High Court Hears "Bong Hits" Case
A high school principal was acting reasonably and in accord with the school's anti-drug mission when she suspended a student for displaying a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner, her lawyer told the Supreme Court Monday.
"The message here is, in fact, critical," the lawyer, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, said during a lively argument about whether the principal violated the constitutional rights of the student.
On the other side, attorney Douglas Mertz of Juneau, Alaska, urged the justices to see the case as being about free speech, not drugs.
The dispute between Joseph Frederick, who in 2002 was a high school senior, and principal Deborah Morse has become an important test of the limits on the free speech rights of students.
Justice Stephen Breyer, addressing Mertz, said he is struggling with the case because a ruling in Frederick's favor could encourage students to go to absurd lengths to test those limits.
A ruling for Morse, however, "may really limit free speech," Breyer said.
The Bush administration, backing Morse, wants the court to adopt a broad rule that could essentially give public schools the right to clamp down on any speech with which it disagrees.
Scores of students waited outside the court early Monday for a chance to listen to the arguments.
"I would never do it, but at the same time, it's free speech," said Chaim Frenkel, 17, of Silver Spring, Md. Frenkel was one of 13 seniors and their teacher from the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy who arrived at the court at 4:30 a.m. EDT.
Natasha Braithwaite, 20, a junior at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Md., got in line at 7 a.m. with a definite opinion about the case. "In every possible way, his First Amendment rights were violated," Braithwaite said.
Frederick was a high school senior in Juneau when he decided to display the banner at a school-sanctioned event to watch the Olympic torch pass through the city on its way to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
Morse believed his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner was a pro-drug message that schools should not tolerate. She suspended Frederick for 10 days. Frederick sued Morse, and that case now is before the court.
Frederick acknowledged he was trying to provoke a reaction from school administrators with whom he had feuded, but he denied that he was speaking out in favor of drugs or anything other than free speech. A bong is a water pipe that is used to smoke marijuana.
"I waited until the perfect moment to unveil it, as the TV cameras (following the torch relay) passed," Frederick said.
Morse and the Juneau school district argue that schools will be powerless to discipline students who promote illegal drugs if the court sides with Frederick. The Bush administration, other school boards and anti-drug school groups are supporting Morse.
Frederick, now 23, counters that students could be silenced if the court reverses the appellate ruling. A wide assortment of conservative and liberal advocacy groups are behind Frederick.
"What we've seen is schools overextending their power over students through zero tolerance policies," said John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. "And what's happened is it has completely decimated our First Amendment."
CBS News correspondent Barry Bagnato reports it is a fascinating case that gives the high court a chance to revisit rulings that grew out of the protest years of the 1960s. In a Vietnam War-era case, the court backed high school student anti-war protesters who wore armbands to class. Since then, though, the court has sanctioned curtailing student speech when it is disruptive to a school's educational mission, plainly offensive or part of a school-sponsored activity like a student newspaper.
National School Boards Association lawyer Francisco Negron said he felt the key question is how come the principal is facing a lawsuit. "We think its rather severe to punish them personally for just acting in good faith and doing their job," said Negron.
A federal appeals court called Frederick's message "vague and nonsensical" in ruling that his civil rights had been violated. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said Morse would have to compensate Frederick for her actions because she should have known they violated the Constitution.
Frederick, who teaches English and studies Mandarin in China, was not expected at the court for the argument. Two years after the banner incident, Frederick pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of selling marijuana, according to Texas court records.
The case is Morse v. Frederick, 06-278.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. "The message here is, in fact, critical," the lawyer, former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, said during a lively argument about whether the principal violated the constitutional rights of the student.
On the other side, attorney Douglas Mertz of Juneau, Alaska, urged the justices to see the case as being about free speech, not drugs.
The dispute between Joseph Frederick, who in 2002 was a high school senior, and principal Deborah Morse has become an important test of the limits on the free speech rights of students.
Justice Stephen Breyer, addressing Mertz, said he is struggling with the case because a ruling in Frederick's favor could encourage students to go to absurd lengths to test those limits.
A ruling for Morse, however, "may really limit free speech," Breyer said.
The Bush administration, backing Morse, wants the court to adopt a broad rule that could essentially give public schools the right to clamp down on any speech with which it disagrees.
Scores of students waited outside the court early Monday for a chance to listen to the arguments.
"I would never do it, but at the same time, it's free speech," said Chaim Frenkel, 17, of Silver Spring, Md. Frenkel was one of 13 seniors and their teacher from the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy who arrived at the court at 4:30 a.m. EDT.
Natasha Braithwaite, 20, a junior at Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Md., got in line at 7 a.m. with a definite opinion about the case. "In every possible way, his First Amendment rights were violated," Braithwaite said.
Frederick was a high school senior in Juneau when he decided to display the banner at a school-sanctioned event to watch the Olympic torch pass through the city on its way to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
Morse believed his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner was a pro-drug message that schools should not tolerate. She suspended Frederick for 10 days. Frederick sued Morse, and that case now is before the court.
Frederick acknowledged he was trying to provoke a reaction from school administrators with whom he had feuded, but he denied that he was speaking out in favor of drugs or anything other than free speech. A bong is a water pipe that is used to smoke marijuana.
"I waited until the perfect moment to unveil it, as the TV cameras (following the torch relay) passed," Frederick said.
Morse and the Juneau school district argue that schools will be powerless to discipline students who promote illegal drugs if the court sides with Frederick. The Bush administration, other school boards and anti-drug school groups are supporting Morse.
Frederick, now 23, counters that students could be silenced if the court reverses the appellate ruling. A wide assortment of conservative and liberal advocacy groups are behind Frederick.
"What we've seen is schools overextending their power over students through zero tolerance policies," said John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. "And what's happened is it has completely decimated our First Amendment."
