BANNER CANNED; FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AT ISSUE

'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' Sign At Olympic Torch Relay Leads To Two JDHS Students
Being Suspended

By ANDREW KRUEGER
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

Two students have been suspended from Juneau-Douglas High School after
being in a group that unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" as the
Olympic torch passed the school last week.

One of the suspended students says his free speech rights were violated
when school administrators confiscated the banner and disciplined him.
School officials say the banner was displayed during a school activity,
thus falling under school control.

Last Thursday, as the torch passed the high school on Glacier Avenue,
senior Joseph Frederick and a group of about 20 other students and
nonstudents standing across the street from JDHS unfurled a 15-by-3-foot
white paper banner with their message emblazoned in duct tape.

High school officials took the banner down and took disciplinary action
against some members of the group.

Frederick said he and one other student in the group received suspensions;
Frederick's was for 10 days.

Frederick said the group displayed the banner - whose content was gleaned
from stickers seen on cars and snowboards - to see how people would react
and as a test of their First Amendment rights.

"Some people laughed, some people cheered," he said. "Nobody really seemed
bothered by it."

Frederick said the group specifically went off school grounds to display
the banner.

In addition, Frederick said that given the composition of the group and the
fact that he had not been in school that morning due to car trouble in the
snow, he did not consider the group to be part of a school activity.

"We went across the street, standing with adults and people who don't go to
high school," he said.

JDHS Principal Deb Morse said even though the banner was displayed off
school grounds, it was removed and the students disciplined because
watching the torch relay "was a school activity.

It was sanctioned by the school that students could be out (to watch the
torch pass)."

Morse said students let out of class lined both sides of Glacier Avenue,
and school policy states that discipline enforcement extends to "any school
sponsored/sanctioned activity." She also said the disciplinary action taken
in this case addressed "more than just the banner."

Frederick said he is unsure about whether he is going to appeal the
suspension, but he feels his rights were violated.

"There's no reason that because someone is still in high school that they
shouldn't have First Amendment rights," he said.

Morse said the school was within its rights to take action against
displaying the banner.

"At school it's a bit different," she said. "There are things that are
appropriate and inappropriate, and that was inappropriate."