Opinion ID: 3052302
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Constitutionality of the Strip Search

Text: 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 (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 6 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, __ S. Ct. __, 2008 WL 754340 (Mar. 24, 2008). REDDING v. SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 8433 platitudes.” Id. (citing W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 637 (1943)). [1] To implement these principles, the Court established “the proper standard for assessing the legality of searches conducted by public school officials.” Id. at 328. 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. 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. 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 (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. 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.”7 Id. at 339. 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. [2] The Court set forth a twofold inquiry to gauge reasonableness: “[F]irst, one must consider ‘whether the . . . action 7