U.S. HIGH COURT OPENS NEW TERM, ALLOWS DRUG TESTS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court opened its new term Monday,
acting on 1,700 cases that piled up during its summer recess and siding
with school officials on student drug tests and the power to set the
curriculum.

The high court allowed a public high school to require drug tests for all
students involved in extracurricular activities, and it let stand a ruling
that limited the free-speech rights of teachers in selecting the curriculum
for their classes.

Formally beginning its 1998-99 term, the court also agreed to hear and
decide six more cases next year, including an immigration dispute to
clarify when some aliens may be deported despite fears they would be
persecuted in their home country.

As the justices returned to the bench for the first time since the end of
June, hundreds of protesters gathered on the sidewalk outside the building
across from the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate over the lack of minority law
clerks hired at the high court.

The protest, sponsored by the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People), included demonstrators carrying signs that
said, "Disrobe Inequality," and "Stop Giving Minorities the Gavel."

Kweisi Mfume, the leader of the civil rights group, and 18 others were
arrested when they crossed over the police barriers and went on the Supreme
Court steps in an attempt to deliver the resumes of qualified minorities to
Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Of the 394 law clerks hired over the years by the court's nine members,
less than 2 percent have been black, only 1 percent have been Hispanic and
fewer than 5 percent have been Asian-American. None of the clerks have been
Native Americans and less than 25 percent have been women.

Of the 1,700 cases that arrived over the past three months, the Supreme
Court took the following action:

- -- for the first time allowed a high school to require drug tests for all
students who want to take part in extracurricular activities in a case from
Rushville, Indiana. The justices previously have upheld drug tests just for
student-athletes.

The justices rejected a constitutional challenge arguing that the drug
tests amount to an invasion of privacy rights and violate the
constitutional guarantee under the Fourth Amendment to be free from
unreasonable searches.

- -- broadened the powers of school authorities to select the curriculum by
denying the appeal of a public high school drama teacher in North Carolina
who was disciplined after putting on a controversial play.

The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that school boards have
absolute control over decisions that affect the curriculum, and that a
teacher has no First Amendment right to take part in the makeup of the
curriculum.

- -- denied an appeal by the news media seeking access to grand jury
documents and closed court proceedings in connection with independent
counsel Kenneth Starr's sex-and-perjury investigation in the Monica
Lewinsky affair.

The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that there is no First
Amendment right under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press
for access to secret grand jury proceedings.

- -- let stand the conviction of Mexican drug kingpin Juan Garcia Abrego for
smuggling huge amounts of cocaine and marijuana into the United States for
nearly two decades.

The justices rejected an appeal by Garcia Abrego, who once was considered
the top cocaine trafficker in Mexico, claiming he had been denied a fair
trial.

- -- agreed to decide how difficult it should be for disabled workers to sue
their employers over alleged discrimination after they apply for or receive
Social Security benefits. The case involved a Texas woman who was fired
from her job after suffering a stroke.

- -- will hear a U.S. Justice Department appeal arguing that a Guatemalan
alien should be deported because he committed "a serious nonpolitical
crime" by burning buses and vandalizing stores as a student protest leader
in his home country.

A federal appeals court ruled that the deportation order must be
reconsidered, saying there must be a balancing of Juan Anibal
Aguirre-Aguirre's offenses against the danger he faces if returned to
Guatemala.

Checked-by: Richard Lake