Justice David H. Souter, writing perhaps his final opinion for the court, said that in the search of Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, school officials overreacted to vague accusations that Redding was violating school policy by possessing the ibuprofen, equivalent to two tablets of Advil.

What was missing, Souter wrote, “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.”

It was reasonable to search the girl’s backpack and outer clothes, but Safford Middle School administrators made a “quantum leap” in taking the next step, the opinion said. “The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions,” Souter wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. “Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment,” he wrote.

He said administrators were only being logical in searching the girl. “Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments,” he wrote. “Nor will she be the last after today’s decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school.”

Wow, these two constitutional experts have said a mouthful. But, in my opinion, they have both dropped the ball when it comes to protecting society from hidden non-prescription drugs. Obviously, the only way society can be protected from the threat of advils in the panties is to require all girls to go naked all the time.

It is as if these jurists think officials have the time to debate whether a search is reasonable or not when there may be a ticking time bomb hidden in girl’s panties.

Also, this ruling does not address what should be done in those cases where boys may be wearing panties.