END OF THE BONG SHOW AS STUDENT LOSES CASE

U.S. Top Court Rules Banner Promoted The Use Of Drugs

Sheldon Alberts CanWest News Service, with files from
Reuters

WASHINGTON - In a decision that restricts the free-speech rights of
students, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against an Alaska student who
was suspended from high school for unfurling a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"
banner on a public sidewalk.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said a school principal was justified in
suspending 18-year-old Joseph Frederick because his homemade banner
promoted the use of drugs.

"Student speech celebrating illegal drug use ? poses a particular
challenge for school officials working to protect those entrusted to
their care from the dangers of drug abuse," Chief Justice John Roberts
wrote in the majority opinion.

"The First Amendment does not require schools to tolerate, at school
events, student expression that contributes to those dangers."

The ruling closes one of the most bizarre -- and potentially
significant -- cases involving free speech to reach the Supreme Court
in two decades.

It began when Frederick displayed his five-metre-long banner during an
Olympic torch relay event in Juneau, Alaska, before the 2002 Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Frederick, then a senior at Juneau-Douglas High, insisted the banner
was intended as a publicity prank simply to attract television
coverage -- and he never intended to promote the use of marijuana.

Although he was standing on a sidewalk off school property, principal
Deborah Morse bolted across the street, seized the banner and later
suspended Frederick for 10 days.

In the majority ruling, Chief Justice Roberts described the "Bong Hits
4 Jesus" banner as "offensive to some, amusing to others," but said
the principal's view that it could inspire drug abuse "is plainly a
reasonable one."

The controversy drew national attention when Frederick sued the Juneau
school board and even prompted the Bush administration to submit a
brief supporting the principal.

The administration argued students' rights to free speech are limited
when they violate a school's educational mission, including advising
teenagers against drug use.

The ruling also highlighted a deepening divide on the U.S.'s top court
between liberal justices and the more conservative judges headed by
Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, the U.S.
President, two years ago.

In the minority dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, 87, said student
speech should only be limited when it violates specific rules or
"expressly advocates" illegal behaviour.

"This nonsense banner does neither, and the court does serious
violence to the First Amendment in upholding, indeed lauding, a
school's decision to punish Frederick for expressing a view with which
it disagreed," he wrote.

"Although this case began with a silly, nonsensical banner, it ends
with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment
rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions
drugs, at least so long as someone could perceive that speech to
contain a latent pro-drug message."

Justice Stephen Breyer said he would have decided the case without
reaching the free-speech issue by ruling the principal cannot be held
liable for damages.

The Bush administration supported Ms. Morse and argued public schools
do not have to tolerate a message inconsistent with their basic
educational mission.

Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor who investigated
president Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, argued the
case for Ms. Morse and said the ruling has implications for public
school districts nationwide.

"I am gratified that the Supreme Court has upheld the application of
our common sense policies," the principal said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Frederick,
criticized the ruling for allowing censorship of student speech
without any evidence school activities had been disrupted.

"The court's ruling imposes new restrictions on student speech rights
and creates a drug exception to the First Amendment," said Steven
Shapiro, its national legal director.

The U.S. case is similar to a controversy in Saskatchewan involving a
Grade 10 student's school presentation on drug use. Kieran King, 15,
was suspended for three days from high school this month in Wawota
after arguing alcohol and tobacco use were more dangerous than smoking
marijuana.