Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2007
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2007 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Joseph+Frederick (Joseph Frederick)

BONG GOES STUDENTS' FREE SPEECH

U.S. Supreme Court Rules 5-4 In Favour Of School Who Kicked Out Boy 
Over A Banner

No marijuana jokes, please, we're Americans.

That was the message yesterday from a divided United States Supreme 
Court, which ruled against an Alaska student who was kicked out of 
his high school for unfurling a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner on a 
public sidewalk.

In a 5-4 decision that restricts the free speech rights of U.S. 
students, the high court said a school principal was justified in 
suspending 18-year-old Joseph Frederick because his homemade banner 
promoted the use of drugs.

"Student speech celebrating illegal drug use ... poses a particular 
challenge for school officials working to protect those entrusted to 
their care from the dangers of drug abuse," Chief Justice John 
Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

"The First Amendment does not require schools to tolerate, at school 
events, student expression that contributes to those dangers." The 
ruling closes one of the most bizarre - and potentially significant - 
cases involving free speech to reach the Supreme Court in two decades.

It began when Frederick displayed his five-metre-long banner during 
an Olympic torch relay event in Juneau, Alaska, ahead of the 2002 
Winter Olympics, held that year in Salt Lake City. Frederick, then a 
senior at Juneau-Douglas High, insisted the banner was intended as a 
publicity prank simply to attract television coverage - and that he 
never intended to promote the use of marijuana.

Although he was standing on a sidewalk off school property at the 
time, principal Deborah Morse bolted across the street, seized the 
banner and subsequently suspended Frederick for 10 days.

In the majority ruling, Roberts described the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" 
banner as "offensive to some, amusing to others," but said the 
principal's view that it could inspire drug abuse "is plainly a 
reasonable one." The "Bong hits" controversy drew national attention 
when Frederick sued the Juneau school board and even prompted the 
Bush administration to submit a brief supporting the principal. The 
administration argued that students' rights to free speech are 
limited when they violate a school's educational mission, including 
advising teenagers against drug use.

The ruling also highlighted a deepening divide on the U.S. Supreme 
Court between liberal justices and the more conservative judges 
headed by Roberts, appointed two years ago by President George W. Bush.

In a stinging minority dissent, 87-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens 
said student speech should only be limited when it violates specific 
rules or "expressly advocates" illegal behaviour.

"This nonsense banner does neither, and the court does serious 
violence to the First Amendment in upholding, indeed lauding, a 
school's decision to punish Frederick for expressing a view with 
which it disagreed," Stevens wrote.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom