WASHINGTON (CNN) — A former middle-school student who was strip-searched by school officials looking for ibuprofen pain medication won a partial victory of her Supreme Court appeal Thursday in a case testing the discretion of officials to ensure classroom safety.

Redding was an eighth-grade honor student in 2003, with no history of disciplinary problems at Safford Middle School, about 127 miles from Tucson, Arizona.

During an investigation into pills found at the school, a student told the vice principal that Redding had given her prescription-strength 400-milligram ibuprofen pills.

The school had a near-zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including the ibuprofen, without prior written permission.

Redding was pulled from class by Vice Principal Kerry Wilson, escorted to an office and confronted with the evidence. The girl denied the accusations.

A search of Redding’s backpack found nothing. A strip search was conducted by Wilson’s assistant and a school nurse, both females.

Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear and to pull on the elastic of the underwear, so any hidden pills might fall out, according to court records. No drugs were found.

“The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had,” Redding said in an affidavit. “I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry.”

The decision was 8-1.  Justice Clarence Thomas thought the Constitution doesn’t really cover the “preservation of order, discipline and safety in public schools”, so if you want to strip-search 13-year-old girls at school, the Founding Fathers would have been cool with that.  Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens thought the girl should be able to sue the school administrators who humiliated her, but the rest of the court decided that up til now it hasn’t been very clear how much protection the Constitution gives 13-year-old schoolgirls from strip searches, so the administrators couldn’t be reasonably expected to know they couldn’t just do that (if I’m reading SCOTUSblog’s analysis correctly).

So, from now on, there will be more protection for 13-year-old girls in school to not be expected to strip to their panties for school officials – not police, a freakin’ vice principal’s assistant and a school nurse! - when a teenage snitch lies about them holding drugs.  But all you 13-year-old girls who were strip-searched, you have no recourse.

I don’t suppose anybody ever considered just calling the girls’ parents.  ”Hello, Mrs. Redding? We have a tip your daughter may be holding prescription ibuprofen in violation of our zero-tolerance policy.  Can you come down to the school, please?”  No, wait, excuse me, I forgot, we’re talking about drugs; there’s no room for common sense here!  What am I thinking?  I just expected someone who takes seriously the phrase “zero tolerance” to show common sense.

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Unbending Rules on Drugs in Schools Drive One Teen to the Breaking Point

Zero Tolerance isn’t a slogan, it’s a pledge to do whatever it takes to make you quit, jail you, or kill you. This time the penalties added up to an overwhelming burden for Josh Anderson, who had the unfortunate luck to be caught in possession twice in two years.

“I really have been working hard on this,” Josh wrote to the hearing officers. “I can’t believe I’m putting my parents through this now. I can’t believe how selfish and stupid I’ve been. . . . I’m honestly going to try my hardest to fix this.”

The Andersons were told that Josh would be barred from any regular Fairfax high school and might be tossed out of the system entirely. His parents were looking into private schools or moving. But there would be no hearing, no new school, no more visits from college football coaches asking about Josh’s talents. Without a word to his girlfriend, parents, psychologist, coach or teachers, Josh Anderson, 17, had killed himself.

He left a note, just two lines. “Why does it have to be like this?” And, to his girlfriend, “I love you.”

“No one can ever answer whether Fairfax County was responsible for what Josh did,” says Tim Anderson. “But they pushed him closer to the edge than he needed to be.” The parents know their son’s often-silent manner masked emotional troubles, but he had been in counseling, both through the school system and privately, and no one saw this coming. The trauma of facing expulsion, the Andersons believe, was just too much for their son.

In Fairfax, possession of marijuana on school grounds means automatic suspension and a recommendation of expulsion. “There’s no discretion at the school level,” says Paul Regnier, spokesman for the system. “Virginia law requires that if there’s possession of marijuana on school grounds, the student must be expelled unless there are special circumstances.”

Despite what you may think, Josh is a victim of the drug war. Zero Tolerance laws were envisioned as both a deterrent to use (with no effect) and a review-free way to remove meddlesome kids (works every time). Wonder why your local High School has a 40% dropout rate? These laws damage our society by under educating our soon to be fellow citizens. I recall being told once that future prison populations utilize high school drop out rates in their calculations. So with the expulsion, Virginia was planning the future for Josh and he decided that he wanted no part of it.

“Why does it have to be like this?”

I’m asking you for Josh, because he couldn’t make it here to ask you himself.

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