Key Cases of the Supreme Court's 2008-2009 Term

Relevant Text: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Big Question: Can a city government be sued for racial discrimination if it attempts to revoke intent-neutral policies with a racially discriminatory effect?

The Big Answer: Yes. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court held that white firefighters could sue the city of New Haven for discarding a controversial promotional exam that appeared to benefit whites over equally experienced African-American and Latino candidates.

Relevant Text: Fourth Amendment

The Big Question: Can school officials legally strip-search students against their will for no specific reason?

The Big Answer: No. In an 8-1 ruling, the Court held that students have a Fourth Amendment right that precludes arbitrary strip searches. In a lone dissent Justice Thomas argued that students have no Fourth Amendment rights at all, as schools possess parental authority rather than the authority traditionally granted to the government.

Relevant Text: First Amendment

The Big Question: Can the FCC fine networks for broadcasting fleeting expletives in live programming?

The Big Answer: Sort of. The Court ruled 5-4 that the ban on fleeting expletives served a legitimate interest and was not "arbitrary and capricious," but left open the question of whether the FCC can legitimately impose an indecency standard on broadcast content in the first place. The case was bounced back to a lower court for further review, and will most likely resurface in a later session.

Relevant Text: First Amendment

The Big Question: Is there a free speech right to donate permanent monuments to a public park, or are such permanent monuments considered a form of government speech (which gives local authorities more latitude to decide what they will or will not permit)?

The Big Answer: It's government speech, in a unanimous decision that places religious monuments under a higher level of establishment-clause scrutiny. An organization attempted to donate a monument celebrating the Seven Aphorisms of Summum to be placed alongside a Ten Commandments monument in a public park, was restricted from doing so, and sued under the free speech clause on the basis that the park constituted a public forum.

Relevant Text: The Fourteenth Amendment

The Big Question: Are prisoners entitled to perform DNA tests on existing evidence at their own expense in order to prove their innocence?

The Big Answer: No, in a 5-4 ruling that pitted the usual five conservative justices against the usual four liberal justices. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority that a ruling upholding a right to DNA tests "would take the development of rules and procedures in this area out of the hands of legislatures and state courts" and "turn it over to federal courts." "There is no reason," the chief justice argues, "to constitutionalize the issue in this way."