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 own-ing the planner,
but said that she had lent it to her friend
Marissaand that the contraband was not hers. He
then produced four pre-scription-strength, and one
over-the-counter, pain relief pills, all ofwhich
are banned under school rules without advance
permission.She denied knowledge of them, but Wilson
said that he had a reportthat she was giving pills
to fellow students. She denied it and agreed to let
him search her belongings. He and Helen Romero, an
adminis-trative assistant, searched Savana’s
backpack, finding nothing. Wil-son 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 topull her bra out
and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her
un-derpants, 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, allegingthat the strip search violated
Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights.Claiming
qualified immunity, the individuals (hereinafter
petition-ers) 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 evalu-ating 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 es-tablished at the
time of the search, it reversed the summary
judg-ment 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 Amend-ment. Pp. 3–11.
(a)
For school searches, “the public interest
is best served by aFourth Amendment standard of
reasonableness that stops short ofprobable
cause.” T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 341. Under the
resulting rea-sonable 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 re-quired knowledge component of
reasonable suspicion for a school
ad-ministrator’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’sbackpack 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 camefrom
Marissa. Learning that the pill was prescription
strength, Wil-son 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 over-the-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 behiding them. After a search of
Marissa’s underwear by Romero and Schwallier
revealed no additional pills, Wilson called Savana
into hisoffice. He showed her the day planner and
confirmed her relation-ship with Marissa. He knew
that the girls had been identified as part of an
unusually rowdy group at a school dance, during
which al-cohol 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 Sa-vana’s house where
alcohol was served. Thus, Marissa’s statement
that the pills came from Savana was sufficiently
plausible to warrantsuspicion that Savana was
involved in pill distribution. A student who is
reasonably suspected of giving out contraband pills
is rea-sonably suspected of carrying them on her
person and in her back-pack. Looking into
Savana’s bag, in her presence and in the
relativeprivacy 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 indi-cate 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 un-derwear. Romero and
Schwallier said that they did not see anythingwhen
Savana pulled out her underwear, but a strip search
and itsFourth Amendment consequences are not
defined by who was looking and how much was seen.
Savana’s actions in their presence
neces-sarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to
some degree, and bothsubjective and reasonable
societal expectations of personal privacysupport
the treatment of such a search as categorically
distinct, re-quiring distinct elements of
justification on the part of school authori-ties
for going beyond a search of outer clothing and
belongings. Sa-vana’s subjective expectation
of privacy is inherent in her account of it as
embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The
reasonable-ness of her expectation is indicated by
the common reaction of other young people similarly
searched, whose adolescent vulnerability
in-tensifies the exposure’s patent
intrusiveness. Its indignity does notoutlaw the
search, but it does implicate the rule that
“the search [be]‘reasonably
related in scope to the circumstances which
justified theinterference in the first place.’
” T. L. O., supra, at 341. Here, the content
of the suspicion failed to match the degree of
intrusion. Be-cause Wilson knew that the pills were
common pain relievers, hemust have known of their
nature and limited threat and had no rea-son to
suspect that large amounts were being passed around
or thatindividual students had great quantities.
Nor could he have sus-pected that Savana was hiding
common painkillers in her underwear.When suspected
facts must support the categorically extreme
intru-siveness of a search down to an
adolescent’s body, petitioners’ general
belief that students hide contraband in their
clothing falls short; areasonable search that
extensive calls for suspicion that it will
suc-ceed. Nondangerous school contraband does not
conjure up the spec-ter of stashes in intimate
places, and there is no evidence of such be-havior
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 heavilyagainst 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
fromliability 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 cir-cumstances, but lower court cases viewing
school strip searches dif-ferently are numerous
enough, with well-reasoned majority and dis-senting
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
ad-dressed 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 thepreliminary print
of the United States Reports. Readers are requested
tonotify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court
of the United States, Wash-ington, D. C. 20543, of
any typographical or other formal errors, in
orderthat 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 FourthAmendment right was violated
when she was subjected toa search of her bra and
underpants by school officialsacting on reasonable
suspicion that she had brought for-bidden
prescription and over-the-counter drugs to school.
Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs
pre-sented 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 whichthe 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 assis-tant principal of the school,
Kerry Wilson, came into theroom 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, MarissaGlines. Savana stated that none
of the items in the plan-ner belonged to her.
Wilson then showed Savana four white
prescription-strength ibuprofen 400-mg pills, and
one over-the-counter blue naproxen 200-mg pill, all
used for pain and inflam-mation 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 Ro-mero, an administrative assistant, came
into the office, and together with Wilson they
searched Savana’s back-pack, finding
nothing.
At that point, Wilson instructed Romero to take
Savanato 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 stretchpants and a
T-shirt (both without pockets), which she wasthen
asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to
pullher bra out and to the side and shake it, and
to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus
exposing her breastsand pelvic area to some degree.
No pills were found.
Savana’s mother filed suit against Safford
UnifiedSchool District #1, Wilson, Romero, and
Schwallier for conducting a strip search in
violation of Savana’s FourthAmendment rights.
The individuals (hereinafter petition-ers) 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 NinthCircuit
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 stripsearch was unjustified under the
Fourth Amendment testfor 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” inthat they inhere in all of us,
particularly middle school teenagers, and are
inherent in the privacy component of the Fourth
Amendment’s proscription against unreason-able
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 Schwal-lier, the school
nurse, and Romero, the administrative assistant,
since they had not acted as independent
deci-sionmakers. 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 tohave 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 “re-quires some modification of the
level of suspicion of illicitactivity needed to
justify a search,” 469 U. S., at 340, and held
that for searches by school officials “a
careful balanc-ing of governmental and private
interests suggests thatthe 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 ofreasonable 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
relatedto the objectives of the search and not
excessively intru-sive 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
im-plicit bearing on the reliable knowledge element
of rea-sonable 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 (Mar-shall, 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
stan-dards are “fluid concepts that take their
substantive con-tent from the particular
contexts” in which they are beingassessed.
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U. S. 690, 696
(1996).
Perhaps the best that can be said generally
about therequired 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 crimi-nal 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 thenonmedical use, possession, or
sale of any drug on schoolgrounds, 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 andAssistant
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 MarissaGlines 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 administra-tors
to determine without second-guessing by courts
lacking the experi-ence to appreciate what may be
needed. Except in patently arbitrary instances,
Fourth Amendment analysis takes the rule as a
given, as itobviously should do in this case. There
is no need here either to explainthe 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 enforce-able fast. The
plenary ban makes sense, and there is no basis to
claimthat 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, containingvarious contraband
items. Wilson escorted Marissa back to his
office.
In the presence of Helen Romero, Wilson
requestedMarissa to turn out her pockets and open
her wallet.Marissa produced a blue pill, several
white ones, and arazor 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
itscontents; Marissa denied knowing anything about
them. Wilson did not ask Marissa any followup
questions todetermine 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 anti-inflammatory drug,
generically called naproxen, availableover the
counter. At Wilson’s direction, Marissa was
then subjected to a search of her bra and
underpants by Ro-mero and Schwallier, as Savana was
later on. The search revealed no additional
pills.
—————— 2Poison
control centers across the country maintain 24-hour
helphotlines to provide “immediate access to
poison exposure managementinstructions and
information on potential poisons.” American
Associa-tion 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 conver-sation established that
Savana and Marissa were on friendly terms: while
she denied knowledge of the contra-band, Savana
admitted that the day planner was hers and that she
had lent it to Marissa. Wilson had other reportsof
their friendship from staff members, who had
identifiedSavana and Marissa as part of an
unusually rowdy groupat 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
contra-band, 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 suffi-ciently
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
isreasonably suspected of carrying them on her
person and in the carryall that has become an item
of student uniformin most places today. If
Wilson’s reasonable suspicion of pill
distribution were not understood to support
searchesof outer clothes and backpack, it would not
justify any search worth making. And the look into
Savana’s bag, inher presence and in the
relative privacy of Wilson’s office,was not
excessively intrusive, any more than
Romero’ssubsequent 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 reason-able
suspicion, for it is common ground that Savana had
a reasonable expectation of privacy covering the
personal things she chose to carry inher 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
Amend-ment.
