9th Circuit Rules for Student in Strip-Search for Ibuprofen and Finds No Immunity for School Officials

Redding v. Safford Unified School District #1 [9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 7/11/08]
From the majority opinion in this 6-5 decision:
“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,” 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. 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.”

Read the full decision.
Read the account in “The Recorder” [7/14/08].
See what those at another education law blog are saying.

From the dissent on the liability issue by Judges Gould and Silverman: “[A]lthough I think our ruling should be crystal clear that schools may not subject a student to a strip search under circumstances as presented here, and although the general principles in TLO and other cases are well established, I can understand how school officials, even though they made an erroneous decision, should have some insulation from liability before our declaration of how these principles applied to this case. The fact that the district court and a majority of a prior panel of our court thought, and some dissenting judges on this panel continue to think, the scope of the search reasonable to me says something about a lack of clarity in our law.”

From the LENGTHY dissent of Judges Hawkins, Kozinski, and Bea: “[The majority fails to] acknowledge the unique considerations present in the public school setting, including the need for informal and flexible disciplinary measures, and the considerable risk presented by drugs. The Opinion also yields two rules that sweep too broadly: (1) that an uncorroborated tip from a student facing punishment is insufficient to justify the search at issue; and (2) that the search was per se unreasonable because officials were only seeking prescription-strength ibuprofen….While “unblinking deference,” is certainly not called for, we should recognize that our normal, healthy skepticism of government authority must be reconciled with the realities of the school environment….School officials in this circuit are now on notice that it is unconstitutional to require a thirteen-year-old female honor student to remove her outer garments and shake her bra and underwear, partially exposing her breasts and pelvic area, in front of two female administrators in a private room when the object sought is prescription strength ibuprofen and the only direct evidence against her is the uncorroborated tip of a culpable classmate, and the girl searched has no disciplinary history but has been suspected of consuming and serving alcohol. This precise holding is the only thing officials can rely on.”

Questions I have:
1. What are school officials—who operate daily in “the realities of the school environment”—to take from this 6-5 decision? Especially since they would not have qualified immunity when such issues are apparently determined to be “clearly established.”
2. The second (and lengthy) dissent all but pleads for the U.S. Supreme Court to rework the liability analysis when they revisit (and possibly overturn?) Saucier v. Katz next term. How will that affect the daily workings of school administrators in difficult situations such as this?