  The recent discovery that the UV dust extinction in starburst galaxies is
similar to that found in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) motivated us to
re-investigate the ultraviolet (UV) extinction found in the SMC. We have been
able to improve significantly on previous studies by carefully choosing pairs
of well matched reddened and unreddened stars. In addition, we benefited from
the improved S/N of the NEWSIPS IUE data and the larger sample of SMC stars now
available. Searching the IUE Final Archive, we found only four suitable
early-type stars that were significantly reddened and had well matched
comparison stars. The extinction for three of these stars is remarkably
similar. The curves are roughly linear with 1/lambda and have no measurable
2175 A bump. The fourth star has an extinction curve with a significant 2175 A
bump and weaker far-UV extinction. The dust along all four sightlines is
thought to be local to the SMC. There is no significant Galactic foreground
component. The first three stars lie in the SMC Bar and the line-of-sight for
each of them passes through regions of recent star formation. The fourth star
belongs to the SMC Wing and its line-of-sight passes though a much more
quiescent region. Thus, the behavior of the dust extinction in the SMC supports
a dependence of dust properties on star formation activity. However, other
environmental factors (such as galactic metallicity) must also be important.
Dust in the 30 Dor region of the LMC, where much more active star formation is
present, does not share the extreme extinction properties seen in SMC dust.
