MUZZLED IN ALASKA

Student Speech Deserves Constitutional Protection No Matter How
Strange It May Be

High school students have a right to free speech, even if that speech
concerns something controversial. This is a principle that the Supreme
Court has affirmed in the past, and one that it should reaffirm in
deciding a case it heard last week concerning a student who was
punished for displaying a drug-related message across the street from
his school.

The case concerns Joseph Frederick, a high school student who was
suspended for holding up a 14-foot banner that read "Bong Hits 4
Jesus" on the sidewalk next to his school at the 2002 Olympic torch
relay in Juneau, Alaska. His principal argued that the sign encouraged
drug use and interfered with the educational mission of the school.

Kenneth Starr of Monica Lewinsky fame, who represented the principal,
asked the court to carve out a "drug exception" to student free speech.

This represents the virulent erosion of centuries of constitutional
precedent and is a slippery slope towards an even sharper reduction in
the free speech rights of students.

After all, if "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" tangentially relates to school
curriculum, almost anything could be linked to the school's mission.

Frederick's message is almost incomprehensible, but his rights remain
inviolable. He expressed an opinion at a public event off school property.

As Justice David H. Souter '61 pointed out during the argument, "It's
political speech I don't see what it disrupts." There is thus no
justification for Frederick's banner to fall under the principal's
jurisdiction.

The court should rely on the precedent set by Tinker v. Des Moines
School District, the 1969 Supreme Court case that famously determined
that students do not leave their right to free speech "at the
schoolhouse gate." The argument that it interferes with the school's
ability to educate other students is tangential at best--it does not
disrupt instruction in any way, shape, or form.

Schools must, of course, be permitted to protect their educational
purpose, but that protection has limits.

If a vague reference to marijuana can be declared disruptive under the
school's policy, then these tendrils run too deep. Students spend a
great deal of their time expressing diffuse or controversial views,
and this level of invasion represents a threat to dialogue and stability.

It also gives principals broad leeway in deciding what to censor,
since anything a principal deems harmful to a school's "educational
mission"--a vague term at best--could potentially be banned under such
terms.

It's unfortunate that this most inane incident has caused the greatest
uproar, but regardless, the significance of the trial cannot be
understated. The incremental retreat of student rights here represents
a threat to the foundation of rights everywhere. We agree with Justice
Samuel A. Alito, who said that claiming that schools can block any
speech that interferes with their educational mission is "a very, very
disturbing argument."