8
SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 v.
REDDING
Opinion of the Court
B
Here it is that the parties part company, with
Savana’sclaim that extending the search at
Wilson’s behest to the point of making her
pull out her underwear was constitu-tionally
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
under-pants. Id., at 23a. Although Romero and
Schwallierstated that they did not see anything
when Savana fol-lowed 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 litigationabout who was
looking and how much was seen. The veryfact 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 societalexpectations of personal privacy
support the treatment ofsuch a search as
categorically distinct, requiring distinctelements
of justification on the part of school
authoritiesfor 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 stan-dard) is indicated by the
consistent experiences of other young people
similarly searched, whose adolescent vulner-ability
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
Psychol-ogy 7, 13 (1998) (strip search can
“result in serious emo-tional 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 naked-ness 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 sus-pected 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 maybe, 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 statedin T. L. O., that “the
search as actually conducted [be]
reasonably related in scope to the circumstances
whichjustified the interference in the first
place.” 469 U. S., at 341 (internal quotation
marks omitted). The scope will bepermissible, that
is, when it is “not excessively intrusive
inlight of the age and sex of the student and the
nature ofthe infraction.” Id., at 342.
Here, the content of the suspicion failed to
match thedegree of intrusion. Wilson knew
beforehand that the pillswere 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 quantitiesthat 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 numbersof pills.
Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana
washiding common painkillers in her underwear.
Petitioners suggest, as a truth universally
acknowledged, that “stu-dents . . .
hid[e] contraband in or under their
clothing,” Reply Brief for Petitioners 8, and
cite a smattering ofcases of students with
contraband in their underwear, id., at 8–9.
But when the categorically extreme intrusivenessof
a search down to the body of an adolescent
requiressome justification in suspected facts,
general background possibilities fall short; a
reasonable search that extensivecalls for suspicion
that it will pay off. But nondangerousschool
contraband does not raise the specter of stashes
inintimate places, and there is no evidence in the
record of any general practice among Safford Middle
School stu-dents 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 de-termined when
Marissa had received the pills from Sa-vana; 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 thestudents 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 hismotive 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 theirchildren from danger, and a school
official with responsi-bility 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 mustpay 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 re-quires 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
degradationits subject may reasonably feel, place a
search that intru-sive in a category of its own
demanding its own specificsuspicions.
IV A school official searching a student is
“entitled to quali-fied immunity where clearly
established law does not showthat 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 “thevery action in question
[have] previously been held
unlaw-ful.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603,
615 (1999). The unconstitutionality of outrageous
conduct obviously will beunconstitutional, 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 noticethat 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
intrusive-ness 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 thestrip search here cannot be
seen as justifiably related tothe 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 ab-stractions, 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 “toestablish clearly the contours
of a Fourth Amendmentright . . . [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) (grant-ing qualified immunity to a teacher
and police officer whoconducted a group strip
search of a fifth grade class when looking for a
missing $26).
