The Nineties in America Legislation: U.S. Supreme Court Decisions 995
Year Case Significance
1997 Printz v. United States A 5-4 decision limited congressional power by holding that a federal gun
registration law that compelled state officers to enforce the law was
unconstitutional under the Eleventh Amendment in that the federal
government cannot commandeer a state’s police forces.
1997 Reno v. ACLU The Communications Decency Act, which prohibited obscene or
indecent e-mail sent to individuals under eighteen years of age, was
held unconstitutional because the act was overly broad in its restriction
on freedom of speech.
1997 Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC Cable programming was not subject to the Federal Communications
Commission indecency regulation because it had security pay-per-view
coding transmitters and did not use broadcast signals that were easily
accessible to children.
1997 Vacco v. Quill A unanimous Court decision with five concurring opinions that evinced
much disagreement ruled that a state’s ban on physician-assisted suicide
was rationally related to the state’s legitimate governmental interests.
The Court found that the states’ interest in protecting life and in
protecting medical ethics extended to deciding whether a doctor may
aid a patient in committing suicide, so there was no constitutional equal
protection clause right to assisted suicide.
1997 Washington v. Glucksberg In another unanimous decision, the Court ruled that there was no due
process clause fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment to
physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. Concerned about
possible abuses in determining who makes the decision to end life, the
Court reaffirmed that state laws banning physician-assisted suicide were
constitutional, but the justices indicated that they might reconsider a
specific case where “an interest in hastening death is legitimate.”
1998 Bragdon v. Abbott Persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were protected
from discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and must
be provided “reasonable accommodation” at work since irrational
discrimination may actually hinder efforts to minimize the epidemic.
1998 County of Sacramento v. Lewis Estate A high-speed chase by the police that resulted in death, with neither
intent nor reckless indifference by the officer to physically harm the
suspect, did not violate the offender’s substantive due process right to life.
1998 Faragher v. City of Boca Raton An employer’s liability was absolute when a supervisor’s sexual
harassment of an employee led to a tangible employment action, such
as demotion, decreased compensation, significantly different work
assignments, or termination. When there has been no tangible
employment action, the employer may still have been liable unless it
could prove that it had taken reasonable care to prevent and promptly
correct any sexually harassing behavior (such as widely disseminating
an effective policy and complaint procedure) and the employee
“unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective
opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise.”
1998 Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School
District
The Court decided that a school could be held liable under Title IX
for a teacher’s sexual relationship with a student if a school official
with authority to take corrective action had actual knowledge of the
harassment and the school’s response to that knowledge amounted
to deliberate indifference to the teacher’s misconduct.