NO FREE SPEECH 4 STUDENTS

I don't have much in common with Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas. But on one thing, we agree: Public school students have no
right to free speech.

None. Zero.

The high court this week correctly ruled that a senior at a high
school in Alaska had no free speech right to unfurl a banner that
read: "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The incident happened in 2002, when
students gathered outside the school to greet an Olympic torch
bearer. The student said he just wanted to get on TV.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in Morse vs.
Frederick, concluding that since "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" reasonably could
be read as advocating drug use, the school principal did not violate
the kid's First Amendment rights when she ordered him to stop
displaying the banner and then suspended him for 10 days when he gave
her lip about it.

Chief Justice Roberts was very careful, however, to note that if the
banner had carried a political or religious message, the outcome
might have been different.

So, a banner that advocated overturning marijuana laws or declared
that Jesus loves people who smoke pot might have been protected
speech. We won't know for sure until some student has the bright idea
to test the theory. And then, if this case is any guide, it would
take at least five years and a ton of money to get a Supreme Court
ruling on the matter.

That's why I think Justice Thomas has the right idea. He concurred
with the majority opinion but would have gone further. "In my view,"
he wrote, "the history of public education suggests that the First
Amendment, as originally understood, does not protect student speech
in public schools."

He goes on: "Early public schools were not places for freewheeling
debates or exploration of competing ideas. Rather, teachers instilled
'a core of common values' in students and taught them self-control."

In 1969, in the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines School District, the
Supreme Court granted students serious free speech rights. This
wasn't a frivolous "Bong Hits" issue. In 1965, some students in the
district wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were
suspended. The majority opinion by Justice Abe Fortas concluded that
because the students expressed a political opinion without disrupting
school activities, "our Constitution does not permit officials of the
State to deny their form of expression."

Laudable, except I don't think that school officials in this context
are "officials of the State." I think, as Justice Thomas contends,
that these officials are operating as parental stand-ins. And does
anyone want to argue that parents don't have the right to limit their
children's right to free speech?

In a delightfully acidic dissent to the decision allowing the
armbands, Justice Hugo Black - one of the great advocates of free
speech protections in the First Amendment - said the ruling
effectively would give students the upper hand over teachers. "I, for
one," he wrote "am not fully persuaded that school pupils are wise
enough, even with this Court's expert help from Washington, to run
the 23,390 public school systems in our 50 States."

Children don't have a constitutionally protected right to free speech
when they are in their parents' home. So why should they have that
right in school?

They aren't deprived of free speech. They can go to a park and stand
on a soapbox. But they shouldn't be able to do that at school, unless
school officials grant them that right.

And here, I suspect, is where I would disagree with Justice Thomas
and probably Justice Black. School should give students extraordinary
leeway to discuss political and religious ideas. That's how, as
adults, they become wise enough to run the schools. I would allow the
armband protest.

And "Bong Hits"? It was stupid, but I wouldn't fire a principal who
let it go any more than I'd fire a principal who took it down. How
permissive schools should be is a matter for adults to settle through
school board elections, to name just one way.

Free speech is great, in school or out. But in school, the right to
free speech should come from parents and other adults, not from the
First Amendment.