CURFEW, DRUG CASES SEND SPLIT SIGNAL ON TEEN RIGHTS

The Supreme Court yesterday refused to let an Indiana school district
require all high school students suspended for disciplinary reasons to
undergo drug testing before they are reinstated.

The justices, without comment, let stand a ruling that struck down the
requirement as a violation of students' privacy rights.

The action is not a decision and sets no precedent. In fact, the
court's denial of review could confuse the already-murky law
surrounding student drug testing across the nation.

At issue was a drug testing policy formerly imposed at two Anderson,
Ind., high schools. Lawyers for the Anderson Community School Corp.
asked the justices to reinstate the policy, which they called vital to
"deterring drug and alcohol use among students."

The court also:

*Rejected the appeal of a New Jersey woman sentenced to life in prison
for her husband's 1996 murder, the first woman ever convicted under
the federal Violence Against Women Act. The justices turned away
without comment Rita Gluzman's arguments that Congress exceeded its
power to control interstate commerce when in 1994 it made it a crime
to cross state lines to hurt, harass or intimidate a spouse or
intimate partner.

The denial of review did not mean the Supreme Court agreed with the
appeals court, and did not preclude the possibility that the justices
someday might choose another case to judge the law's
constitutionality.

In fact, the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled earlier
this month that the act unconstitutionally gives victims of rape and
domestic violence the right to sue their attackers in federal court.
Legal experts expect that Virginia case to make its way to the
nation's highest court.

*Agreed to decide whether Hawaii may limit by race the voters who
elect a nine-member board that oversees a program benefiting only
residents who are ethnic Hawaiians. A white resident of Hawaii says
the state law discriminates against him.

*Ruled in an Ohio case that states do not violate the Constitution
when they cancel the right of public university professors to
negotiate workload rules as part of their union contracts.

*Refused to take up the question of whether siblings put up for
adoption have the right to stay together, ending a little boy's quest
to grow up in the same household with his sister.

On the issue of drug testing, the court in 1995 ruled in an Oregon
case that random tests for student athletes do not violate the
Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

That 6-3 ruling emphasized the "role model" effect of student
athletes' drug use but also noted the importance of "deterring drug
use by our nation's schoolchildren."

Just last October, the court let another Indiana school district - in
Rush County - continue conducting random drug testing for all students
participating in extracurricular activities. The justices left that
policy intact by rejecting, without comment, a challenge to it.

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 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals drew a distinction
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. "Drug testing
could be construed as part of the 'bargain' a student strikes in
exchange for the privilege of participating in favored
activities."

But in the Anderson case, the appeals court said, "Such testing is a
consequence of unauthorized participation in disfavored
activities."

The policy adopted in 1997 for Anderson's two public high schools
required that all students suspended for any reason for three days or
more take a urine test to screen for drug and alcohol use before being
readmitted.

If the test detected drug or alcohol use, the result was disclosed
only to parents and a designated school official. The test result was
not used for additional punishment.

James R. Willis II was a freshman at Highland High School when in
December 1997 he was suspended for five days for fighting. The school
official to whom Willis was taken just 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.

A federal trial judge upheld the drug-testing policy, but the 7th
Circuit Court reversed that ruling.