Because we had such an interesting debate about the students who showed up at the prom having consumed an alcoholic beverage or 2,3,4. We have today’s Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that sets some interesting precedent about the rights of a student’s free speech. If you haven’t guessed I’m a big supporter of student rights, which has much to do with the extensive experience arguing for the right to exercise some sort of creative expression in my youth. Some of you are not going to be surprised by this :).
Any hoo, we have “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”:
The most important student free-speech conflict to reach the Supreme Court since the height of the Vietnam War hinges on a somewhat absurd, vaguely offensive, mostly nonsensical message of protest.
Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
That is the slogan that a defiant high school student named Joseph Frederick fashioned with a 14-foot piece of paper and a $3 roll of duct tape. His goal was partly to get on TV as the Olympic torch passed through his town of Juneau, Alaska, and mostly to get under the skin of his disciplinarian principal, Deborah Morse, with whom he had a running feud.
It worked, at least the irritating-the-principal part. Morse crossed Glacier Avenue to Frederick’s position across from the school and confiscated the banner. She later suspended him for 10 days. Frederick, a high school rebel who at the time was fond of quoting Thoreau and Voltaire, said Morse tacked on the last five days when he paraphrased Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that “speech limited is speech lost.”
The Supremes ruled that school administrators could censure speech even if it was not physically on school property. From the The Washington Post:
The Supreme Court affirmed wide authority for school administrators to regulate students’ speech today, allowing principals to punish pupils who make any in-school speech or demonstration that may “reasonably be viewed” as promoting illegal drug use.
The finding came in a case in which a Juneau public high school teacher gave Joseph Frederick a 10-day suspension for unfurling a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” as the school was gathering outside to watch the Olympic Torch Relay pass in 2002. Joseph, who has since graduated, sued the suspension was a violation of his constitutional right to free speech.
Though the Banner’s message was admittedly ambiguous, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court majority that the school’s principal, Deborah Morse, was not wrong to conclude that it promoted the use of an illegal substance, which was contrary to the Juneau school system’s policy.
The dangers of illegal drug use are “serious,” Roberts wrote, and the “First Amendment does not require schools to tolerate at school events student expression that contributes to those dangers,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts’ opinion was joined fully by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice Stephen G. Breyer agreed with the majority that Morse should not be liable, but disagreed with its reasoning.
Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented.
Stevens wrote that Frederick had raised a “nonsense banner,” which advocated nothing, legal or illegal, and that the court’s opinion could be read to permit broad censorship.
Ruh-roh. Did the Supremes think about the tubes, dude? By tubes, I meant the Internet, which one of those charming Alaskan congresscritters famously described the Internet as a series of tubes … well you get the derision. So if a student has a web site and posts the now famous “bong hits 4 jesus” phrase on it, does this ruling mean a school administrators can execute disciplinary action? Some say it does. Andy Carvin (h/t boingboing)posts on a PBS blog:
The big question those of us in the edtech world are bound to ask, of course, is how this ruling will affect cases in which schools have been disciplined for online activities that take place off-campus. In recent years, many students have been disciplined for online behavior, including content posted to blogs, personal websites and social networks. Some schools have been forced to back down and even pay damages because they disciplined students for activities that took play away from school, without affecting the educational process - both barometers for student free speech rights.
Check out his full post though, because he provides the text and context of the individual justices, which is enlightening.
Needless to point out, I think this is a bad decision. Whether the banner read Principal Skinner Sux, or the afore mentioned bong hits phrase, it shouldn’t matter. Off campus, should be off campus, and free speech, even if you disagree with it should be protected, especially for students.
source: The Washington Post, Justices to Hear Landmark Free-Speech Case, By Robert Barnes, March 13, 2007; Page A03
source: The Washington Post, Court Tightens Limits on Student Speech, By Charles Lane, June 25, 2007
source: Supreme Court Rules Against Student in “Bong Hits 4 Jesus†Case, by Andy Carvin
