not justified at its inception. In Cornfield, the Seventh Circuit found justifiable at its inception a strip search of a sixteen-year-old male enrolled in a high school behavioral disorder program. 991 F.2d at 1319. There, a disinterested teacher's aide observed that the student was "too well-endowed," suggesting that the student might be "crotching" drugs. Id. Information from third parties buttressed this observation, including another student's report that Cornfield had brought drugs onto campus, and a teacher's report that Cornfield admitted he had previously dealt drugs as well as "crotched" drugs during a police raid at his mother's house. Id. at 1322. Moreover, the local police had reported to the school that they received information that Cornfield was selling marijuana to other students. Id. Perhaps most importantly, the information provided a basis to believe that a strip search was necessary to reveal the contraband. These factors—teacher observations indicating the contraband was hidden in Cornfield's underwear, tips from impartial students, police reports, and previous student admissions—all distinguish Cornfield's search from that of Savana, whose only tie to the ibuprofen in question was Marissa's statements, which in this context, were unreliable.
Indeed, in Phaneuf, the Second Circuit struck down as unjustified a strip search of an eighteen-year-old girl as unjustified with facts far more favorable to the school officials than those present here. There, a disinterested student provided a tip to a teacher that Phaneuf, a student with a history of disciplinary problems, planned to stuff marijuana down her pants that day take along with her on the senior class picnic. Phaneuf, 448 F.3d at 593. Although the school had a specific tip that student was currently hiding drugs where only a strip search could discover them, and the school called the student's mother to perform the search, the Second Circuit determined that a student tip, even when not seeking to shift blame, justified only further inquiry and not a "step as intrusive as a strip search." Id. at 599. The circumstances the public school officials confronted here provided even less justification than those rejected in Phaneuf, considering the source of the tip, the content of the tip (including no information that Savana currently possessed pills in a place where a strip search would reveal them) and the history of the student in question.
The school initiated a strip search of Savana on the basis of an unsubstantiated tip from Marissa, a student seeking to shift blame from herself to Savana. Other facts marshaled by the school district— allegations of alcohol use months earlier, Jordan's tip that Marissa provided him with a pill, and Marissa's hidden contraband in a planner Savana lent her—are logically unrelated to a reasonable belief that Savana was hiding pills on her person. For these reasons, we hold that the strip search of Savana was unjustified at its inception.
Was the Strip Search Reasonable in Scope?
Nor was the strip search "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733 (internal quotation mark and citation omitted). The scope of a search is permissible only if "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, 105 S.Ct. 733 (emphasis added). Here, the public school authorities adopted a disproportionately extreme measure to search a thirteen-year-old girl for violating a school rule prohibiting possession of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. We conclude the strip search was not reasonably related to the search for ibuprofen, as the most logical places where the pills might have been found had already been searched to no avail, and no information pointed to the conclusion that the pills were hidden under her panties or bra (or that Savana's classmates would be willing to ingest pills previously stored in her underwear). Common sense informs us that directing a thirteen-year-old girl to remove her clothes, partially revealing her breasts and pelvic area, for allegedly possessing ibuprofen, an infraction that poses an imminent danger to no one, and which could be handled by keeping her in the principal's office until a parent arrived or simply sending her home, was excessively intrusive.
Along our we have long recognized the psychological trauma intrinsic to a strip search. "The feelings of humiliation and degradation associated with forcibly exposing one's nude body to strangers for visual inspection is beyond dispute." Thompson v. City of Los Angeles, 885 F.2d 1439, 1446 (9th Cir.1989) (challenging a strip search of an adult after arrest for grand-theft auto). As the Tenth Circuit has explained, "[t]he experience of disrobing and exposing one's self for visual inspection by a stranger clothed with the uniform and authority of the state . can only be seen as thoroughly degrading and frightening." Chapman v. Nichols, 989 F.2d 393, 396 (10th Cir.1993) (challenging strip search policy of Oklahoma jail). That Savana's search took place in a nurse's office in front of two women does not remove the sting of the procedure. See Hunter v. Auger, 672 F.2d 668, 674 (8th Cir.1982) ("Indeed, a strip search, regardless how professionally and courteously conducted, is an embarrassing and humiliating experience.").
These concerns, pressing and legitimate when strip searches are conducted on adults in prison, are magnified when strip searches are performed on school children. As the Supreme Court has noted: "[Y]outh is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage." Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 115, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). As adolescents enter puberty, "they become more conscious of their bodies and self-conscious about them. Consequently, the potential for a search to cause embarrassment and humiliation increases as children grow older." Cornfield, 991 F.2d at 1321 n. 1. "[N]o one would seriously dispute that a nude search of a child is traumatic." Id. at 1321.
