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A divided federal appeals court has upheld the validity of what essentially amounted to a strip search of a 13-year-old Safford schoolgirl to see if she had drugs.

Two of the three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said school officials had "reasonable grounds" to believe that the girl was violating either state laws or, at least, school policies.

They acknowledged that information could be unreliable because it came from other students at the middle school. But the majority said other facts supported the "informant's" story.

But Judge Sidney Thomas said the search, which forced the girl to expose her breast and pubic areas, clearly violated her constitutional rights against improper search and seizure.

He said the girl was an honor roll student with no history of drug involvement and no evidence of any connection to illegal drug distribution. Thomas also said no effort was made to contact the girl's mother — or even let her call a relative during the 2-hour detention.

Thomas noted that the entire search involved a quest for nothing more than prescription-strength ibuprofen, a drug that in lower doses is available to anyone over the counter.

Court records said the inquiry started with a complaint by another parent in the Southeastern Arizona city that her son had become combative and ill after taking some pills given out by a classmate. She also said that the girl had served alcohol to classmates at a party several months earlier, a charge that the teen denied.

Several days after the complaint, the principal got a pill from one of the girl's classmates. The classmate, under questioning, said she got pills from the girl ultimately searched. That occurred at the same time another student told the vice principal that some students were planning to take drugs.

The girl, under questioning by school officials, denied bringing pills to school, denied distributing pills to classmates, and said she did not mind being searched.

She was told to pull her bra to the side and shake it, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out of her crotch and shake it, exposing her pubic area. The search produced nothing.

The girl's mother subsequently filed suit alleging her daughter's constitutional rights had been violated.

"The fundamental principle that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate is beyond reasonable dispute," appellate Judge Richard Clifton wrote for the majority in the court ruling.

But he also said that the rights of children in school are not the same as those of adults in other settings because there are "special characteristics of the school environment."

Here, Clifton said, another student had said she had obtained pills from the girl. And the principal had questioned the girl first, getting her to admit that a planner found with some pills was, in fact, hers, even though she said she had lent it to the other girl to help her hide things from her parents.

Clifton said the story about the girl providing alcohol to other teens, while disputed, also provided ammunition for the search.

Nor was the majority dissuaded from the importance of the search even if the searchers were looking only for ibuprofen.

"Prescription drugs have the potential to do great harm if misused," Clifton wrote. He said all the evidence gave school officials "good reason to be extra vigilant" in looking for drugs.

Finally, he said the search was conducted in a reasonable way, noting she was not touched and not asked to actually remove her bra and underwear.

Thomas, however, said it still amounted to a strip search. And he said that tips from other classmates, while perhaps giving school officials cause to search a purse, backpacks or even pockets, do not allow school officials toforce students to expose themselves.

He said that using the majority's logic, school officials would be able to strip-search any student identified by another child as the source of drugs, even if that evidence is uncorroborated.