Maintaining order & qualified immunity

The statement by Marissa that Savana Redding had given her the ibuprofen pills led the school administrators to suspect that Redding may have some of the pills on her person. This led to the search on Redding but the search was not justified. The allegation was potentially self –serving on the part of Marissa and was not corroborated. Where a sliding-scale test is adopted as a standard for the search, where the more invasive searches need higher level of suspicion so as to be reasonable, the strip search by the school officials was very intrusive in relation to the risk posed by the ibuprofen pills (Bradley, 2010). This is in light of the level of suspicion that could have been raised by Marissa. There was no justification for the search since the school officials since they reasonably should have been aware that the search would lead to violation to the girls rights stipulated in the Fourth Amendment. The search would have been reasonable and the officials could have been protected against liability arising from the unlawful search if they had been reasonably unaware that this conduct would be a violation to Marissa’s privacy rights. Conducting the strip search on the girl and not based on clear judgment by the officials but on allegations would leave little check on the authority of the official to invade the privacy of the student. Whereas there was some degree of reasonability to conduct the search, it did not meet the standards for a reasonable search.

In general, school officials act as the parents’ surrogates and as the state’s representative and have to maintain order in public schools. The setting of the schools requires that officials be granted qualified immunity against liability arising from Fourth Amendment, in relation to searches on students (Davenport, 2008). The need to ease restriction on searches that public officials are normally subjected to relate increasing problems such as drug issues in public schools.  The immunity should be granted to the school officials but who have the responsibility to act with quality judgment so that their searches can meet the right degree of judgment (Liptak, 2009). Without this immunity, the school administrators would find it difficult to maintain order in the public schools due to fear of bearing the liability of violating individual privacy that is offered in the fourth amendment. However, the immunity should apply against some set reasonableness standards, where the officials have justification that the search is aimed at providing order in the institution. The qualified immunity should only occur where the search is reasonably related to its objective; there is not excessive intrusion in regard to the student’s sex and age, and the kind of infraction.

 I agree with the precedent set by the case, since the search conducted on the female student was quite unreasonable. With the knowledge of the limited threat posed by the pills, the administrator’s suspicion was not reasonable enough in suspecting that a lot of such drugs were being used in the school.  For the official to be granted the qualified immunity there must be reasonable suspicion that there was violation of a specific law and the search could be expected to provide evidence (Davenport, 2008).  The level of intrusion on the privacy of the student was also very intrusive, which was not necessary.

References

Bradley, C. M. (2010). Reconceiving the Fourth Amendment and the Exclusionary Rule. Law and Contemporary Problems, 73(3), 236-238.

 

Liptak, A. (2009). Strip-Search of Girl Tests Limit of School Policy. New York Times, A1.

 

Davenport, E. P. (2008). Stripped Bare: Students' Fourth Amendment Rights, School Searches, and the Reasonableness Standard. Tenn. JL & Pol'y, 4, 115.