As Amicus National Association of Social Workers informs us, psychological research supports these judicial observations. "Clinical evaluations of the [young] victims of strip searches indicate that they can result in serious emotional damage, including the development of, or increase in, oppositional behavior." Irwin A. Hyman & Donna C. Perone, The Other Side of School Violence: Educator Policies and Practices that May Contribute to Student Misbehavior, 36 J. School Psychology 7, 13 (1998). "Psychological experts have also testified that victims often suffered post-search symptoms including sleep disturbance, recurrent and intrusive recollections of the event, inability to concentrate, anxiety, depression and development of phobic reactions, and that some victims have been moved to attempt suicide." Stephen F. Shatz et al., The Strip Search of Children and the Fourth Amendment, 26 U.S.F. L. Rev. 1, 12 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, that the student is "viewed rather than touched, do[es] not diminish the trauma experienced by the child." Jess Ann White, A Study of Strip Searching in Pennsylvania Public Schools and an Analysis of the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs of Pennsylvania Public School Administrators Regarding Strip Searching 37 (2000) (on file with the Temple University Graduate Board). The overzealousness of school administrators in efforts to protect students has the tragic impact of traumatizing those they claim to serve.
And all this to find prescription-strength ibuprofen pills. We reject Safford's effort to lump together these run-of-the-mill anti-inflammatory pills with the evocative term "prescription drugs," in a knowing effort to shield an imprudent strip search of a young girl behind a larger war against drugs. Contrary to Judge Hawkins's assertion, we are not "implicitly expressing] disagreement" with the Safford Middle School's policy J-3050. Rather, we are following T.L.O.'s dictate to evaluate whether a search is "excessively intrusive in light of the . nature of the infraction." T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342, 105 S.Ct. 733. Nothing in the record provides any evidence that the school officials were concerned in this case about controlled substances violative of state or federal law. No legal decision cited to us or that we could find permitted a strip search to discover substances regularly available over counter at any convenience store throughout the United States. See, e.g., Williams, 936 F.2d at 882 (considering a strip search to discover either cocaine or a of "Rush"); Cornfield, 991 F.2d at 1323 (reviewing a strip search conducted find marijuana or other controlled substances); Phaneuf, 448 F.3d at 593 (rejecting a strip search to uncover marijuana). And contrary to any suggestion that finding the ibuprofen was an urgent matter to avoid a parade of horribles, even if Savana had possessed the ibuprofen pills, any danger they posed was neutralized once school officials seized Savana and held her in the assistant principal's office. Savana had no means at that point to distribute the pills, and whatever immediately threatening activity the school may have perceived by the alleged possession of prescription-strength ibuprofen had been thwarted. The school officials had only to send Savana home for the afternoon to prevent the rumored lunchtime distribution from taking place—assuming she in fact possessed the pills on her person. The lack of any immediate danger to students only further diminishes the initial minimal nature of the alleged infraction of bringing ibuprofen onto campus. As the Court pointed out in T.L.O., a school is not a prison; the students are not inmates. See 469 U.S. at 338, 105 S.Ct. 733. We hasten to note, however, that if Savana had been accused of a federal crime, she would have been entitled to more legal protections that she received here. See 18 U.S.C. § 5033 ("Whenever a juvenile is taken into custody for an alleged act of juvenile delinquency, the arresting officer shall . immediately notify the Attorney General and the juvenile's parents, guardian, or custodian of such custody."); United States v. C.M., 485 F.3d 492, 499 n. 1 (9th Cir.2007) (noting that "the officer must also advise the parents that they are permitted to speak their gated").
As the Seventh Circuit reasoned in Cornfield, "a highly intrusive search in response to a minor infraction would . not comport with the sliding scale advocated by the Supreme Court in T.L.O." 991 F.2d at 1320. Here, we have exactly such a scenario with the important additional variable that the subject of the search was a thirteen-year-old pubescent girl. Approving such a strip search would eviscerate the Supreme Court's stated goal of developing a standard that "ensurefs] that the interests of students will be invaded no more than is necessary to achieve the legitimate end of preserving order in the schools." T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 343, 105 S.Ct. 733. We therefore conclude that the strip search was impermissible in scope. The Safford public school officials violated Savana's Fourth Amendment rights.
Was the Right of a Girl to Be Free from Strip Searches on Suspicion of Possessing Ibuprofen Clearly Established in 2003?
Having search violated Savana's constitutional rights, we must consider whether those rights were clearly established at the time of the search. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151. That there is no case precisely on all fours does not preclude the conclusion that the Fourth Amendment right at issue was clearly established when the school officials stripped and searched Savana. See Drummond ex rel. Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d 1052, 1060-61 (9th Cir.2003) ("[I]t is not necessary that the alleged acts have been previously held unconstitutional, as long as the unlawfulness was apparent in light of existing law."). We ask whether "it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he con fronted." Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151.