We think these differences of opinion from our
own aresubstantial enough to require immunity for
the school officials in this case. We would not
suggest that entitle-ment 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 ofjudges,
disagrees about the contours of a right does
notautomatically render the law unclear if we have
beenclear. That said, however, the cases viewing
school stripsearches differently from the way we
see them are numer-ous enough, with well-reasoned
majority and dissenting opinions, to counsel doubt
that we were sufficiently clearin 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
unreasonableand a violation of the Fourth
Amendment, but petitionersWilson, Romero, and
Schwallier are nevertheless pro-tected from
liability through qualified immunity. Our
conclusions here do not resolve, however, the
question of the liability of petitioner Safford
Unified School District #1under 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 thereforeaffirmed in part and reversed in part,
and this case isremanded 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),
theCourt 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 evi-dence 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 unconsti-tutional a strip search of a
13-year-old honors student that was based on a
groundless suspicion that she might behiding
medicine in her underwear. This is, in essence, a
case in which clearly established law meets clearly
outra-geous conduct. I have long believed that
“‘[i]t does notrequire a
constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude
search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of
constitu-tional 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 bothmore intrusive and
less justified than the search of thestudent’s
purse in T. L. O. Therefore, while I join Parts
I–III of the Court’s opinion, I disagree
with its decision toextend qualified immunity to
the school official who au-thorized this
unconstitutional search.
The Court reaches a contrary conclusion about
qualified immunity based on the fact that various
Courts of Appealshave adopted seemingly divergent
views about T. L. O.’s application to strip
searches. Ante, at 12. But the clarityof 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
so-called “consent-once-removed”
doctrine); Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 618
(1999) (considering conflicting views onthe
constitutionality of law enforcement’s
practice of al-lowing the media to enter a private
home to observe and film attempted arrests), we
have relied on that considera-tion 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); empha-sis added). In this case,
by contrast, we chart no new constitutional path.
We merely decide whether the deci-sion to strip
search Savana Redding, on these facts,
wasprohibited 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, Bil-brey v. Brown, 738 F. 2d
1462 (1984), which held that a strip
searchperformed 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 offi-cial’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
accusa-tion for veracity by asking Glines when did
Redding giveher the pills, where, for what purpose.
Any reasonablesearch 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 hid-den
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 searchwas confined to the student’s
purse, the search of Reddinginvolved her body and
rested on the bare accusation ofanother student
whose reliability the Assistant Principalhad 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 be-comes
“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 slimbasis for suspecting
Savana Redding, and her “age and sex,”
ibid., establish beyond doubt that Assistant
PrincipalWilson’s order cannot be reconciled
with this Court’s opinion in T. L. O.
Wilson’s treatment of Redding wasabusive 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 immu-nity plea, and would
affirm the Court of Appeals’ judg-ment 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
partand dissenting in part.
I agree with the Court that the judgment against
theschool officials with respect to qualified
immunity shouldbe 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 majorityimposes a
vague and amorphous standard on school
ad-ministrators. It also grants judges sweeping
authority tosecond-guess the measures that these
officials take tomaintain discipline in their
schools and ensure the health and safety of the
students in their charge. This deepintrusion into
the administration of public schools exem-plifies
why the Court should return to the common-law
doctrine of in loco parentis under which “the
judiciary wasreluctant to interfere in the routine
business of school administration, allowing schools
and teachers to set andenforce 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
estab-lished by New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S.
325 (1985), all petitioners, including the school
district, are entitled tojudgment 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 rea-sonable, what is reasonable depends
on the context within which a search takes
place.” Id., at 337. Thus, althoughpublic
school students retain Fourth Amendment rightsunder
this Court’s precedent, see id., at
333–337, those rights “are different . .
. than elsewhere; the ‘reasonable-ness’
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 inthe classroom and on
school grounds”). For nearly 25years this
Court has understood that
“[m]aintaining orderin the classroom
has never been easy, but in more recentyears,
school disorder has often taken particularly
uglyforms: 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
some-times 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 tomaintain 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 beable 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 itsinception’”
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 offi-cial will be ‘justified at
its inception’ when there are rea-sonable
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 Reddingpossessed medication that
violated school rules. See ante, at 7. A finding of
reasonable suspicion “does not deal withhard
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 stan-dard, more than a mere
“hunch” of wrongdoing is required,but
“considerably” less suspicion is needed
than would berequired 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 reason-able
“particularized and objective” basis for
conducting asearch based on suspected wrongdoing,
government offi-cials must consider the
“totality of the circumstances.” Id., at
273 (internal quotation marks omitted). School
officials have a specialized understanding of the
school environ-ment, 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 situa-tion 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 non-prescription drugs in
violation of the school’s prohibition of the
“non-medical use, possession, or sale of a
drug” onschool 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 aclassmate. App. 10a. Fourth Amendment
searches do not occur in a vacuum; rather, context
must inform the judi-cial inquiry. See Cortez,
supra, at 417–418. In this in-stance, the
suspicion of drug possession arose at a
middleschool that had “a history of problems
with students usingand distributing prohibited and
illegal substances on campus.” App. 7a,
10a.
