Safford Unified School District 1 v. Redding , 129 S. Ct. 2633 ( 2009 )


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  • (Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2008                                       1
    Syllabus
    NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
    being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
    The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
    prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
    See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 
    200 U.S. 321
    , 337.
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
    Syllabus
    SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT #1 ET AL. v.
    REDDING
    CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
    THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    No. 08–479.      Argued April 21, 2009—Decided June 25, 2009
    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 Marissa
    and that the contraband was not hers. He then produced four pre
    scription-strength, and one over-the-counter, pain relief pills, all of
    which are banned under school rules without advance permission.
    She denied knowledge of them, but Wilson said that he had a report
    that 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 to
    pull 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, alleging
    that 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 a
    Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of
    probable 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’s
    backpack 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 came
    from 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 be
    hiding them. After a search of Marissa’s underwear by Romero and
    Schwallier revealed no additional pills, Wilson called Savana into his
    office. 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 warrant
    suspicion 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 relative
    privacy 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 anything
    when Savana pulled out her underwear, but a strip search and its
    Fourth 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 both
    subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy
    support 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 not
    outlaw the search, but it does implicate the rule that “the search [be]
    ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the
    interference 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, he
    must have known of their nature and limited threat and had no rea
    son to suspect that large amounts were being passed around or that
    individual 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; a
    reasonable 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 heavily
    against 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 from
    liability 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 the
    preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
    notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash
    ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
    that 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 Fourth
    Amendment right was violated when she was subjected to
    a search of her bra and underpants by school officials
    acting 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 which
    the 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 the
    room 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, Marissa
    Glines. 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 Savana
    to 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 stretch
    pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was
    then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull
    her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out
    the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts
    and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found.
    Savana’s mother filed suit against Safford Unified
    School District #1, Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier for
    conducting a strip search in violation of Savana’s Fourth
    Amendment 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 Ninth
    Circuit 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 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
     (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” in
    that 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 to
    have 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 illicit
    activity 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 that
    the 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 of
    reasonable 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 related
    to 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 being
    assessed. Ornelas v. United States, 
    517 U.S. 690
    , 696
    (1996).
    Perhaps the best that can be said generally about the
    required 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 the
    nonmedical use, possession, or sale of any drug on school
    grounds, 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 and
    Assistant 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 Marissa
    Glines had given him. He told Wilson that students were
    ——————
    1 When 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 it
    obviously should do in this case. There is no need here either to explain
    the 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 claim
    that 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, containing
    various contraband items. Wilson escorted Marissa back
    to his office.
    In the presence of Helen Romero, Wilson requested
    Marissa to turn out her pockets and open her wallet.
    Marissa produced a blue pill, several white ones, and a
    razor 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 its
    contents; Marissa denied knowing anything about them.
    Wilson did not ask Marissa any followup questions to
    determine 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, available
    over 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.
    ——————
    2 Poison control centers across the country maintain 24-hour help
    hotlines to provide “immediate access to poison exposure management
    instructions 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 reports
    of their friendship from staff members, who had identified
    Savana and Marissa as part of an unusually rowdy group
    at 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 is
    reasonably suspected of carrying them on her person and
    in the carryall that has become an item of student uniform
    in most places today. If Wilson’s reasonable suspicion of
    pill distribution were not understood to support searches
    of outer clothes and backpack, it would not justify any
    search worth making. And the look into Savana’s bag, in
    her presence and in the relative privacy of Wilson’s office,
    was not excessively intrusive, any more than Romero’s
    subsequent search of her outer clothing.
    ——————
    3 There 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 in
    her 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’s
    claim 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 Schwallier
    stated 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 litigation
    about who was looking and how much was seen. The very
    fact 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 societal
    expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of
    such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct
    elements of justification on the part of school authorities
    for 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 may
    be, 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 stated
    in T. L. O., that “the search as actually conducted [be]
    reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which
    justified the interference in the first place.” 469 U. S., at
    341 (internal quotation marks omitted). The scope will be
    permissible, that is, when it is “not excessively intrusive in
    light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of
    the infraction.” Id., at 342.
    Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the
    degree of intrusion. Wilson knew beforehand that the pills
    were 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 quantities
    that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect
    ——————
    4 AnAdvil 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 numbers
    of pills.
    Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana was
    hiding 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 of
    cases of students with contraband in their underwear, id.,
    at 8–9. But when the categorically extreme intrusiveness
    of a search down to the body of an adolescent requires
    some justification in suspected facts, general background
    possibilities fall short; a reasonable search that extensive
    calls for suspicion that it will pay off. But nondangerous
    school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in
    intimate 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 the
    students 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 his
    motive 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 their
    children 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 must
    pay 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 degradation
    its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intru
    sive in a category of its own demanding its own specific
    suspicions.
    IV