As of 1985, when the Supreme Court issued T.L.O., the legal framework was clearly established that would put school officials on notice that a strip search was not a reasonable measure to use on a thirteen-year-old girl accused by an unreliable student informant of having ibuprofen in violation of school rules. In T.L.O., the Supreme Court carefully instructed school officials as to the twofold inquiry that must be made before they engage even in a minimally intrusive search: whether the search was justified at its inception and whether it was reasonable in scope in light of the nature of the infraction and the age and gender of the student. 469 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733. The Safford authorities conducted their search almost twenty years after the Supreme Court's instructions issued in T.L.O. A reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a thirteen-year-old girl to a traumatic search to "protect" her from the danger of Advil. Indeed, the school officials' actions here were so patently in defiance of the considered approach T.L.O. dictates, that it is little wonder that we can find no case presenting identical facts.
Common sense and reason supplement the federal reporters. The T.L.O. Court expected no less of those to whom we entrust our children, leaving teachers to "regulate their conduct according to the dictates of reason and common sense." 469 U.S. at 343, 105 S.Ct. 733. Simply put: "It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a thirteen-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude. More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity." Calabretta v. Floyd, 189 F.3d 808, 819 (9th Cir.1999) (quoting Doe v. Renfrow, 631 F.2d 91, 92-93 (7th Cir.1980)).
Earlier this year, the Sixth Circuit similarly recognized that some safeguards on government intrusion remain self-evident and do not require a case on point to prevent government officials from hiding behind the cloak of qualified immunity. In Brannum v. Overton County School Board, 516 F.3d 489 (6th Cir.2008), middle school students brought suit against the school district for installing and operating video surveillance equipment in the boys' and girls' locker rooms at their school. The court's stirring prose reminds us that "[s]ome personal liberties are so fundamental to human dignity as to need no specific explication in our Constitution in order to ensure their protection against government invasion. Surreptitiously videotaping [middle school students] in various states of undress is plainly among them." Id. at 499. Rejecting a claim of qualified immunity, the court concluded that "a person of ordinary common sense, to say nothing of professional school administrators, would know without need for special instruction from a federal court, that teenagers have an inherent personal dignity, a sense of decency and self-respect, and a sensitivity about their bodily privacy that are at the core of their personal liberty." Id. Even without a specific case on point, "[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.
We adopt the reasoning of the Sixth Circuit. School children, as the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate. Morse v. Frederick, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 2618, 2622, 168 L.Ed.2d 290 (2007) (citing Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969)). This principle and the guidance provided by T.L.O. should have been clear to the school officials, who undertook the professional obligation to balance properly the order of the school with the individual liberties of the students who enter the school.
We hold that Savana's rights were clearly established at the time that Assistant Principal Wilson, in his official capacity, initiated and directed the strip search. The record before us leaves no doubt that it would have been clear to a reasonable school official in Wilson's position that the strip search violated Savana's constitutional rights, and we therefore reverse summary judgment as to him and the school district. However, on the record before us, it is clear that the school nurse, Schwallier, and Wilson's assistant, Romero, acted solely pursuant to Wilson's instructions and not as independent decision-makers, and, thus, we affirm summary judgment as to them. Cf. Ramirez v. Butte-Silver Bow County, 298 F.3d 1022, 1028 (9th Cir.2002) (noting that for subordinate police officers involved in a search "so long as they ma[k]e inquiry into the nature and scope of [the] warrant, reliance on their leaders' representations about it is reasonable").
III. CONCLUSION
The strip search of thirteen-year-old Savana did not satisfy either prong of T.L.O. and therefore was conducted in violation of Savana's Fourth Amendment rights. These constitutional principles were clearly established by the United States Supreme Court twenty years before the Safford school officials conducted the strip search of thirteen-year-old Savana. Therefore, we reverse the district court's determination that there was no violation of Savana's constitutional rights, conclude that the constitutional principles were clearly established as to Assistant Principal Wilson, affirm the grant of qualified immunity as to Schwallier and Romero, and remand for further proceedings consistent herewith.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.
. As with many middle schools throughout our circuit, Safford Middle School educates sixth through eighth graders. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1430 (1986) (defining middle school as "a division in some private or public schools embracing or approximately embracing the upper elementary grades"). Traditionally, middle school students range in age from eleven to fourteen.
. Savana had let Marissa use the planner because Marissa wanted to hide some things from her parents; specifically, cigarettes, a lighter and some jewelry.
