COURT TEACHES KIDS BAD LESSON

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation warned that our children
don't fully appreciate or respect the rights protected by the First
Amendment.

The foundation released a national study in 2006 that showed nearly
half the students surveyed believed that the First Amendment went too
far in the rights it guarantees, and 46 percent believed that
newspapers should not publish stories without government approval.

The report blamed educators for not doing a better job of teaching
students how essential free expression is to our system of government.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't help matters when it
renders decisions like last week's Morse v. Frederick. In that
decision, the high court ruled 6-3 that schools can punish students
for uttering what could be perceived as messages advocating drug use,
even if they do it off campus.

The case began in 2002, when the Olympic Torch Relay was making its
way through Juneau, Alaska, on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002
Winter Games. Students at Juneau-Douglas High School were allowed to
leave class and watch as the Olympic Flame passed in front of their
school.

Joseph Frederick, then a senior, was across the street from the school
and held up a banner proclaiming "BONG HITS 4 JESUS" as the runners
passed the school.

Principal Deborah Morse went over and ordered the banner taken down.
Frederick refused and Morse confiscated the sign and later suspended
Frederick for 10 days. Morse said the sign clearly advocated marijuana
smoking, making it a violation of school policy.

Frederick argued that the sign did not advocate anything. It was
merely "nonsense" designed to catch the eye of TV camera crews
covering the event. He said that taking the sign and suspending him
violated his constitutional rights to free expression.

A federal court initially ruled in Morse's favor but its decision was
overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting Morse and
the school district to appeal to the Supreme Court, with Kenneth
Starr, the former special prosecutor whose investigation led to
President Clinton's impeachment, representing Morse and the district.
Frederick received support from a variety of groups, such as the
conservative Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties
Union.

Roberts, writing for the court, declared that students' free-speech
rights are not trampled when schools restrict pro-drug messages.

"We hold that schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to
their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging
illegal drug use," Roberts wrote.

It is also reasonable to conclude that this decision tells teens that
the right of free expression does not apply to them and further
inculcate them in the belief that First Amendment freedoms are
inherently dangerous and should be curtailed.

First, it's hard to see how anyone could interpret Frederick's banner
as encouraging his fellow students to use marijuana. One could just as
easily interpret the banner as an endorsement of Christianity since it
invokes Christ's name. Most people would put Frederick's banner right
up there with the nonsense signs people wave to get on TV at sporting
events.

While the school claimed that the Olympic Torch Run was a school
activity where all school rules applied, Frederick was not on school
property nor had he reported for class that morning. Would Morse have
stormed across the street and torn down the sign if non-students were
holding it up just to get their mugs on TV? Roberts' decision seems to
tell kids that they shed their First Amendment rights on either side
of the schoolhouse gate.

Nor is the decision as narrowly drawn as Roberts' opinion would
suggest. It creates an opening for censors to shut down student
speech, just as the court did nearly 20 years ago in Hazelwood v.
Kuhlmeier. In Hazelwood, the court said school principals could censor
student publications for educational purposes. Censorious principals
have stretched "educational purposes" far beyond the breaking point to
block stories that about air pollution from school bus garages and
criticism of a school football team. That decision has turned many
high school papers into nothing more than feel-good public relations
packets instead of a training ground for future journalists.

A prohibition on "pro-drug advocacy" could be likewise contorted to
squelch more than just someone openly advocating drug use, as one
justice warned.

"What about a conversation during the lunch period where one student
suggests that glaucoma sufferers should smoke marijuana to relieve the
pain? What about deprecating commentary about an anti-drug film shown
in school? And what about drug messages mixed with other, more
expressly political content?" Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked in his
dissent.

The potential for abuse is high when it is a bureaucrat, not the
speaker, who determines what the message means, and a student can be
punished for statements made off campus.

But the worst thing is that the court has eroded an inalienable right
for young Americans. Supporters of such censorship argue that children
do not know how to responsibly exercise the right of free expression,
and need "guidance" before they can use it fully. Such people do not
understand the First Amendment's guarantee.

So-called "responsible" speech usually needs no protection, since it
reflects the majority opinion. It is the dissenting voices, the
devil's advocates and the free thinkers that require protection from
the tyranny of the majority. Such speech promotes debate, which
eventually leads to the truth, while silencing it keeps us in the
darkness of ignorance and doomed to making bad decisions.

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be
justified in silencing mankind," John Stuart Mill, a 19th century
British philosopher, said. Unfortunately, the Morse and Hazelwood
decisions are teaching children that it is OK to silence a contrarian
opinion in school, and these students will likely take that attitude
with them into the marketplace of ideas as adults. That would be
disastrous for the country.

Students learn math by doing equations and science by conducting
experiments. So why not allow them to learn free speech by exercising
it? Will kids make mistakes and say outrageous things? Of course, but
so do adults. Just listen to talk radio or read Internet blogs. The
genius of free expression, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out, is that
errors of opinion are tolerable as long as truth is free to respond.

Until the Supreme Court decides to revisit this decision, we hope
educators will resist the temptation to censor students and let them
learn to exercise this great American birthright.