    A school official searching a student is “entitled to quali
    fied immunity where clearly established law does not show
    that 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 “the
    very 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 be
    unconstitutional, 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 notice
    that 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 the
    strip search here cannot be seen as justifiably related to
    the 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 “to
    establish clearly the contours of a Fourth Amendment
    right . . . [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 who
    conducted a group strip search of a fifth grade class when
    looking for a missing $26).
    We think these differences of opinion from our own are
    substantial 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 of
    judges, disagrees about the contours of a right does not
    automatically render the law unclear if we have been
    clear. That said, however, the cases viewing school strip
    searches 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 clear
    in 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 unreasonable
    and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but petitioners
    Wilson, 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 #1
    under 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 therefore
    affirmed in part and reversed in part, and this case is
    remanded 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), the
    Court 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 be
    hiding 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 not
    require 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 both
    more intrusive and less justified than the search of the
    student’s purse in T. L. O. Therefore, while I join Parts I–
    III of the Court’s opinion, I disagree with its decision to
    extend 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 Appeals
    have adopted seemingly divergent views about T. L. O.’s
    application to strip searches. Ante, at 12. But the clarity
    of 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 on
    the 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, was
    prohibited 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 search
    performed 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 give
    her the pills, where, for what purpose. Any reasonable
    search 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 search
    was confined to the student’s purse, the search of Redding
    involved her body and rested on the bare accusation of
    another student whose reliability the Assistant Principal
    had 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 slim
    basis for suspecting Savana Redding, and her “age and
    sex,” ibid., establish beyond doubt that Assistant Principal
    Wilson’s order cannot be reconciled with this Court’s
    opinion in T. L. O. Wilson’s treatment of Redding was
    abusive 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 part
    and dissenting in part.
    I agree with the Court that the judgment against the
    school officials with respect to qualified immunity should
    be 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 majority
    imposes a vague and amorphous standard on school ad
    ministrators. It also grants judges sweeping authority to
    second-guess the measures that these officials take to
    maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health
    and safety of the students in their charge. This deep
    intrusion 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 was
    reluctant to interfere in the routine business of school
    administration, allowing schools and teachers to set and
    enforce 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 to
    judgment 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, although
    public school students retain Fourth Amendment rights
    under 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 in
    the classroom and on school grounds”). For nearly 25
    years this Court has understood that “[m]aintaining order
    in the classroom has never been easy, but in more recent
    years, school disorder has often taken particularly ugly
    forms: 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 to
    maintain 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 be
    able 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 its
    inception’ ” 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 Redding
    possessed medication that violated school rules. See ante,
    at 7. A finding of reasonable suspicion “does not deal with
    hard 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 be
    required 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 a
    search 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” on
    school 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 a
    classmate. 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 middle
    school that had “a history of problems with students using
    and distributing prohibited and illegal substances on
    campus.” App. 7a, 10a.
    The school’s substance-abuse problems had not abated
    by 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 during
    the first school dance of the year and noticed that a group
    of students including Redding and Marissa Glines smelled
    of 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 report
    to 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 bringing
    drugs and weapons on campus.” Id., at 8a, 11a. One week
    later, Romero handed the assistant principal a white pill
    that he said he had received from Glines. Id., at 11a. He
    reported “that a group of students [were] planning on
    taking the pills at lunch.” Ibid.
    School officials justifiably took quick action in light of
    the 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 subsequent
    search 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 relevant
    circumstances justified a search of Redding for pills.1
    B
    The remaining question is whether the search was
    reasonable 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
    ——————
    1 To be sure, Redding denied knowledge of the pills and the materials
    in 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 even
    though “T. L. O. had been accused of smoking, and had denied the
    accusation in the strongest possible terms when she stated that she did
    not 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 the
    interference 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 to
    the majority, to be reasonable, this school search required
    a showing of “danger to the students from the power of the
    drugs 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 the
    school setting, where this Court has heretofore read the
    Fourth 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 reasonable
    societal expectations of personal privacy support . . .
    treat[ing]” this type of search, which it labels a “strip
    search,” 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
    ——————
    2 Like the dissent below, “I would reserve the term ‘strip search’ for a
    search 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 be
    slight, 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 a
    strip 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 to
    the area that is capable of concealing the object of the
    search. 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 concealing
    the object of the search”); Florida v. Jimeno, 
    500 U.S. 248
    ,
    251 (1991) (“The scope of a search is generally defined by
    its expressed object”); United States v. Johns, 
    469 U.S. 478
    , 487 (1985) (search reasonable because “there is no
    plausible 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 the
    search may be found”).3
    In keeping with this longstanding rule, the “nature of
    the infraction” referenced in T. L. O. delineates the proper
    scope 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 a
    rifle 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
    ——————
    3 The 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’s
    cases 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 campus
    in 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 was
    permissible 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 acknowledges
    that school officials had reasonable suspicion to look in
    Redding’s backpack and outer clothing because if “Wilson’s
    reasonable 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 the
    pills would have ended when inspection of Redding’s
    backpack and jacket pockets yielded nothing”). But there
    is no support for this conclusion. The reasonable suspicion
    that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes
    did 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 such
    goods must be withheld from public view”).
    Redding would not have been the first person to conceal
    pills 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, Police
    Vehicle 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 the
    waistband 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’s
    decision, which announces the safest place to secrete
    contraband in school.
    2
    The majority compounds its error by reading the “nature
    of 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 of
    the 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 drugs
    were 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 retreats
    from 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 not
