BRISTOL — Cities and towns have grappled for decades with how to tamp down student partying in neighborhoods. And Tuesday, lawyers took their cases for and against one town’s effort to ease the situation to students themselves, at Roger Williams University School of Law.

U.S. District Judge William E. Smith heard arguments before a packed courtroom at the law school about the constitutionality of Narragansett’s controversial policy of placing orange stickers on rental houses said to be disturbing the community. The University of Rhode Island Student Senate and landlords have challenged the ordinance, saying it gives the police unbridled rights to post the stickers — which must stay on the house through the school year — while not affording renters and landlords a chance to defend themselves.

The town countered that the students and landlords have not been deprived of any property or liberties that merit due-process protection.

The students and landlords, represented by the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the town asked the court to settle the case in their favor.

“The town is punishing landlords. The town is punishing people who rent the house, whether they did anything wrong or not,” said H. Jefferson Melish, for the ACLU. The ordinance, Melish said, unfairly targets students.

Smith prodded Melish about what exactly was unfair: Wasn’t the measure meant to put pressure on landlords, and what was wrong with that? He questioned which rights were being denied, saying he was struggling with what government benefit was at stake.

Melish responded that the ordinance infringes upon students’ right to gather, live with whom they choose and get an education because it could result in consequences from URI’s disciplinary board, he said. One student athlete was evicted and suspended from hockey games after the police notified the school that a sticker had been placed on his rental.

Smith questioned whether the ordinance did, in fact, compromise the students’ right to gather. “You have kids. I have kids. Isn’t there a right to hang out?”

“They have the right. They just can’t do it breaking the law,” said Marc DeSisto, lawyer for the town. No liberty of property interest or government right was at play that would spur due-process protections, he said.

Smith said he was perplexed by the town’s position that due-process rights don’t apply under the policy because alleged violators aren’t being “harmed enough.”

“The bottom line is there’s nothing you can do about a sticker.”

DeSisto said if students or landlords believed they were unfairly stigmatized, they could file a defamation suit. Second-time offenders are also entitled to a trial under the policy.

Third-year law student Tim Cook expected Smith to rule for the town, with some criticism that the policy doesn’t provide students and landlords a chance to defend themselves against an initial sticker offense.

“At the same time, this isn’t a federal constitutional matter,” said Cook, of Atlanta, who is taking a judicial ethics seminar with Smith. He said he didn’t believe students were being unfairly discriminated against because the ordinance applied to the whole town. “It was really the drinking and the partying that are the issue.”

Smith, an adjunct professor at the law school, shifted the arguments in the trial to the law school to give students a firsthand glimpse of federal court procedures. He said would issue a written decision in 60 days.

kmulvane@projo.com