The school’s substance-abuse problems had
not abatedby the 2003–2004 school year, which
is when the chal-lenged search of Redding took
place. School officials had found alcohol and
cigarettes in the girls’ bathroom duringthe
first school dance of the year and noticed that a
group of students including Redding and Marissa
Glines smelledof 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 reportto
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 bringingdrugs and weapons on
campus.” Id., at 8a, 11a. One week later,
Romero handed the assistant principal a white
pillthat he said he had received from Glines. Id.,
at 11a. He reported “that a group of students
[were] planning ontaking the pills at
lunch.” Ibid.
School officials justifiably took quick action
in light ofthe lunchtime deadline. The assistant
principal took the pill to the school nurse who
identified it as prescription-strength 400-mg
Ibuprofen. Id., at 12a. A subsequentsearch 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 un-covered “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
relevantcircumstances justified a search of Redding
for pills.1
B The remaining question is whether the search
wasreasonable 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
materialsin 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 eventhough “T. L. O. had
been accused of smoking, and had denied
theaccusation in the strongest possible terms when
she stated that she didnot 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 re-lated in scope to
the circumstances which justified theinterference
in the first place,’” see ante, at
8–11, notwith-standing the officials’
reasonable suspicion that Redding“was involved
in pill distribution,” ante, at 7. According
tothe majority, to be reasonable, this school
search required a showing of “danger to the
students from the power of thedrugs or their
quantity” or a “reason to suppose that
[Red-ding] was carrying pills in her
underwear.” Ante, at 10. Each of these
additional requirements is an unjustifiable
departure from bedrock Fourth Amendment law in
theschool setting, where this Court has heretofore
read theFourth Amendment to grant considerable
leeway to school officials. Because the school
officials searched in a loca-tion where the pills
could have been hidden, the search was reasonable
in scope under T. L. O.
1 The majority finds that “subjective and
reasonablesocietal expectations of personal privacy
support . . . treat[ing]” this type of
search, which it labels a “stripsearch,”
as “categorically distinct, requiring distinct
ele-ments 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 asearch 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 distinc-tion between a strip
search and the search at issue in this case may
beslight, 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 astrip search, complete
with inspection of the rectal area”); Bell v.
Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 558, and n. 39 (1979)
(describing visual inspec-tion 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 tothe area that is
capable of concealing the object of thesearch. See,
e.g., Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 307
(1999) (Police officers “may inspect
passengers’ be-longings found in the car that
are capable of concealingthe object of the
search”); Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U. S. 248,
251 (1991) (“The scope of a search is
generally defined byits expressed object”);
United States v. Johns, 469 U. S. 478, 487 (1985)
(search reasonable because “there is
noplausible 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 . . .
gen-erally extends to the entire area in which the
object of thesearch may be found”).3
In keeping with this longstanding rule, the
“nature ofthe infraction” referenced in
T. L. O. delineates the properscope 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. Califor-nia, 496 U. S.
128, 141 (1990) (“Police with a warrant for
arifle may search only places where rifles might
be” (inter-nal 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’scases 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 objec-tively 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
campusin 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 waspermissible under that standard is
straightforward.Indeed, the majority does not
dispute that “general back-ground
possibilities” establish that students conceal
“con-traband in their underwear.” Ante,
at 10. It acknowledgesthat school officials had
reasonable suspicion to look inRedding’s
backpack and outer clothing because if
“Wilson’sreasonable suspicion of pill
distribution were not under-stood 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 thepills would have ended when inspection of
Redding’sbackpack and jacket pockets yielded
nothing”). But there is no support for this
conclusion. The reasonable suspicionthat Redding
possessed the pills for distribution purposesdid
not dissipate simply because the search of her
back-pack 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
suchgoods must be withheld from public
view”).