    attacking 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 of
    school 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 search
    based 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 from
    another basic principle of the Fourth Amendment: that
    law enforcement officials can enforce with the same vigor
    all rules and regulations irrespective of the perceived
    importance of any of those rules. “In a long line of cases,
    we have said that when an officer has probable cause to
    believe a person committed even a minor crime in his
    presence, the balancing of private and public interests is
    not 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 the
    perceived 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 warrant
    investigation. Had the suspected infraction involved a
    street drug, the majority implies that it would have ap
    proved the scope of the search. See ante, at 9 (relying on
    the “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 replaced
    a school rule that draws no distinction among drugs with a
    new one that does. As a result, a full search of a student’s
    person for prohibited drugs will be permitted only if the
    Court 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 the
    particular 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 chair
    outside [the assistant principal’s] office for over two hours” and failing
    to call her parents before conducting the search constitutes an “[a]buse
    of authority” that “should not be shielded by official immunity.” See
    ante, at 1–2. But the school was under no constitutional obligation to
    call Redding’s parents before conducting the search: “[R]easonableness
    under 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 that
    Redding possessed drugs. See ante, at 6, 10 (majority opinion); ante, at
    1 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). In any event, the suggestion that requiring
    Redding 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 to
    maintain “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 upon
    both 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 of
    students” who “are inclined to test the outer boundaries of
    acceptable conduct and to imitate the misbehavior of a
    peer 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 is
    taken 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 federal
    judges 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 the
    importance 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 person
    obtains the prescription-only drug pursuant to a valid
    prescription of a prescriber who is licensed pursuant to
    [state law]”).5 By prohibiting unauthorized prescription
    drugs on school grounds—and conducting a search to
    ensure students abide by that prohibition—the school rule
    here was consistent with a routine provision of the state
    criminal code. It hardly seems unreasonable for school
    officials to enforce a rule that, in effect, proscribes conduct
    that amounts to a crime.
    ——————
    5 Arizona’s law is not idiosyncratic; many States have separately
    criminalized the unauthorized possession of prescription drugs. See,
    e.g., Mo. Rev. Stat. §577.628(1) (Supp. 2008) (“No person less than
    twenty-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 for
    any 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 him
    by 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 on
    school property as severely as the possession of street
    drugs; “[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 one
    in five (19 percent or 4.5 million) admit abusing prescrip
    tion drugs in their lifetime.” Columbia University, The
    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
    (CASA), “You’ve Got Drugs!” V: Prescription Drug Pushers
    on the Internet 2 (July 2008); see also Dept. of Health and
    Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse, High
    School and Youth Trends 2 (Dec. 2008) (“In 2008, 15.4
    percent of 12th-graders reported using a prescription drug
    nonmedically within the past year”).
    School administrators can reasonably conclude that this
    high rate of drug abuse is being fueled, at least in part, by
    the 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 are
    used, kept or sold on the grounds of their schools.” CASA,
    National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance
    Abuse XIII: Teens and Parents 19 (Aug. 2008) (hereinafter
    National Survey). The risks posed by the abuse of these
    drugs 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 that
    these drugs provide a medically safe high.” ONDCP,
    Teens and Prescription Drugs: An Analysis of Recent
    Trends 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 324,000
    emergency 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 and
    deaths are likely due to the fact that “[m]ost controlled
    prescription 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 buy
    than beer”).
    Admittedly, the Ibuprofen and Naproxen at issue in this
    case 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 are
    the 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 of
    death from overdose. The Pill Book 821, 827 (H. Silverman,
    ed., 13th ed. 2008) (observing that Ibuprofen and Naproxen
    are NSAIDs and “[p]eople have died from NSAID over
    doses”). Moreover, the side-effects caused by the use of
    NSAIDs can be magnified if they are taken in combination
    with other drugs. See, e.g., Reactions Weekly, p. 18 (Issue
    no. 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 iron
    deficiency 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 to
    Ibuprofen 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 the
    unmonitored 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
    ——————
    6 Schools 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- to
    17-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 suspicion
    that 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 American
    public school system to public school students’ ” by invali
    dating school policies that treat all drugs equally and by
    second-guessing swift disciplinary decisions made by
    school 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 to
    the question of applying the Fourth Amendment in local
    public 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 applied
    the 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 administrators
    had almost complete discretion to establish and enforce
    the rules they believed were necessary to maintain control
    over 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 to
    a 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 or
    schoolmaster 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 discretion
    to craft the rules needed to carry out the disciplinary
    responsibilities 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 have
    had 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
    ——————
    7 The one aspect of school discipline with respect to which the judici
    ary at times became involved was the “imposition of excessive physical
    punishment.” 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 the
    limits 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 minor
    child’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 parentis
    would not, however, leave public schools entirely free to
    impose any rule they choose. “If parents do not like the
    rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in
    school boards or legislatures; they can send their children
    to 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 have
    proved themselves quite capable of challenging overly
    harsh 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 knife
    to 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, Pupils
    Trading Sweet Mix Get Sour Shot of Discipline, Pittsburgh
    Post-Gazette, May 18, 2006, p. B1. Individuals within yet
    another 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 transporting
    what 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
    ——————
    8 See also, e.g., Smydo, Allderdice Parents Decry Suspensions, Pitts
    burgh Post-Gazette, Apr. 16, 2009, p. B1 (Parents “believe a one-day
    suspension 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 “school
    officials 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 (“The
    father 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 asthma
    inhalers 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 there
    were 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 by
    school officials. Preservation of order, discipline, and
    safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the
    Constitution. 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 searches
    for the drugs that the officials believe pose a serious safety
    risk 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 be
    able to “ ‘govern the[ir] pupils, quicken the slothful, spur
    the indolent, restrain the impetuous, and control the
    stubborn’ ” by making “ ‘rules, giv[ing] commands, and
    punish[ing] disobedience’ ” without interference from
    judges. See Morse, supra, at 414. By deciding that it is
    better equipped to decide what behavior should be permit
    ted in schools, the Court has undercut student safety and
    undermined 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 from
    the Court’s determination that this search violated the
    Fourth Amendment.
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 08-479

