WHAT WOULD JESUS SMOKE?

An Alaskan high school student landed a five-day suspension from
school.

He wasn't involved in a fight and he didn't disrupt a classroom. No,
in a 2002 parade in Juneau, Joseph Fredrick held up a sign stating
"Bong Hits for Jesus." One must note the the sign was not held up on
school grounds. Instead, school officials at the parade saw Fredrick's
sign and suspended him under the school's zero-tolerance drug policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union lost the case in a federal district
court, but the case was recently picked up by the (at least in this
area) infamous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yes, the same appeals
court that ruled the Pledge of Alliegence's statement of "Under God"
to violate the constitutional boundaries of church and state will now
decide if Jesus is, in fact, in favor of bong hits.

The school's decision to suspend Fredrick runs counter to any logic
contained in their reasoning. Yes, the sign referred to "bong hits,"
which as we all have heard from some other guy who did drugs once, is
how one smokes marijuana. As those people who have done independent
research also know, purchasing a bong comes with the strict warning of
the bong being for "tobacco use only." No one would dare violate such
a law or store policy. Tommy Chong aside, the rule is rarely enforced.

But the question isn't whether Jesus is "a friend of them long haired,
hippy-type, pinko fags," in the words of Charlie Daniels, but rather
if a student has free speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Fredrick had done other acts of civil disobedience before. According
to a story in the Student Press Law Center, "He once refused to stand
for the Pledge of Allegiance in school, hoping his defiance would
illuminate the hypocrisy of a free country mandating loyalty from
students." Fredrick does not mold to a traditional pattern of
perception of the student protester. Having graduated from high
school, he went to college for two years before deciding to join the
Marine Corps. Not too many people I know who are active in the realms
of protesting would contemplate such a manuever, much less sign up.
For some reason the Marine Corps doesn't like long-haired vegetarians
who enjoy reading Jonathan Safran Foer and drinking beer on sunny afternoons.

Yet, an obviously absurd protest sign at a school should not warrant a
school suspension. Much like any other religiously-based sarcasm, i.e.
"nuke a gay whale for Christ" or "Who would Jesus Bomb?," "Bong Hits
for Jesus" is not endorsing that Christians should smoke pot in honor
of their savior. It's sarcastic and non-sensical. Or so it was
intended to be interpreted.

The Supreme Court's decision of Tinker v. Des Moines, the High Court
ruled in favor of a group of high school students who wore black
armbands in protest of the Vietnam war. "It can hardly be argued that
either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to
freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," Justice
Fortas wrote in the decision. Yet, the Court did interpret that there
were special circumstances involving schools and student's access to
free speech rights, but still maintained students were
constitutionally defined "persons" inside and outside of the school's
boundaries. Justice Fortas continued, "In our system, state-operated
schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do
not possess absolute authority over their students."

These school officials obviously had no authority over the student's
free speech rights. I would hope our schools, designed to promote the
free-exchange of ideas and opinions and build knowledge, would not
follow the saying of Samuel Clemens, "In America -- as elsewhere --
free speech is confined to the dead."