Here's Google's code:

<!-- Google Scholar -->
<form method="get" action="http://scholar.google.com/scholar">
<table bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td align="center"><a href="http://scholar.google.com/"> <img src="http://scholar.google.com/scholar/scholar_sm.gif" alt="Google Scholar" width="105" height="40" border="0" align="absmiddle" /></a><br />
<input type="text" name="q" size="15" maxlength="255" value="" /><br />
<input type="submit" name="btnG" value="Search" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<!-- Google Scholar -->

containing 3 non-valid attributes: bgcolor, border and align. So I asked Google if I could change it to this (which retains the layout, keeps the brand values solid and is standards-compliant):

<!-- Google Scholar -->
<form id="google-scholar-search" method="get" action="http://scholar.google.com/scholar">
<p style="background-color:#fff;">
<a href="http://scholar.google.com/">
<img style="border:none;text-align:center;" src="http://scholar.google.com/scholar/scholar_sm.gif" alt="Google Scholar" width="105" height="40" /></a>
<br />
<input type="text" name="q" size="15" maxlength="255" value="" />
<br />
<input type="submit" name="btnG" value="Search" />
</p>
</form>
<!-- Google Scholar -->

And they said no. Specifically, they said,

As you mentioned, the Terms of Service for the Google Scholar free search box does not allow for alterations to the HTML code. Please use the HTML provided on our website, as we are unable to approve any modifications. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.

Thanks Google. If you had demonstrated some cooperation and understanding I too would have been appreciative.

Wonder if my GMail account will go slow now…