The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday that public schools can restrict and punish student speech if determined that it promotes illegal drug use. The court ruled 5-4 that the principal of a high school in Juneau, Alaska, did not violate the first amendment rights of Joseph Frederick, a senior who in 2002 unfurled a banner with the message: "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" as an Olympic torch relay passed his school. The principal suspended Frederick.
"The First
Amendment does not require schools to tolerate at school events student expression that contributes to [the dangers of drug abuse]," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that: "The court's ham-handed, categorical approach is deaf to the constitutional imperative to permit unfettered debate, even among high-school students, about the wisdom of the war on drugs or of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use." The ruling, Stevens said, "does serious violence to the First Amendment."
Read the full opinion here (.pdf).
Art: Toho Scope