Redding would not have been the first person to
concealpills 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 hydro-codone pills were found in her
pants”); Caywood, PoliceVehicle Chase Leads to
Drug Arrests, [Worcester] Tele-gram &
Gazette, June 7, 2008, p. A7 (25-year-old
“alleg-edly had a cigar tube stuffed with
pills tucked into thewaistband 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’sdecision, which
announces the safest place to secrete contraband in
school.
2 The majority compounds its error by reading
the “natureof the infraction” aspect of
the T. L. O. test as a license to limit searches
based on a judge’s assessment of a particu-lar
school policy. According to the majority, the scope
ofthe 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
drugswere 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 retreatsfrom
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 notattacking the rule’s
reasonableness, it certainly is attack-ing 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
ofschool rules.” 469 U. S., at 342, n. 9.
Indeed, the Court in
T. L. O. expressly rejected the proposition that
the major-ity seemingly endorses—that
“some rules regarding stu-dent conduct are by
nature too ‘trivial’ to justify a
searchbased 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
consti-tutional guarantee, the courts should as a
general matter, defer to that judgment”).
The majority’s decision in this regard also
departs fromanother basic principle of the Fourth
Amendment: thatlaw enforcement officials can
enforce with the same vigor all rules and
regulations irrespective of the perceivedimportance
of any of those rules. “In a long line of
cases, we have said that when an officer has
probable cause tobelieve a person committed even a
minor crime in hispresence, the balancing of
private and public interests isnot 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 theperceived triviality of the
underlying law. As we have explained, requiring
police to make “sensitive, case-by-case
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
“impossi-ble spot” by questioning whether
possession of Ibuprofen and Naproxen causes a
severe enough threat to warrantinvestigation. Had
the suspected infraction involved astreet drug, the
majority implies that it would have ap-proved the
scope of the search. See ante, at 9 (relying onthe
“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 replaceda school
rule that draws no distinction among drugs with
anew one that does. As a result, a full search of a
student’s person for prohibited drugs will be
permitted only if theCourt 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 theparticular
infraction at issue is not severe enough to
war-rant an intrusive investigation.4
—————— 4 JUSTICE
GINSBURG suggests that requiring Redding to
“sit on a chairoutside [the assistant
principal’s] office for over two
hours” and failing to call her parents before
conducting the search constitutes an
“[a]buseof authority” that
“should not be shielded by official
immunity.” See ante, at 1–2. But the
school was under no constitutional obligation
tocall Redding’s parents before conducting the
search: “[R]easonablenessunder the
Fourth Amendment does not require employing the
least intrusive means, because the logic of such
elaborate less-restrictive-alternative arguments
could raise insuperable barriers to the exercise of
virtually all search-and-seizure powers.”
Board of Ed. of Independ-ent 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 thatRedding possessed drugs.
See ante, at 6, 10 (majority opinion); ante, at 1
(opinion of GINSBURG, J.). In any event, the
suggestion that requiringRedding 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 tomaintain “school order” and
“a proper educational envi-ronment.” T.
L. O., 469 U. S., at 343, n. 9. Teachers,
administrators, and the local school board are
called uponboth to “protect the . . . safety
of students and school per-sonnel” and
“maintain an environment conducive to
learn-ing.” Id., at 353 (Blackmun, J.,
concurring in judgment).They are tasked with
“watch[ing] over a large number
ofstudents” who “are inclined to test the
outer boundaries of acceptable conduct and to
imitate the misbehavior of apeer 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 istaken away.” Ibid.
