FREE SPEECH

Half-Baked Alaska Case

Kenneth Starr became an object of derision when he spent nearly $50
million of taxpayer money in a futile attempt to oust former President
Bill Clinton for a trivial sex fling that didn't include intercourse.
Now the ex-special prosecutor is back in the news. He went before the
U.S. Supreme Court last week -- without pay -- to support the
expulsion of an Alaska high school student who held up a sign his
principal disliked. Here's the case:

On a snowy day five years ago, teenage Joseph Frederick displayed a
banner with the nonsensical message "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" while the
Olympic Torch Relay ran past his school in Juneau.

After the torch-bearer passed, Principal Deborah Morse crossed the
street and told Frederick and his friends to lower the sign. When they
refused, she grabbed the banner, crumpled it and confiscated it. Morse
suspended Frederick and another student for five days. When Frederick
quoted Thomas Jefferson about America's right of free speech, he
received an additional five days.

The principal said the banner promoted illegal drug use. But the
student said it was just a goofy gimmick to get himself filmed by TV
crews. Further, he wasn't on school property, but was on a public
sidewalk across the street.

The student appealed his suspension, and was upheld by the 9th Circuit
federal court in San Francisco. It cited the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines
Independent Community School District case, in which the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld the rights of students to wear armbands protesting the
Vietnam War. That ruling said students do not "shed their
constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the
schoolhouse gate."

But the Alaska school appealed to America's highest court. Several
fundamentalist organizations filed briefs in behalf of the youth,
because they fear that evangelistic teens may be removed from schools
for aggressive proselytizing.

Although the Alaska case seems comical, major American newspapers say
it's important. They say the Supreme Court should rule for the
student, because teenagers are entitled to speak freely, just like
American adults. The Washington Post wrote:

"High school administrators can regulate speech on campus if it is
school-sponsored, vulgar or disruptive to the school's basic work. Mr.
Frederick's banner was neither school-sponsored nor vulgar, and it did
not cause a disturbance on campus."

If the Alaska principal is upheld, the paper said, school
administrators would be empowered, "for example, to stop students from
distributing copies of the Alaska Supreme Court's decision allowing
personal marijuana use in the state."

The New York Times said a ruling for the principal could mean that
students could be expelled for protesting President Bush's Iraq war.
"Some school administrators would no doubt use their power to clamp
down on conservative speech while others would clamp down on liberal
speech."

Free speech lies at the very heart of American democracy, locked into
the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Even though adolescents can
be silly, they should have a right to voice comments like other Americans.