First Roberts court term to close with key rulings

WASHINGTON - Nearly seven months have passed since the Supreme Court heard arguments about public-school integration plans. A decision is finally at hand.

Whether school districts can use race as a factor in assigning students to schools is the biggest unresolved issue among the court's eight remaining cases. But as the court enters what is expected to be the final week of its term, several other important topics loom. They include disputes over limits on speech, separation of church and state, and execution of the mentally ill.

The court's final days are being watched perhaps even more closely than usual this year because this is the first full term for Chief Justice John Roberts and the current lineup of justices.

Decisions so far in cases on abortion, discrimination, and the rights of defendants have put the court on a more conservative footing with the addition of President Bush's two appointees, Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

"It will tell us so much more about the Roberts court when we see decisions on hot-button issues like race and religion," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who argues before the court and follows it closely.

The court last tackled the topic of race and education in 2003, upholding the consideration of race in admissions to the University of Michigan law school.

Since then, however, the author of that opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired; Alito took her place.

When the court heard challenges to school-assignment plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle in December, a majority of the justices appeared inclined to strike down one or both plans.

Roberts was among the justices critical of taking race into account. He commented that the legacy of the court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 outlawing state-sponsored segregated schools should be race-blind programs.

"The purpose of the Equal Protection Clause is to ensure that people are treated as individuals rather than based on the color of their skin," Roberts said in December.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of four liberal justices, put the matter differently when she addressed a conference of judges and lawyers recently in Bolton Landing, N.Y. She suggested that the purpose of the plans was to keep schools from looking as they did before the Brown ruling and subsequent decisions requiring desegregation.

In remarks aired by the C-SPAN cable network, Ginsburg said the justices "will determine whether the Equal Protection Clause prohibits race-conscious efforts by school districts to prevent resegregation."

The last argument of the term in April concerned the constitutionality of a federal ban on airing ads that mention a candidate's name in the weeks before an election.

Prior to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, those ads were seen by opponents as essentially campaign ads. But they escaped federal regulation by not explicitly calling for a candidate's defeat or election.

The court previously upheld the ban. Now, it is being asked to overturn its earlier ruling or at least permit the ads in some circumstances. That could lead to a bigger role for corporations and labor unions in the 2008 campaign.

Among the more colorful pending matters is the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, testing limits on students' speech rights.

The case grew out of the suspension of an Alaska high school student who displayed the 14-foot-long banner at a school-sanctioned event to watch the Olympic torch make its way through Juneau en route to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

The student said he was asserting his right to speak out. The principal interpreted the banner as advocating drug use, which the student denied.

Another First Amendment case asks whether taxpayers can go into federal court to challenge spending by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The decision will be the Roberts court's first on separation of church and state.

The justices also have yet to decide whether a Texas death-row inmate is so mentally ill as to preclude his execution.

Scott Louis Panetti knows that he killed his in-laws in front of his estranged wife and young daughter, but he believes he is on death row because he preaches the word of God, his lawyers say.

The state argued that, while Panetti is mentally ill, he clearly understands he was convicted and sentenced to death for murder.

Schools and race. Whether public schools can take race into account in assigning students to schools.

Issue ads. Whether a federal law impermissibly bars interest groups, corporations and labor unions from broadcasting "issue ads" that mention a candidate's name in the weeks before an election.

Death penalty/mental illness. Whether a death-row inmate has to understand that his impending execution is the result of the crimes for which he was convicted.

Student speech. Whether school administrators can censor student speech that they believe goes against their antidrug message.

Church and state. Whether taxpayers can sue in federal court to challenge spending by the White House's faith-based initiative.

Antitrust. Whether manufacturers and stores can set minimum retail prices for products.

Endangered species. What measures must federal agencies take to protect endangered species before giving states authority to issue water-pollution permits?

Land dispute. Whether individual federal workers can be sued for harassment and retaliation under federal racketeering law.

- Associated PressEndText