FIRST AMENDMENT

ISSUE: High court limits student speech.

No one could determine exactly what "bong hits 4 Jesus" means. But a
sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court decided the statement was noxious
enough, given its source -- a student -- that it deserves to be squelched.

The 5-4 ruling flies in the face of long-standing free speech
protections and inappropriately extends a principal's censorship reach
beyond the schoolhouse door.

Existing precedent has long determined that students do not have the
same First Amendment rights on school grounds as the rest of society,
and rightly so, because of safety, order and other concerns. As 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 illegal drug use and other
dangers.

The problem here is that when Juneau-Douglas High School student
Joseph Frederick unfurled his nonsensical bong-hit banner, he was
neither on school campus nor at a school-sponsored event. He was
across the street, hoping to get on television as the Olympic torch
passed.

Instead, he got 10 days suspension and his name in the history books
of constitutional law.

Bafflingly, on the same day the Supremes curtailed student expression,
they expanded it for special interests in political campaigns, opening
the floodgates for deep-pocketed financiers to disproportionately sway
the process. Upending a 2003 high court ruling to the contrary, the
Roberts court decided 5-4 that corporate-or union-funded radio and TV
ads could mention a candidate's name close to election time, as long
as they don't specifically urge anyone to vote a certain way.

It's a loophole you could drive a billboard through.

And yet Justice Roberts nobly declared, "When the First Amendment is
implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor." Except, of
course, when the speaker happens to be high-school aged and in his
teacher's line of sight.

BOTTOM LINE: This ruling blows.