WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Monday 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.Monday's 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 Supreme Court in 1995 ruled in an Oregon case that random drug tests for student athletes do not violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.
The court also:
Rejected a challenge to a Charlottesville, Va., curfew that contains exceptions for minors accompanied by a parent or on an errand for a parent and in possession of an explanatory note, or attending various school, religious or civic activities.
Held, 8-1, that states do not violate the Constitution when they cancel public university professors' rights to negotiate workload rules as part of their union contracts.
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 aside 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.