John Scalise had asked the court to bar public schools from opening their doors to Boy Scout recruiters and promoting membership, arguing that the group discriminates against nonreligious boys and parents by denying membership unless they swear to religious oaths.
Scalise's dispute with the Scouts dates back to 1998, when his son was a the third grade of a school in Michigan.
He claims he and his son were barred from a Scout program at the elementary school because they would not pledge "to do my duty to God and my country." Father and son are nonreligious humanists.
Michigan courts ruled that the school-Scout partnership did not advance religion in violation of constitutional dictates.
Attorneys for the Scouts and the Mount Pleasant, Michigan, school system told justices that the appeal was frivolous.
A Michigan appeals court said that Mount Pleasant schools allowed other organizations to use class facilities, including a hospital group, an Indian tribe, a Baptist church and a hockey association.
Scalise argued that his son, Benjamin, was taunted by classmates and humiliated by a Boy Scout recruiter in front of other students. Benjamin Scalise is now 17.
The Supreme Court's last Boy Scout case was in 2000. Justices ruled 5-4 then that the Boy Scouts can enjoin homosexuals from serving as troop leaders. The ruling was written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died last year.
Scalise's attorney, Timothy Taylor, said taxpayer-funded schools are too cozy with the Boy Scouts.
"It's going on all over the country and has been for decades," he said.
