COURT REJECTS APPEAL OF GEORGIA TEACHER FIRED FOR REFUSING DRUG TEST

WASHINGTON - Sherry Hearn, a former Georgia high school teacher fired
for refusing to take a drug test after police using a drug-sniffing
dog found marijuana in her car, lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday.

The court, without comment, turned away Hearn's argument that the
search was unlawful because it was not based on individual suspicion
and because officers did not get a warrant before going inside her
car.

Hearn, a social studies teacher at Windsor Forest High School in
Savannah and Chatham County's 1994 Teacher of the Year, sued the local
school board after her 1996 firing.

In April 1996, the school's campus police officers conducted a random
search for drugs, assisted by dog handlers from the county sheriff's
department. The officers used the dogs to search classrooms and
examine cars in the school's parking lot.

A dog indicated it smelled drugs in Hearn's car, which had an open
window. Police said they entered the car and found a marijuana
cigarette in the ashtray.

The teacher said police did not produce the marijuana cigarette and
she was not charged with a crime. She contends authorities later
received a call saying a student admitted planting the drugs.

Hearn was ordered to take a drug test under the school's anti-drug
policy. She refused, although she said she passed a test at a
commercial lab the next day.

Hearn was fired, and the state Board of Education upheld the
firing.

She sued, saying the search of her car was illegal and that she could
not be fired as the result of an unlawful search. Drug-sniffing dogs
cannot be used in public school parking lots without individual
suspicion, and the police should not have entered her car without a
warrant, the lawsuit said.

A federal judge and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
against her.

In the appeal acted on Monday, Hearn's lawyers said public employees
cannot be fired for refusing to take a drug test when the suspicion of
drug use was based on unlawfully seized evidence.

"We're disappointed the Supreme Court declined to hear her case," said
Gerry Weber, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
in Atlanta, which filed Hearn's appeal. "We think it represents an
important issue regarding the right of a teacher to only be tested
when there is a reason to test them."

The school district's lawyers said dogs can be used to sniff cars
without violating the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which bans
unreasonable searches. They also said a drug dog alert creates enough
suspicion to allow police to enter a car.

The case is Hearn vs. Savannah Board of Education, 99-1477.