Citation Numbers: 174 L. Ed. 2d 354, 129 S. Ct. 2633, 557 U.S. 364, 2009 U.S. LEXIS 4735

Judges: Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens, Thomas

Filed Date: 6/25/2009

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 8/3/2023

Authorities (48)

cassandra-jenkins-a-minor-by-her-mother-and-next-friend-sandra-hall , 115 F.3d 821 ( 1997 )

tiffany-thomas-a-minor-by-her-father-gregory-thomas-carl-g-casey-a , 323 F.3d 950 ( 2003 )

Brannum v. Overton County School Bd. , 516 F.3d 489 ( 2008 )

Diane Doe, Etc. v. Omer Renfrow, Etc. , 631 F.2d 91 ( 1980 )

Angela Lee Williams, a Minor, by Her Father and Next Friend,... , 936 F.2d 881 ( 1991 )

kh-through-her-next-friend-and-guardian-ad-litem-patrick-t-murphy-v , 914 F.2d 846 ( 1990 )

Bell v. Wolfish , 99 S. Ct. 1861 ( 1979 )

Redding v. Safford Unified School Dist. No. 1 , 531 F.3d 1071 ( 2008 )

joseph-c-bilbrey-a-minor-by-his-parents-and-next-friends-gerald-w-and , 738 F.2d 1462 ( 1984 )

New Jersey v. T. L. O. , 105 S. Ct. 733 ( 1985 )

Redding v. Safford Unified School District 1 , 504 F.3d 828 ( 2007 )

United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co. , 26 S. Ct. 282 ( 1906 )

Carroll v. United States , 45 S. Ct. 280 ( 1925 )

Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs. , 98 S. Ct. 2018 ( 1978 )

Brinegar v. United States , 69 S. Ct. 1302 ( 1949 )

Hope v. Pelzer , 122 S. Ct. 2508 ( 2002 )

Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of ... , 122 S. Ct. 2559 ( 2002 )

Pearson v. Callahan , 129 S. Ct. 808 ( 2009 )

Illinois v. Gates , 103 S. Ct. 2317 ( 1983 )

United States v. Johns , 105 S. Ct. 881 ( 1985 )

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