The danger posed by unchecked dis-tribution and
consumption of prescription pills by students
certainly needs no elaboration.
Judges are not qualified to second-guess the
best man-ner for maintaining quiet and order in the
school envi-ronment. Such institutional judgments,
like those con-cerning 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 federaljudges
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 second-guess 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 impor-tant enough
to allow for invasive searches and which rules are
not.
3 Even if this Court were authorized to
second-guess theimportance 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
personobtains the prescription-only drug pursuant
to a validprescription of a prescriber who is
licensed pursuant to [state law]”).5
By prohibiting unauthorized prescriptiondrugs on
school grounds—and conducting a search
toensure students abide by that
prohibition—the school rule here was
consistent with a routine provision of the
statecriminal 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 separatelycriminalized the unauthorized
possession of prescription drugs. See, e.g., Mo.
Rev. Stat. §577.628(1) (Supp. 2008) (“No
person less thantwenty-one years of age shall
possess upon the real property comprising a public
or private elementary or secondary school or school
bus pre-scription medication without a valid
prescription for such medication”);Okla.
Stat., Tit. 59, §353.24(2) (Supp. 2008)
(“It shall be unlawful forany 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 pre-scription drug . . . for
himself that was not lawfully prescribed for himby
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 punish-ing the unauthorized possession of
prescription drugs onschool property as severely as
the possession of streetdrugs;
“[t]eenage abuse of over-the-counter
and prescrip-tion 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 mari-juana—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 Dan-ger). And according to a 2005
survey of teens, “nearly onein five (19
percent or 4.5 million) admit abusing prescrip-tion
drugs in their lifetime.” Columbia University,
TheNational Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
(CASA), “You’ve Got Drugs!” V:
Prescription Drug Pusherson the Internet 2 (July
2008); see also Dept. of Health and Human Services,
National Institute on Drug Abuse, HighSchool and
Youth Trends 2 (Dec. 2008) (“In 2008,
15.4percent of 12th-graders reported using a
prescription drugnonmedically within the past
year”).
School administrators can reasonably conclude
that this high rate of drug abuse is being fueled,
at least in part, bythe 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 areused, kept or sold on the
grounds of their schools.” CASA, National
Survey of American Attitudes on SubstanceAbuse
XIII: Teens and Parents 19 (Aug. 2008) (hereinafter
National Survey). The risks posed by the abuse of
thesedrugs 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 thatthese drugs provide a medically safe
high.” ONDCP, Teens and Prescription Drugs: An
Analysis of RecentTrends on the Emerging Drug
Threat 3 (Feb. 2007) (here-inafter 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
324,000emergency department visits in 2006 involved
the non-medical 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 con-trolled
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 anddeaths are likely
due to the fact that “[m]ost
controlledprescription 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
buythan beer”).
Admittedly, the Ibuprofen and Naproxen at issue
in thiscase 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 arethe prescription drugs most commonly
abused by teens”).But they are not without
their own dangers. As nonster-oidal
anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they pose a risk
ofdeath from overdose. The Pill Book 821, 827 (H.
Silverman,ed., 13th ed. 2008) (observing that
Ibuprofen and Naproxenare NSAIDs and
“[p]eople have died from NSAID
over-doses”). Moreover, the side-effects
caused by the use ofNSAIDs can be magnified if they
are taken in combination with other drugs. See,
e.g., Reactions Weekly, p. 18 (Issueno. 1235, Jan.
17, 2009) (“A 17-year-old girl developed
allergic interstitial nephritis and renal failure
while re-ceiving escitalopram and ibuprofen”);
id., at 26 (Issue no. 1232, Dec. 13, 2008) (“A
16-month-old boy developed irondeficiency anaemia
and hypoalbuminaemia during treat-ment with
naproxen”); id., at 15 (Issue no. 1220, Sept.
