BONG HITS 4 JESUS CASE

Schools Not Well Served If Second-Guessed by Courts

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals says that they do, as long as they
advocate drug use without also causing a disturbance. The Supreme
Court, which took up the question this week, is likely to reverse --
the Ninth Circuit is already batting 0 for 9 in the Supreme Court this
term -- but the fact that this case is in the courts at all
demonstrates the absurdity of our current law regarding student speech.

This week's case began in January 2002, when the Olympic torch relay
passed through Juneau, Alaska, on its way to Salt Lake City for the
winter games. Because the course passed in front of the high school
during school hours, the principal authorized the teachers to take
their students outside to watch the event, and the school's pep band
and cheerleaders were asked to provide entertainment for the relay
participants. One enterprising student, however, decided to welcome
the torch with his own special greeting: As the runner approached he
unfurled a banner emblazoned with the phrase, "BONG HITS 4 JESUS."

His primary aim, according to his lawyers, was to get himself on TV --
and he has spectacularly succeeded. His secondary goal, his lawyers
say, was to make a statement about his First Amendment rights. In
other words, this student planned and executed an attention-getting
prank designed to provoke the principal and irritate his teachers, and
he fully expected to get away with it.

The indignant school principal ordered him to take down the banner,
which she interpreted, reasonably enough, as expressing a pro-drug
message. When the student refused, she tore it down, ordered him to
her office and gave him a 10-day suspension as punishment. The student
- -- naturally -- sued.

If the Ninth Circuit were to get its way, the student would not only
have the suspension expunged from his record, he would also be
entitled to sue the school district for monetary damages because, in
their view, no reasonable public official could have believed he had
the right to prevent a student from advocating illegal drug use at a
school event.

How extraordinary. I would have thought that no reasonable parent
would want their children to attend a school where the teachers failed
to stop students from using school events to advocate drug use. It
would be interesting to know, but perhaps unfair to ask, whether the
appeals court judges send their own children to public schools that
would be bound by their decision, or to private schools that are not
obliged to treat juvenile stunts as constitutional cases.

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides that the government
shall not abridge "the freedom of speech or of the press" but those
words offer little specific guidance about what those freedoms, which
we now refer to as "freedom of expression," should entail.

The courts have sought to define the bounds of the constitutional
freedom of expression by reference to purposes it believes are served
by that freedom. It has primarily held that the freedoms of speech and
of the press are valuable because the free exchange of information,
ideas, arguments and opinions tends, over time, to lead to the
discovery of knowledge and cultural or political advancement.

Freedom of speech is only valuable in this way, however, among people
who are rational, responsible and mature enough to distinguish for
themselves the true from the false and the wise from the foolish --
among people who are, in short, adults.

Children are different. They are not yet mature, not very experienced
and neither fully reasonable nor entirely rational. Public schools
exist in order to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in
a free society, and the educational mission of the schools is not well
served when courts second-guess educators, requiring them to treat the
juveniles under their care and supervision as if they were adults.

The courts have already held that "a school need not tolerate student
speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission," but
by taking a narrow view of the schools' educational mission, they have
opened the doors to frivolous student lawsuits, which undermine the
authority and effectiveness of our schools.

Only by affirming that schools must be given wide latitude to carry
out their comprehensive educational mission of preparing young people
to be healthy, well-informed and responsible citizens will the court
demonstrate its respect for the genuine values for which the First
Amendment stands.