A WORD ON YOUNG CHAMPS OF FREE SPEECH

A long time ago, in a place far away, a free-spirited schoolboy tried
to exercise his rights of free speech.

Informed that he had none, and rudely rebuffed, the impetuous lad
grew up to become a newspaperman.

Four years ago, in a different place far away, another smart-aleck
also stood upon his First Amendment rights.

He had better luck, and now he's in the U.S. Supreme Court, ready to
defend his glorious victory against a formidable foe.

As you will have surmised, I was the fearless 14-year-old of 1934.
Yes! Jack Kilpatrick, boy editor! He was editor of the Chief Justice,
the sometime student newspaper at Taft Junior High School in Oklahoma
City. I will return to his travails.

First we must attend to the fate visited upon another teenager,
Joseph Frederick, in Juneau, Alaska, in January 2002.

That was when the Olympic torch was being carried o'er distant lands
to its final resting place beside the wine-dark sea.

That was also when this courageous youth attempted, heroically, to
raise a 20-foot banner with a curious text. The pennant read,
mystically, cryptically, enigmatically:

BONG HITS 4 JESUS

What could it mean? Elderly spectators were in wonder.

Principal Deborah Morse knew full well. In the curious argot of the
underworld, it was a salute to marijuana.

Yes! A celebration of pot! Of hashish! Cannabis! The banner would
lead the children of Juneau down a primrose path to degradation.

Ms. Morse rushed across the street and snatched the evil banner from
his hands. Then she trampled it underfoot!

The scene became unseemly. She ordered Joseph to her office. In
defiance, he refused to come.

She suspended him for five days. When he quoted Thomas Jefferson on
free speech, Ms. Morse made it 10 days: He had violated her code of
acceptable behavior.

He appealed to Superintendent Gary Bader. No luck. The school board
also ruled that principals must be upheld.

Thwarted at every turn, young Frederick sued for damages and a
summary judgment that his rights of free speech had been invaded.

U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick sided with the principal. The
wounded youth appealed.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit, speaking through Judge Andrew
J. Kleinfeld, emphatically reversed and sent the case back for trial.

From that order, Ms. Morse and the Juneau board have appealed to the
Supremes. We will know next month, when the high court opens its
October term, if the drama will resume.

You will accurately infer that this case strikes me as much ado about
mighty little.

Young Frederick, suffering from an overblown view of his own
importance, forgot his manners.

Ms. Morse, needlessly throwing her weight around, forgot the rule
that instructs grown-ups not to take themselves too damn seriously.

The three judges of the 9th Circuit should have affirmed Judge
Sedwick and then patted Frederick on his back for being a red-blooded
American boy.

The Supreme Court may take this case for two reasons:

(1) The school board's chief appellate counsel is Kenneth W. Starr, a
major league player who served not long ago as a federal circuit
judge and later as U.S. solicitor general. It's a reasonable
assumption that Starr would not have taken the case unless he thought
it had real merit.

And (2), this court is not notably sympathetic to the rights of
smart-aleck kids.

Starr may exaggerate when he says in his petition that Kleinfeld's
opinion in the 9th Circuit has "triggered deep concern among school
boards nationwide and profoundly upset settled understandings of
First Amendment principles."

But he argues persuasively that the lower court erred especially in
holding that Principal Morse is not entitled to qualified immunity
for her role in the dreadful imbroglio.

She may have outrun her writ, but not by much. She meant well.

I hope the high court takes the Juneau case and affirms 9-0.

Seventy years ago, I too was a youthful rebel, a precocious baby
Hearst, another Lincoln Steffens just waiting to emerge.

I was summoned to the principal's office and put unpleasantly on
terms: I could suspend publication of the extracurricular Weekly
Keyhole and destroy all copies, or I could give up my editorship of
the school's official student paper.

These were hard terms. My mother made me take them. I shoulda had
help from the ACLU.