20, 2008) (18-year-old “was diagnosed with
pill-induced oeso-phageal 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 ana-phylaxis following
ingestion of ibuprofen”).
If a student with a previously unknown
intolerance toIbuprofen or Naproxen were to take
either drug and be-come ill, the public outrage
would likely be directed to-ward the school for
failing to take steps to prevent theunmonitored use
of the drug. In light of the risks in-volved, 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-
to17-year-olds, females are “more likely than
boys to have abused pre-scription drugs” and
have “higher rates of dependence or abuse
involv-ing 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 reason-able under the Fourth Amendment,
it is therefore irrele-vant 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 suspicionthat 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
Americanpublic school system to public school
students’” by invali-dating school
policies that treat all drugs equally and
bysecond-guessing swift disciplinary decisions made
byschool 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
illus-trates why the most constitutionally sound
approach tothe question of applying the Fourth
Amendment in localpublic 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 appliedthe
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 any
-thing, increased the need for a search to
prevent the reasonably sus
-pected 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 administratorshad almost
complete discretion to establish and enforcethe
rules they believed were necessary to maintain
controlover 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 toa 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 orschoolmaster 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
Na-tion’s first public schools, which gave
teachers discretionto craft the rules needed to
carry out the disciplinaryresponsibilities
delegated to them by parents.
If the common-law view that parents delegate to
teach-ers 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 havehad 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 judici-ary at times became involved was the
“imposition of excessive
physicalpunishment.” 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
thelimits 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 minorchild’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. Geor-gia
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 house-hold with the responsibility and
the authority for the discipline, training and
control of his children, has a supe-rior interest
in the family residence to that of his minor son,
so that the father’s consent to search would
be effec-tive notwithstanding the son’s
contemporaneous on-the-scene 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
parentiswould not, however, leave public schools
entirely free toimpose any rule they choose.
“If parents do not like therules imposed by
those schools, they can seek redress in school
boards or legislatures; they can send their
childrento private schools or home school them; or
they can simply move.” See Morse, 551 U. S.,
at 419 (THOMAS, J., concur-ring). Indeed, parents
and local government officials haveproved
themselves quite capable of challenging overlyharsh
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, hand-cuffed, and taken to
jail for bringing a plastic butter knifeto
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
com-bined Kool-Aid and sugar in plastic bags.
Grant, PupilsTrading Sweet Mix Get Sour Shot of
Discipline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 18, 2006,
p. B1. Individuals within yetanother 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 legiti-mate
extracurricular group and is simply
transportingwhat 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, Pitts-burgh Post-Gazette, Apr. 16,
2009, p. B1 (Parents “believe a
one-daysuspension 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
“schoolofficials 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 (“Thefather 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
Criti-cized 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
[kindergar-ten] 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 juve-nile detention for
some ‘goofy thing’ ”); Richardson,
Toler-ance 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
asthmainhalers 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
“wide-spread use of zero-tolerance discipline
policies was creat-ing as many problems as it was
solving and that therewere 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 byschool officials. Preservation of
order, discipline, andsafety in public schools is
simply not the domain of theConstitution. And,
common sense is not a judicial monop-oly 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 searchesfor the drugs that the officials
believe pose a serious safetyrisk to their
students. By doing so, the majority has con-firmed
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 beable to “‘govern
the[ir] pupils, quicken the slothful, spur
the indolent, restrain the impetuous, and control
thestubborn’” by making
“‘rules, giv[ing] commands, and
punish[ing] disobedience’”
without interference from judges. See Morse, supra,
at 414. By deciding that it isbetter equipped to
decide what behavior should be permit-ted in
schools, the Court has undercut student safety
andundermined 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 adminis-trators was
reasonable and justified. I cannot join this
regrettable decision. I, therefore, respectfully
dissent fromthe Court’s determination that
this search violated the Fourth Amendment.
