Dept. of Remembering Why High School Sucked
Supreme Court Harshes My Buzz, Dude
The Supreme Court released a buzzkill of an opinion yesterday on the Morse v. Frederick free speech case. The trouble started in 2002, when the then-senior Jason Frederick was suspended for holding a “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner at a school assembly in Juneau. But the Ed Rooney-esque actions of Principal Deborah Morse were just the start. Frederick’s mellow was ultimately harshed upon in a 5-4 majority decision from the Supremest of Courts that said his free speech was not violated in the suspension. But maybe they are right that the banner could have been disruptive to the educational environment, considering Alaska is ranked as the 46th dumbest state in the union. It gets better; Clarence Thomas even wrote a concurrent opinon in which he proposed overturning Tinker v. Des Moines, the foundation of students’ free speech jurisprudence. Bong hit banners are just a step away from black armbands.
Read the Post’s coverage here. They have to define what a bong is in the lead paragraph.
20070626 8:39 pm
NPR totally bummed out my morning when I heard about the SC’s decisions.
How do you modify campaign finance reform law and say that “Where the First Amendment is implicated the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor,” and then hand out a verdict in another first amendment case and say “It cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment ‘freedom of speech’ encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools.”
Sigh.