CBS News correspondent Barry Bagnato reports it is a fascinating case that gives the high court a chance to revisit rulings that grew out of the protest years of the 1960s. In a Vietnam War-era case, the court backed high school student anti-war protesters who wore armbands to class. Since then, though, the court has sanctioned curtailing student speech when it is disruptive to a school's educational mission, plainly offensive or part of a school-sponsored activity like a student newspaper.
National School Boards Association lawyer Francisco Negron said he felt the key question is how come the principal is facing a lawsuit. "We think its rather severe to punish them personally for just acting in good faith and doing their job," said Negron.
A federal appeals court called Frederick's message "vague and nonsensical" in ruling that his civil rights had been violated. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said Morse would have to compensate Frederick for her actions because she should have known they violated the Constitution.
Frederick, who teaches English and studies Mandarin in China, was not expected at the court for the argument. Two years after the banner incident, Frederick pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of selling marijuana, according to Texas court records.
The case is Morse v. Frederick, 06-278.
As for my "underdeveloped," senile, and presumably drug-addled mind (ad hominem attacks are so satisfying, aren't they?), I will take my 159 IQ and law degree over your self-congratulatory redneck "wisdom" any day of the week. Your opinions about the state of American law or about which Constitutional rights a high school student doesn't deserve are a lot like your opinions about quantum mechanics; that is, entirely useless and laughable. That you feel no embarrassment making yourself look like an idiot is typical of Bushies and the New American Authoritarians in general, who don't trust anyone who doesn't mimic their "thinking."
Also, up until the 1700 Marijuana/hemp was a commercial product. A person could be fined for NOT growing it as it was a colonial cash-crop. It remained legal until the Marijuana tax-stamp act was passed in the 1920s-30s(I disremember the exact year). It was passed that basically didn't make marijuana illegal, but you had to have the tax stamp to grow it.
In the 1960's, Dr. Timothy Leary(Doc LSD) effectively took the tax stamp to the Supreme Court. It was determined to be unconstitutional, as it violated the 5th admendment. You see, in order to get the tax stamp, you had to have marijuana. If you had marijuana without the tax stamp, you could be arrested and charged. So you had to break the law, in order to try and be legal.
.... I would trust some of those underdeveloped minds, like my sons' minds, before I would trust yours
Posted by mcmath61 at 11:43 AM : Mar 20, 2007"
My posts are not about the pros and cons of your drugs, which are HARMFUL to bodies and brains!
The posts are more about teachers right to look after the safety, well being, and guidance of CHILDREN under their care! And the USA Supreme Court not be trivialize to UNDERMINE the US justice system.
That principal did nothing to that brat that borders on abuse that would warrant court action! NOTHING!
A ten day suspension may have been a bit much, when merely trashing the sign should have been good enough.
But a ten day suspension for promoting TO OTHER CHILDREN substances that damage bodies and brains should be taken as a lesson on the need to PROMOTE HEALTH!
Now, the reason you would trust an UNDERDEVELOPED brain in important matters (when the laws don't even allow them to sign contracts with ADULTS) is most likely the fact that drugs have retarded the growth of your brain, which now places your thinking and judgment on the same level of those of the underdeveloped CHILDREN? Or maybe you are in your 'second childhood' and resonate with the underdeveloped CHILDREN, senility?
Toss a frog into a pot of boiling water and he will do anything to escape, but put him in a pot of comfortable water and slowly warm it up and he will stay in the water until he is cooked. Similarly, repeal the Bill of Rights all at once and Americans would howl or even revolt, but spend half a century "interpreting" liberty away and people won't even remember when their country became a police state.
__________
Agnim: From 1776 until the passage of the Harrison Act in 1914, there were no laws against the possession or use of any drugs at all. Widespread use of opium by the industrial working class in the USA in the late 19th century somehow didn't prevent the USA from becoming the greatest industrial nation in the world. Your assumptions about what makes America great are wrong; what has always made America great is economic and personal freedom and the encouragement of creativity, not the imposition of authority. I would trust some of those underdeveloped minds, like my sons' minds, before I would trust yours in matters of which Constitutional rights will survive and which will perish in the name of National Security and enforced ideological homogeneity.
I'm with you all the way on this one. The Supreme court has way more impurtant things to do than debate this one.
Posted by ronin10 at 07:01 AM : Mar 20, 2007"
Of course! LOL
Great minds have to think alike to counter all the nonsense that is leading this great nation astray.
To bad AG Gonzales can't fire the Supreme Court justices responsible for trivializing the highest court of the land with this childish nonsense that should have remained and settled in the school.
Giving UNDERDEVELOPED children rights to challenge adults all the way to the Supreme Court is so silly, that we may as well make one of these UNDERDEVELOPED minds President of the US! What a joke.
Schools should train our children to be citizens of a representative democracy, a country that has always had strong institutional protections of individual rights. Instead, schools train our children to be citizens of a Soviet-style republic, where one can only say what has been pre-approved by the school or by the government. If they aren't taught about exercising their rights when they are young, why will they exercise them when they are older?
In polls, 30-40% of Americans say they would legalize marijuana; 1/6 of Americans oppose ALL drug laws, not just the ones against marijuana. Yet such views are considered politically intolerable, and arguments for such views are routinely suppressed. As a practical matter, you can't put a pro-pot ad on TV or on radio, you can't make a pro-pot argument in a school, you can't even use cannabis to treat MS, and people who normally support Free Speech join the call to silence arguments against a Drug War that almost everyone knows has accomplished nothing. Indeed, the War on Drugs has been nothing less than a War on the Bill of Rights all along, essentially destroying both the 4th and 5th Amendments already, and now threatening to finish off the 1st Amendment as well.
(Continued)