Justices Refuse to Halt Teacher Drug Tests

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for mandatory drug testing for schoolteachers, rejecting a constitutional challenge that called the program “an exercise in symbolism.”

The justices turned down an appeal filed by the National Education Assn., the largest teachers’ union, which argued that educators should not be forced to undergo urine testing unless there is evidence of a drug problem.

The court’s action in the school case came on the opening day of its new term. It also refused to strike down a state tax credit for contributions to private and parochial schools and heard arguments in a death penalty case.

The day was highlighted by the return of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who underwent surgery for colon cancer little more than two weeks ago. But at 10 a.m. Monday, she emerged with her fellow justices and smiled broadly.

Despite her ordeal, Ginsburg seemed in midseason form. She asked a dozen questions during the first hour of argument.

The court’s first day of the new term is usually marked not by important rulings or crucial arguments, but by the hundreds of appeals that are rejected without comment. Monday was no exception. More than 1,600 appeals were turned down, most of them from prison inmates.

Several cases tested areas where the law is in flux, including government-mandated drug screenings.

A decade ago, the high court first upheld forced urine testing in cases involving train engineers and gun-carrying federal agents. These workers would pose a safety risk to the public if they were under the influence of drugs, the court decided. Therefore, mandatory testing was not an “unreasonable search” prohibited by the 4th Amendment, the justices held on a 5-4 vote.

More recently, however, lower courts have extended the “safety” rationale to include, for example, white-collar budget analysts in Washington, and now teachers.

School board members in Knox County, Tenn., said they had no evidence of drug use among their teachers but wanted to take a “firm stand” against drugs.

In 1994, the board voted to require urine screening for all new teachers. In addition, school employees who showed signs of impairment could be forced to submit to a test. However, a federal judge blocked the policy from taking effect. Public safety was not at stake, the judge said.

But last year, a U.S. appeals court overturned that decision and allowed school officials to implement a testing program. “The public interest [in a drug-free school staff] clearly outweighs the privacy interest of the teacher not to be tested,” the appeals court said.

Richard T. Beeler, a school board lawyer in Knoxville, said that he expects other districts to copy the policy now that it has been allowed to stand by the high court (Knox County Education Assn. vs. Knox County Board of Education, 98-1799).

Meanwhile, in a second school case, the justices turned down a 1st Amendment attack on an unusual Arizona law that gives taxpayers a credit of as much as $500 for charitable donations to private and parochial schools.

Critics said that the state was funneling money to religious schools, in violation of the Constitution’s ban on laws “respecting an establishment of religion.” But the state supreme court upheld the law on a 3-2 vote last year and the justices refused to hear a further challenge (Kotterman vs. Kilian, 98-1716).

The justices were keenly interested in the first case of the session to be argued before the court, a case that tests whether federal judges can continue to reexamine state death penalty cases.

The court’s conservatives, backed by Republicans in Congress, have made it much harder for state inmates to win new hearings in federal court. They have said that appeals drag on too long.

Liberal advocates, on the other hand, have argued that because a death sentence is the ultimate punishment, federal judges must remain free to reexamine cases from the start. Otherwise, they said, inmates could be wrongly executed.

Three years ago, the Republican Congress revised the Habeas Corpus Act and said that federal judges usually should defer to decisions made by state courts unless their decisions are clearly “unreasonable.”

The case of Terry Williams of Danville, Va., forces the court to decide what that means. He had robbed an elderly neighbor of $3 and killed him with a blow to the chest.

On April 4, Williams was two hours away from execution when the justices voted to hear his case. His court-appointed lawyer had not told the jury that Williams was of borderline intelligence and had been brutally beaten as a child. If the jury had known of his past, his new lawyers maintained, it likely would have shown him mercy and sentenced him to life in prison.

A Virginia trial judge agreed and said that Williams deserved a new sentencing hearing. But the state supreme court and the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond disagreed, maintaining that no further hearings were warranted.

At issue now is a difficult and recurring question: Under what circumstances can a federal judge reopen a state case and order a new trial or a new sentencing hearing?

During Monday’s argument, the justices sounded closely split. A ruling in the case (Williams vs. Taylor, 98-8384) may determine whether death penalty appeals continue to be examined routinely in federal courts.

In other actions, the court:

* Agreed to decide whether a retailer can be sued for a trademark violation for selling a line of clothing that resembles a competitor’s product. The case (Wal-Mart vs. Samara, 99-150) will be heard early next year and could have a broad impact in the retail sector, where “knock-off” products are common. Wal-Mart is appealing a $1.1-million verdict for having copied the children’s clothing line sold under the Samara label.

* Rejected an appeal from salvagers of RMS Titanic who sought to keep tourists away from the site of the ship’s wreckage (RMS Titanic vs. Haver, 98-2058). A lower court said that the sunken liner can be viewed or photographed by visitors so long as they do not disturb it.

* Rejected an antidiscrimination claim from a 12-year-old with AIDS who sought to participate in a karate class (Montalvo vs. Radcliffe, 98-1831). A lower court said this would pose a health risk to others.