Students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison won’t be raising a glass to a decision today by the state’s Supreme Court.

The court dismissed a lawsuit — filed in 2004 on behalf of students and other pub crawlers — that challenged local bars’ agreement to limit drink specials on weekends. The students had called the agreement an illegal price-fixing conspiracy and sought “tens of millions of dollars” in damages, the Associated Press reported.

But the pact — which began in 2002 and banned drink specials at more than 20 bars after 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — was actually an effort to reduce binge drinking. The bars drew up the voluntary arrangement under pressure from university officials and city regulators, who had considered an all-out ban on drink specials in Madison.

“The defendants entered into their agreement as a direct response to the city’s increasing regulatory pressure,” exempting them from state antitrust law, Justice David Prosser wrote for a 3-to-1 majority. The dissenting justice said that the bars could have controlled binge drinking by, for example, not serving drunkards.

As for the ban’s effectiveness, the university was initially optimistic. In May 2003 it reported “declines in liquor-law violations and disorderly-conduct incidents during the first six months of the program.” But in March 2004 the university said that alcohol-related crime was on the rise and that the results of the ban were “inconclusive.”

For the past four years, while the lawsuit was pending, the ban was suspended. So this year’s seniors had plenty of chances to exercise their right to cheap beer. —Sara Lipka