Pubdate: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL) Copyright: 2007 The Palm Beach Post Contact: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333 Note: Does not publish letters from writers outside area Author: Jac Wilder Versteeg http://www.mapinc.org/people/Joseph+Frederick (Joseph Frederick) NO FREE SPEECH 4 STUDENTS I don't have much in common with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. But on one thing, we agree: Public school students have no right to free speech. None. Zero. The high court this week correctly ruled that a senior at a high school in Alaska had no free speech right to unfurl a banner that read: "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The incident happened in 2002, when students gathered outside the school to greet an Olympic torch bearer. The student said he just wanted to get on TV. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in Morse vs. Frederick, concluding that since "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" reasonably could be read as advocating drug use, the school principal did not violate the kid's First Amendment rights when she ordered him to stop displaying the banner and then suspended him for 10 days when he gave her lip about it. Chief Justice Roberts was very careful, however, to note that if the banner had carried a political or religious message, the outcome might have been different. So, a banner that advocated overturning marijuana laws or declared that Jesus loves people who smoke pot might have been protected speech. We won't know for sure until some student has the bright idea to test the theory. And then, if this case is any guide, it would take at least five years and a ton of money to get a Supreme Court ruling on the matter. That's why I think Justice Thomas has the right idea. He concurred with the majority opinion but would have gone further. "In my view," he wrote, "the history of public education suggests that the First Amendment, as originally understood, does not protect student speech in public schools." He goes on: "Early public schools were not places for freewheeling debates or exploration of competing ideas. Rather, teachers instilled 'a core of common values' in students and taught them self-control." In 1969, in the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines School District, the Supreme Court granted students serious free speech rights. This wasn't a frivolous "Bong Hits" issue. In 1965, some students in the district wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended. The majority opinion by Justice Abe Fortas concluded that because the students expressed a political opinion without disrupting school activities, "our Constitution does not permit officials of the State to deny their form of expression." Laudable, except I don't think that school officials in this context are "officials of the State." I think, as Justice Thomas contends, that these officials are operating as parental stand-ins. And does anyone want to argue that parents don't have the right to limit their children's right to free speech? In a delightfully acidic dissent to the decision allowing the armbands, Justice Hugo Black - one of the great advocates of free speech protections in the First Amendment - said the ruling effectively would give students the upper hand over teachers. "I, for one," he wrote "am not fully persuaded that school pupils are wise enough, even with this Court's expert help from Washington, to run the 23,390 public school systems in our 50 States." Children don't have a constitutionally protected right to free speech when they are in their parents' home. So why should they have that right in school? They aren't deprived of free speech. They can go to a park and stand on a soapbox. But they shouldn't be able to do that at school, unless school officials grant them that right. And here, I suspect, is where I would disagree with Justice Thomas and probably Justice Black. School should give students extraordinary leeway to discuss political and religious ideas. That's how, as adults, they become wise enough to run the schools. I would allow the armband protest. And "Bong Hits"? It was stupid, but I wouldn't fire a principal who let it go any more than I'd fire a principal who took it down. How permissive schools should be is a matter for adults to settle through school board elections, to name just one way. Free speech is great, in school or out. But in school, the right to free speech should come from parents and other adults, not from the First Amendment. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom