Locker Room Talk

Controversial conflicts that begin in schools—battles over prayer, curriculum, and censorship, for example—sometimes end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, where precedents are set. With that in mind, New Press has published May It Please the Court: Courts, Kids, and the Constitution. Edited by Peter Irons, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, the book, which is accompanied by live recordings, offers transcripts and discussions of 16 Supreme Court oral arguments dating to 1963.

One case, heard five years ago, focuses on a problem that, while considered serious, infused the courtroom with levity and language fit for a locker room. On March 28, 1995, the court's nine justices heard the case of Vernonia School District vs. Acton , which originated in 1991, when James Acton, a 7th grader in a small logging town in Oregon, signed up to play football and was told to take a drug test. School officials, according to Irons, were concerned about increasing substance abuse, especially among athletes, who were required to submit to a monitored urine test at the start of the season, then face random tests in the future.

Jim's parents refused to sign the consent form and filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming the drug test violated the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and privacy. A district judge dismissed the suit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision. The school board then asked the Supreme Court to review the case and uphold the school's drug-testing policy.