Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2007
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2007 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bong+Hits+4+Jesus (Bong Hits 4 Jesus)

BONG GOES THE COURT IN FREE-SPEECH RULING

The U.S. Supreme Court needlessly chipped away at First Amendment 
free-speech guarantees with a ruling elevating a high-school prank to 
a dangerous promotion of drug use.

The 6-3 ruling miscast the case before the court as about drugs. But 
it was about a student's right to speech. Five years ago, high-school 
senior Joseph Frederick stood across the street from his school and 
unfurled a 14-foot banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Frederick 
and other students from the Juneau, Alaska, school were just off 
school property attending a nonschool event, an Olympic Torch relay.

Frederick's sign was ambiguous. Was the 18-year-old supporting drugs 
or Christianity? The ambiguity matters because it places Frederick's 
sign within the confines of protected speech.

Supreme Court members, in a majority opinion written by Chief Justice 
John Roberts, convinced themselves that Frederick's banner was a 
public promotion of the use of illegal drugs. School authorities, 
according to Roberts -- joined by Justices Thomas, Scalia, Alito and 
Kennedy -- did not violate Frederick's constitutional rights when 
they went across the street, snatched his sign and ripped it to shreds.

The Supreme Court recognized student political speech with its 1969 
decision, Tinker v. Des Moines (Iowa) School District. Justice 
Stephen Breyer, while siding with the majority, asserts that 
Frederick and his bong-hits banner make for an inadequate foundation 
on which to limit students' right to political speech.

The court's dissenters -- Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter 
and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- go further. Stevens, penning the dissent, 
called the student's banner "nonsense" and the court's ruling a reach 
for broad censorship that would ban speech that advocated for 
medicinal marijuana use or other related messages.

The majority worries that illegal drugs are a serious danger in 
schools. This argument gets some sympathy but not enough to trample 
on the First Amendment.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman