HIGH COURT RESTRICTS DRUG TESTING OF STUDENTS, LEAVES CURFEW INTACT

WASHINGTON -- Handling two disputes over the rights of teenagers and
parents, the Supreme Court yesterday let a city continue imposing a
nighttime curfew but barred two high schools from requiring drug tests
for all students suspended for disciplinary reasons. The justices left
intact a Charlottesville, Va., curfew for children under 17 and
rejected Indiana school officials' effort to have their drug-testing
policy reinstated.

The two actions were not decisions, set no precedents, and did not
preclude the possibility that the justices may choose someday to study
each issue more closely.

A nighttime curfew for minors, now employed by many American
communities, has never been fully reviewed by the nation's highest
court. Yesterday's action may encourage other communities to consider
adopting similar ordinances.

The court's denial of review in the Indiana case, meanwhile, is likely
only to confuse the murky legal status of student drug-testing.

Lawyers for the Anderson Community School Corp. had sought to revive,
at two Anderson, Ind., high schools, a drug-testing policy that they
called vital to "deterring drug and alcohol use among students."

A federal appeals court struck down the 1997 policy, ruling that
suspended students could not be required to take a urine test before
being reinstated unless they were suspected of using drugs or alcohol.

Test results had been disclosed only to parents and a designated
school official and had not been used for additional punishment.

James R. Willis 2d was a freshman at Highland High School when he was
suspended for five days in December 1997 for fighting. The school
official to whom Willis was taken right after his fight later
testified that there was no indication he had been using drugs or alcohol.

Willis refused to take the required drug test for readmission, and,
with his father, sued the school district.

The Supreme Court in 1995 ruled in an Oregon case that random drug
tests for student athletes did not violate the Constitution's Fourth
Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

Last October, the justices rejected a challenge to a policy in another
Indiana school district, in rural Rush County, that requires random
drug testing for all students involved in extracurricular activities.

But no court has ever condoned the random testing of all public school
students.

In striking down the drug-testing policy in Anderson, a three-judge
panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
distinguished between it and those involved in the Oregon and Rush
County cases.

"A testing policy for students in athletics or other extracurricular
activities applies only to students who have voluntarily chosen to
participate in an activity," the appeals court said in Anderson
Community School Corp. v. Willis. "Drug testing could be construed as
part of the 'bargain' a student strikes in exchange for the privilege
of participating in favored activities."

The curfew controversy from Virginia addressed in Schleifer v.
Charlottesville stemmed from the city council's 1996 vote to impose
curfew hours -- midnight to 5 a.m. weekdays and 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
weekends -- for anyone under 17.

The curfew, which took effect in early 1997, contains exceptions for
minors accompanied by a parent or on an errand for a parent and
possessing an explanatory note, or attending school, religious or
civic activities. Exceptions also exist for minors working or
commuting to or from work, or for minors "exercising First Amendment
rights" such as the free exercise of religion.

A group of teenagers and their parents sued, saying the curfew
violated their rights.

A federal appeals court ruled that Charlottesville "was
constitutionally justified in believing that its curfew would
materially assist its first stated interest -- that of reducing
juvenile violence and crime."

Most curfews for minors have been upheld in state and federal courts,
but there have been exceptions. Curfews in San Diego, Allentown, Pa.,
and the District of Columbia are among those struck down when challenged.

Charlottesville officials told the justices that those curfews did not
provide all the exceptions contained in their city ordinance.