FIRST AMENDMENT ALSO GOES TO POT

Teens Have Right to Act Their Age

WASHINGTON - There's an old axiom about bad cases making bad law and
that just might be the result of the Supreme Court's latest
deliberation over what constitutes free speech. The justices, who seem
to work to avoid tackling some of the thornier issues of the day, just
completed listening to arguments centering on whether a teenager has
the right to act like one and say silly, provocative things.

If you missed it, this kid in Alaska a couple of years ago unfurled a
sign during an Olympic torch parade that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" and
was suspended from school for 10 days despite the fact he wasn't on
school property. It seems his principal saw this sort of nonsensical
message as blatantly furthering the drug culture. So the kid did what
every red blooded American is trained to do in these instances, he
sued the school and the school board, contending that his First
Amendment rights had been violated.

Incredibly, this relatively minor incident, perpetrated by an
adolescent and furthered by an overzealous school official, has wound
its way to the highest court in the land where the fate of free speech
for students - and perhaps all of us - may be decided. But it is the
nature of our system that the slightly silly, avoidable events are the
ones that become the catalysts for deciding such weighty matters.

In the good old days, if there ever really was such a time, this would
never have come up because teachers seemed to have more common sense
about how to deal with cheeky juveniles. Barring an offender's
possible record as a chronic delinquent - which doesn't seem the
problem in this instance - the normal response would have been to
ignore it or issue a stern order to knock it off with the threat of a
few hours of detention after school. But in this age of schoolhouse
violence, even the slightest variance from what administrators regard
as acceptable language or behavior becomes a major infraction. Thus, a
young man who realizes that he has his two-bit pocket knife in his
jacket when he enters the school and dutifully turns it in at the
office is still seen as having violated the letter of the law by
bringing the knife to school and is suspended. It happened.cw-1

My youngest son, always a lippy kid, had a penchant for ending up in
the principal's office over politically incorrect remarks. It always
resulted in a telephone call to his mother who invariably asked them
whether he had threatened anyone, broken anything or used bad or
disrespectful language. Thankfully, the answer always was negative and
her response was always the same. She suggested that discipline
fitting the crime be handled at school, i.e., extra work or detention.
She would give the matter her full attention when he got home, she
said.

What we have in the matter of the dumb banner is a case that has been
blown out of proportion to such an extent that it could give schools
far more authority to curtail free expression than they should ever be
allowed while at the same time severely damaging that right for all of
us. For most of this nation's history the content of speech has been
protected. Only speech that incites to wrongdoing or causes chaos has
not. You can't incite to riot or violence or shout "fire!" in a
crowded theater. The court has even ruled that burning the American
flag is protected speech.

A wise court will see the danger in letting school administrators
decide that they can curtail any speech that is viewed as not in tune
with the mission of the institution. Such a judgment would extend the
legal boundaries for repressing ideas and thoughts almost beyond
limit. Almost anything one said could be interpreted as contrary to
the mission of the classroom. If academic freedom is not a mere
illusion, then students at varying levels of their development should
be allowed the leeway to say what is on their minds.

Not to overstate things, there is considerable concern that this could
be the perfect example of the axiom about bad cases. The fact the
court took it has given it huge gravity. One can only pray that they
approach the issue prudently and in the context of teenage expression,
which also needs protecting no matter how jarring to adults.