Free Republic

The cultural disarray of the past 35 years flowed from the schools. Maybe I should have gone to law school. But only if God promised I would grow up to be a justice on the Supreme Court. The Nine Interpreters may have more fun than anyone in public life. Tip the United States on its side and eventually everything loose rolls into the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia, a skilled ironist, by now treats the court's annual agenda like a man at a driving range with a bucket of golf balls. What fun.

In its 1969 Tinker decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Iowa public school could not expel students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War because students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a muddled ruling -- with four justices agreeing, one partially agreeing and three dissenting -- that restricts those free-speech rights, even outside the schoolhouse gate. The story begins in January 2002. An Alaska high school student attending a Winter Olympics Torch Relay on a Juneau sidewalk unfurled a...

..SNIP... Doug Mertz, the Juneau attorney who argued the case of former student Joseph Frederick, said the court allowed a free-speech issue to be turned into a drug debate. "This is an extremely dangerous precedent," Mertz said. "This is the first time a subject matter is outside the protection of the First Amendment." Mertz said he and Frederick would confer about a final option, referring the case to the Alaska Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner. Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended the banner to proclaim...

Ken Starr Oral Argument Bong Hits 4 Jesus "Illegal drugs and the glorification of the drug culture are profoundly serious problems for our nation." http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/06-278.pdf

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner.

Supreme Court Rules Against Student Who Displayed 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' Banner. Just Breaking

Numerous press accounts have claimed that the Supreme Court is about to make a landmark First Amendment ruling in a case based on a 2002 incident in which an Alaskan student waved a banner with the words "Bong hits 4 Jesus." These reports are almost surely wrong. The only way this case could produce a landmark decision is if the court holds that the student has a right to personally sue the principal who seized his pro-drug banner and suspended him. Such a decision would give every school administrator (or teacher for that matter) nightmares and repeal the notion that...

The Supreme Court stepped into a dispute over free speech Friday involving a suspended high school student and his banner that proclaimed "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The justices agreed to hear the appeal by the Juneau, Alaska, school board and principal Deborah Morse of a lower court ruling that allowed the student's civil rights lawsuit to proceed. The school board hired former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to argue its case to the high court. Morse suspended Frederick after he displayed the banner, with its reference to marijuana use, when the Olympic torch passed through Juneau in 2002 on its way...