. Because the School District brought the motion for summary judgment, we must construe the record in the light most favorable to the Reddings. See Bank of New York v. Fremont Gen. Corp., 523 F.3d 902, 909 (9th Cir.2008) ("[W]e must view the evidence on summary judgment in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of that party.").
. Naprosyn, like ibuprofen, is used to treat pain and inflammation. See Physician's Desk Reference 2725 (62nd ed.2008). It is most commonly found in Aleve, a popular over-the-counter choice to treat discomfort related to menstrual cramps.
. Inexplicably, although Marissa was the one found with the pills, the search conducted on Marissa was less intrusive than that later conducted on Savana, whose only link to the pills was Marissa's uncorroborated "tip." School officials asked Marissa only to lift her shirt, not to remove it entirely, as they did with Savana. The third student suspect was a boy named Chris. He was the only student suspected of the same infraction that day not required to strip for the school officials' inspection.
. Because the district court and the majority of the three judge panel decided that a constitutional right was not violated, we, sitting en banc, are required to decide that question. It is of no consequence at this juncture of the appeal in which order the Saucier questions are addressed. It is not necessary, therefore, to defer decision pending the Supreme Court's decision whether to overrule Saucier's two-step inquiry. See Pearson v. Callahan, - U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 1702, 170 L.Ed.2d 512, 2008 WL 754340 (Mar. 24, 2008).
. Judge Hawkins's dissenting opinion gives little weight to the substantial privacy interests of the child identified by the Supreme Court, focusing almost entirely on the school's interest in order. Yet the Supreme Court instructed that the reasonableness standard involved two equally important goals: preserving the school's need for order while ensuring that the "interests of students would be invaded no more than is necessary" to preserve such order. Id. at 343, 105 S.Ct. 733.
. Notably, at least seven states—including two in this Circuit—have concluded that strip searches of school children are never permissible for any reason. See Cal. Educ. Code § 49050; Iowa Code § 808 A.2(4)(a); Okla. Stat. tit. 70, § 24-102; N.J. Stat. Ann. § 18A:37-6.1; S.C. Code Ann. § 59-63-1140; Wash. Rev. Code § 28A.600.230(3); Wis. Stat. § 948.50(3).
. That the dissent chooses to merge the two searches into one with an increasing degree of intrusiveness does little to advance the analysis of T.L.O. and its application to the strip search here.
. Judge Hawkins inconsistently embraces Jordan's credibility when it serves his cause of attempting to discredit Savana with the months-earlier alcohol allegation but is quick to dismiss Jordan when his statements support Savana's credibility and complete innocence. The dissent accepts Jordan's recollection of Savana's party a month and a half earlier to suggest that Savana provided students with alcohol, yet does not give the same force to Jordan's statement that earlier that very day Marissa—and not Savana—had given him the ibuprofen.
. Again, because we accept the facts of the party opposing qualified immunity to determine whether a constitutional violation could be found, we credit this account of events. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151.
. T.L.O. requires us to measure the intrusiveness of the search in light of the "age and sex " of the student. Here, the gender of the students suspected of possessing ibuprofen did make a difference: only the girls were asked to disrobe. Chris, a male student, was only to empty shirt and shake his pants up and down. That Savana was subjected to a more intrusive search than that deemed necessary for the boy renders it all the more unreasonable.
. There need not be judicial unanimity for us to conclude that a right was clearly established to a reasonable officer. Indeed, majorities on the Supreme Court and the various circuits have declared a right clearly established over the dissents of their colleagues. See, e.g., Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 124 S.Ct. 1284, 157 L.Ed.2d 1068 (2004); Evans-Marshall v. Bd. of Educ. of Tipp City Exempted Vill. Sch. Dist., 428 F.3d 223 (6th Cir.2005); Johnson v. Hawe, 388 F.3d 676 (9th Cir.2004).
. We wish to note the basis for our reliance upon Brannum. This decision did not put Safford school officials on notice as to the unconstitutionality of the search, not only because Brannum deals with a suspicionless video search of a locker room, but also because the Sixth Circuit reached its decision five years after the search of Savana. Rather, we rely upon the sound reasoning of Brannum that is equally applicable to a factually distinguishable search, such as the one currently before us. Like the Sixth Circuit, we con-elude that a reasonable school official did not need direction in the form of a factually indistinguishable case resolved by a federal court to understand disrobing a thirteen-year-old girl to search for ibuprofen violated the student's constitutional rights anymore than it needed a case to know it should not videotape a middle school locker room. The "dictates of reason and common sense," and the two-step inquiry of T.L.O. should have sufficed. See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 343, 105 S.Ct. 733.