Copyright 1999 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
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Plain Dealer
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June 27, 1999 Sunday, FINAL / ALL
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 25A
LENGTH: 884 words
HEADLINE:
SUPREME COURT RULINGS AFFECT AMERICANS' DAILY LIVES
BYLINE: By MARY DEIBEL; SCRIPPS HOWARD
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
The just-ended Supreme Court term dealt with issues of law that govern
citizens' daily lives, from the workplace to the classroom.
Key
bread-and-butter questions that were decided this term, which ended Wednesday,
include: JOB RIGHTS:
The court limited the scope of the federal law that
bans bias against the disabled in the workplace and elsewhere by finding it
generally doesn't cover people with medical conditions that can be corrected
with medication or mechanical devices, like eyeglasses.
On a 7-2 vote,
the justices said the Americans With Disabilities Act doesn't entitle anyone to
a particular job; rather, it entitles qualified applicants with disabilities the
right to hold a job if reasonable accommodation can be made.
Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the court, said employers remain free to decide
if a physical impairment makes some candidates less than ideally suited for a
specific job, although she warned that employers are not free to put whole
classes of jobs off limits based on "myths ... or stereotypes" about workers
with a disability.
To hold more broadly, she said, would expand the
law's coverage of 43 million people who fit the law's definition of disabled to
the 160 million or more Americans with correctable physical conditions.
Dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens called that reading of the law
"myopic."
As defined by the law, a "qualified individual with a
disability" is protected against discrimination if that person has an impairment
that "limits a major life activity" but can do the job if reasonable
accommodation is made.
Also on the jobs front, the court held that:
Workers need not prove "egregious" behavior when they seek punitive
damages for illegal job bias, only that the employer acted with "malice or
reckless indifference" to whether the workplace behavior was illegal.
Union workers can sue for illegal job discrimination even if the general
language of their labor contract requires that workplace disputes go to
arbitration.
EQUAL CITIZENSHIP:
The court said states cannot
create two-tiered welfare programs that pay less to newcomers than to long-time
residents.
The decision invalidated welfare plans that California and 15
other states had put in place under the four-year-old federal welfare reform
effort.
CENSUS:
Voting 5-4, the justices said the 1976 law in
which Congress set the ground rules for the 2000 headcount prohibits using
statistical sampling to divide 435 House seats among the states.
However, the court left open the question of whether sampling can be
used to divide districts within a state or to divide the $200 billion a year
Washington sends the states' way.
CRIMINAL LAW:
The court struck
down Chicago's anti-loitering law, which aimed to stop gang members from
"hanging around with no apparent purpose."
Chicago's ordinance, which
was widely watched by other cities with gang problems, had resulted in 45,000
arrests in the three years it was in force.
But on a 6-3 vote, the
justices said communities concerned with gang crime cannot give police
unfettered power to pick and choose who might be loitering.
Separately,
the court began what is likely to be a lengthy examination of a revived federal
death penalty by upholding the death sentence of a retired Army Ranger convicted
of killing a 19-year-old private kidnapped from a Texas military base.
Louis Jones was sentenced to die under a 1994 law that makes some 40
offenses federal capital crimes. The same statute was used to sentence convicted
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to death.
PRIVACY:
A
unanimous court ruled the "right of residential privacy at the core of the
Fourth Amendment" is violated by police who allow reporters and camera crews to
ride along on searches.
POLITICAL CORRUPTION:
The justices
refused to buy Colorado's argument that states worried by a threat of vote fraud
are justified in requiring people who pass around ballot initiative petitions to
be registered voters, and to wear badges identifying themselves.
FREE
SPEECH:
A unanimous court struck down a 65-year-old federal ban on
broadcast ads for gambling casinos on the grounds that it "sacrifices an
intolerable amount of speech about lawful conduct."
SCHOOL HARASSMENT:
A bitterly divided court ruled 5-4 that school districts can be held
liable for student-on-student harassment if school authorities show "deliberate
indifference" toward behavior that is so severe and pervasive that the victim
cannot learn.
The decision follows a ruling last term that said students
harassed by a teacher cannot hold the school liable unless they complain to a
superior in a position to help.
On other education issues, the justices
held that:
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act requiring disabled students be provided with a "free, appropriate
public education" entitles them if necessary to nursing care during school
hours.
TELECOM RATES:
In the first test of the 1996
telecommunications deregulation act, the justices upheld the power of the
Federal Communications Commission to pry open the $100-billion-a-year local
telephone market.
The court also rejected bids by the Baby Bell regional
phone companies to jump into the $90 billion long-distance market before they
make room for local competition.
LOAD-DATE: June 28,
1999 
