ALITO: HYPOCRISY IN HIGH PLACES

The First Amendment took two big hits from the Supreme Court on June
25. Freedom of religion lost in Hein v. Freedom From Religion
Foundation, while freedom of speech was battered in Morse v.
Frederick. That's bad news on its own, but these cases also suggest
the disturbing possibility that the newest justice, Samuel Alito Jr.
- -- whom "Freedom Watch," along with many others, has hailed as a true
friend of civil liberties -- cast the crucial fifth vote against the
First Amendment in each decision on the basis of his religious views.

In the first case, an organization of atheist taxpayers argued that
federal funding of President Bush's faith-based initiatives and social
programs violated the separation of church and state.

They relied on a 1968 decision by the high court that allows taxpayers
to challenge governmental religious expenditures in court.

But in the wake of this past week's decision, a taxpayer's right to do
so will be greatly reduced. Now, future challenges may only target
congressional appropriations for religious purposes. When the
president uses public funds for religious purposes without an
authorization from Congress, taxpayers have no "standing" to sue. In
effect, Alito and four other justices licensed presidential subterfuge
against the First Amendment when religion is in play.

With this decision, Alito appeared to be beating back atheists while
protecting faith-based organizations' right to suckle at the taxpayer
teat via the executive branch. (One could make a similar argument
about Justice Antonin Scalia.)

The impression that Alito engages in judicial sleight of hand when it
comes to religious challenges to the First Amendment was strengthened
when, on the same day, he issued his opinion in Morse. Here, Alito
refused to protect the speech of a Juneau, Alaska, high-school
student, Joseph Frederick. Let out of school early with his classmates
to watch the passing of the Olympic torch, Frederick unfurled a banner
bearing the message BONG HITS 4 JESUS. The school principal
interpreted the banner as a pro-drug message, confiscated it, and
suspended Frederick for 10 days. He sued.

In a series of nearly incomprehensible opinions, five justices,
including Alito, denied Frederick's free-speech rights.

Instead, they chose to limit a 1969 opinion, Tinker v. Des Moines
Independent School District, which declared that public-school
students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech
or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Alito's separate concurring
opinion argued that, though students' speech might be protected when
it is not "disruptive," Frederick's banner was unprotected since it
could reasonably be interpreted as advocating illegal drug use, and
was therefore disruptive of the school's educational mission.

But neither Alito nor the other justices mentioned the nine-foot-tall
gorilla in the living room: linking the Lord's name to bong hits.
Blasphemy! While the Court's "liberals" and "conservatives" debated
the drug message of the banner, Jesus's name went unspoken.

There is reason to believe, however, that Alito was offended less by
the reference to "bong hits" than by the hit, so to speak, against
Jesus. As an appellate judge, Alito had decided a case -- Saxe v.
State College Area School District -- that declared a Pennsylvania
school district's anti-harassment policy to be overly broad and
therefore unconstitutional. In that 2001 case, two public-school
students and their father, who described themselves as "Christians
[who] believe . . . that homosexuality is a sin," sued to invalidate
the school's policy.

Though they felt "compelled by their religion to speak out on . . .
moral issues," the father believed that his children's speech would be
interpreted as harassment of gay students, rather than as religiously
motivated free speech.

Alito agreed, concluding that such speech -- while unwelcome in the
eyes of gay students and others -- could hardly be seen to "pose a
realistic threat of substantial disruption" and "is within a student's
First Amendment rights." What one student considered hate speech,
Alito argued, another could fairly consider free speech.

He invalidated the code, pushing back against would-be academic
censors seeking to outlaw politically incorrect speech.

In the wake of Morse, it is necessary to rethink Alito's apparently
principled position in Saxe, which this column noted favorably in the
past. Alito's double standard protects a religious kid's undoubted
right to tell a gay student he is going to Hell, but not another kid's
right to make a nonsensical statement linking Jesus with drug use.
This solicitousness toward the religious right is unprincipled
judicial activism.

The beauty of "judicial reasoning" is that it can define and protect
the blessings of liberty in a constitutional society.

But it can also be a cover for blatant hypocrisy.