School's strip-search of teen unnecessary, excessively intrusive

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court is about to get involved in one of the most difficult of American subjects — middle schools and the care of their inmates who as they emerge half baked from babyhood more resemble zoo animals.

Any parent can tell you it is this in-between age that's the most difficult for them and their charges, a sort of purgatory where the occupants without constant vigilance can go from promise to long-term disaster in a split second. It is a land of temptation and experimentation that taxes to the limit the oversight capabilities of educators and leads them often into dangerous uncharted waters where the rights of young people can be sucked into a vortex by overzealousness.

Now the nation's highest court will decide whether that is what happened to Savana Redding six years ago when she was a 13-year-old, straight-A middle school student in Arizona. Despite her honor role status and a spotless record in deportment, Savana underwent one of the more humiliating experiences imaginable for a budding young woman. After a search of her backpack found nothing, she was summarily hauled into the school nurse's office and strip-searched to determine if she was carrying pills, specifically Ibuprofen, an over-the-counter equivalent of two Advils.

She was made to expose her breasts and pubic area to the searchers who determined she was not hiding anything but her modesty.

The catalyst for this severe form of administrative probing aimed at a drug-free environment and escape from potential liability apparently was the word of a male student who said he had received Ibuprofen from another girl. When she was found to have the pills, she put the blame on Savana, who, she said, had provided them. The school officials already had heard a complaint from another boy that Savana had a before-dance party where alcohol was served. Savana denied both allegations, stating that the boy who made the complaint had not even been at the party.

The result of all this was that a traumatized young lady that never attended classes again at the school, developed ulcers and eventually dropped out of high school. She is now enrolled in Eastern Arizona University after taking a placement test.

What seems amazing in the chain of events is that the school officials based their actions on the utterly unsubstantiated say-so of two other students who had good reason to lie their way out of the situation. And if they think youngsters won't do that, they are so naive as to be completely unworthy of their jobs. Against this, Savana's unblemished record seemingly counted for nothing.