This re-run post from last spring is re-visited so we can complete the connection of precedent on student speech/expression from Tinker v. Des Moines, through Hazelwood and Bethel to Frederick v. Morse (aka: Bong Hits 4 Jesus)
In an illiberal democracy, the images might cause protest boycotts and bombs. Here they just may cause students’ free speech rights to be blown up – up in smoke that is.
Joseph Frederick, then a senior at Juneau-Douglas High School, attended an off-campus Olympic torch relay parade near his Alaska school in 2002. Students had been released from school so they could watch the relay. Frederick was standing across the street from school grounds attempting to draw attention from the media outlets coming to the event. He unfurled a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”
School Principal Deborah Morse crossed the street and pulled down Frederick’s banner. Morse also suspended Frederick for five days, but after Frederick said he quoted Thomas Jefferson in protest, Morse increased his suspension to 10 days.
School lawyers said the principal acted because the banner promoted drug use and conflicted with the school’s anti-drug policy. A federal district court ruled that the banner was offensive according to the 1986 Supreme Court case Bethel School District v. Fraser and the school had the right to discipline the student.
Frederick appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the lower court’s ruling because it said the Fraser precedent was only applicable to sexual discussion. The judges, citing the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines ruling wrote that speech occurring outside the classroom can’t be censored just because it conflicts with the school’s educational mission.
Joseph Frederick, then a senior at Juneau-Douglas High School, attended an off-campus Olympic torch relay parade near his Alaska school in 2002. Students had been released from school so they could watch the relay. Frederick was standing across the street from school grounds attempting to draw attention from the media outlets coming to the event. He unfurled a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”
School Principal Deborah Morse crossed the street and pulled down Frederick’s banner. Morse also suspended Frederick for five days, but after Frederick said he quoted Thomas Jefferson in protest, Morse increased his suspension to 10 days.
School lawyers said the principal acted because the banner promoted drug use and conflicted with the school’s anti-drug policy. A federal district court ruled that the banner was offensive according to the 1986 Supreme Court case Bethel School District v. Fraser and the school had the right to discipline the student.
Frederick appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the lower court’s ruling because it said the Fraser precedent was only applicable to sexual discussion. The judges, citing the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines ruling wrote that speech occurring outside the classroom can’t be censored just because it conflicts with the school’s educational mission.
In what was the last term's marquee case, the Anna Nicole Smith of 06-07, the decision will have a real precedent of student speech/press. “The fundamental issue is jurisdiction,’’ said constitutional scholar Linda Monk. “To say to a student that essentially there is no limit to our jurisdiction over you is the death of the First Amendment.”
And in the decision given last June, the Roberts Court, with the Chief Justice writing the majority opinion said for another 5-4 Court, that while students do retain certain rights to political speech in school, the right does not extend to pro-drug messages.
3 comments:
Check out the MP3 ora argument link to the Morse v. Frederick case, I think you'll find it interesting listening!
Justice Souter a strong defender of student speech rights v. Justice Scalia who is all about not talking about hypotheticals, that this is solely about the student use of illegal drugs.
The attorney making the case for the petitioning Juneau, Alaska principal is the same Kenneth Starr, who served as the 38th Solicitor General on the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush.
In 1994, Starr was appointed by Congress as Independent Counsel to investigate Whitewater land transactions by President Bill Clinton.
The Starr Report led to Clinton's impeachment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice arising from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
There is some talk currently on Capitol Hill over whether Congress should appoint an independent counsel to investigate the destruction of videos that showed CIA interrogation of terror suspects.
You can find the story on Sen. Joe Biden's call for special counsel here:
abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3975197
"students do retain certain rights to political speech in school, the right does not extend to pro-drug messages"
this part scares me; I don't think that their choseing of what genre of opinions we are allowed to express does justice to free speech.
While I can understand that some speech can be limited within school, especially if it is a blatant disruption, I do not think that the court should be able to take a stance on which side of an issue, political or not, students should be allowed to propagate.
Additionally, what specifically qualifies as "political"?
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