Six years ago, 13-year-old Savana Redding — an honors student in the eighth grade at Safford, Ariz., Middle School — was escorted out of class. She was suspected of providing prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to another student against the school’s zero-tolerance medication policy. Soon after, she was standing in her undergarments — being asked to pull her bra “out and to the side,” exposing her breasts, and to do the same with her underwear, exposing her pelvic area, to prove to two female school employees that she was not hiding pills.

Where was the probable cause? It turns out schools don’t need probable cause to conduct a search; they only need “reasonable suspicion” that a student has violated the law or the school’s rules. In this case, it was the word of a girl who had been found with pills and proceeded to point the finger at Redding as her supplier. Redding agreed to a search of her possessions and nothing was found. In addition, Redding had no disciplinary record with the school. How can an intrusive strip search be justified in this case on the grounds of reasonable suspicion?

Redding is now 19, and her case is being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court to determine if a school’s campus setting allows school administrators to have greater discretion in dealing with students suspected of illegal activity than police officers are afforded in cases involving adults in public settings.

While the Court has issued several opinions regarding student rights, the words of the 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines echo: students do not “shed their constitutional rights … at the schoolhouse gate.” We believe students have every reason to expect a reasonable amount of privacy within the walls of a school, provided that their privacy does not endanger the safety of others.

The court’s ruling in this case must make more distinctions than the generalized rulings of the past. This ruling must set a precedent in order to prevent further abuses of power from school administrators.

And yes, this was an abuse of power. To Justice Stephen Breyer — who said, “I’m trying to work out why is this a major thing to say, ‘Strip down to your underclothes,’ which children do when they change for gym” — we say: Really? We can only hope the other justices see the difference between changing clothes in front of your peers and being asked to pull your bra and panties to the side for an administrator because someone said you were carrying ibuprofen.

What is appropriate? In regards to violence, school officials must have the authority to act quickly and in the best interest of the students. If a student is believed to be dangerous, certain measures — including potentially intrusive searches — must be taken in the name of safety.

But what about drug searches? If a student is suspected of drug possession and there is no immediate safety threat, there is no reason for such an invasive search to be done without a police presence. Some kind of regulation must be in place to keep power-hungry administrators from operating outside the law on the basis of some meager “reasonable suspicion.”

We implore the Supreme Court to consider the complexity of school settings in its ruling. Students must be safe and comfortable in their learning environments. This can only be achieved through a balance of the powers granted to school officials that allows them to keep student safety a priority without unnecessarily humiliating young children.