BONG HITS

[donl]

Bong hits for jesus poster put up by students as part of freedom of speech ,shot down by university and forbidden by supreme court,they don't want that kind of free speech that connects students with the drug culture,perhaps lets go to war and kill everybody would be better,it was an off campus thing too,students going to be suspended,so whats next?

[dOc]

We should get a decision any day now for the Bong Hits case... Anyone who wants a background on the case can find some details here.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2007/01/28/bongHits4JesusSupremeCourt.html

Update: Just realized they ruled against the student. Reading an article now. Jeez, this is not good for free speech.

[Derek Rosenzweig]

Where did you see the decision? Please post!!

[Cannabis_Rx]

It ruled today that taxpayers cannot sue Bush over the faith-based initiatives. Let's hear it for government sponsored religion. Check out this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19414473/

It also ruled against "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" shirts that students can wear. Let's hear it for censorship. Check out this link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19414576/

Let's hear it for Bush's Supreme Court. ::)

[donl]

saw it on CNN ,my mistake was that its a high school student,i earlier said college,either way lets all say goodbye to free speech,i like the way our losses sorta sneak up on us, and its always for our protection,i especially like the reasoning for this one,

[Derek Rosenzweig]

Here's the decision itself. Sucks for him. This case could've gone either way, truthfully. If he had had a coherent message he would've been fine, but because "Bong hits 4 jesus" is basically nonsense, they ruled it's not politically protected speech. Which also contradicts them claiming that promoting drugs was the main theme of the banner. I still think Frederick should have won.

MORSE ET AL. v. FREDERICK

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 06–278. Argued March 19, 2007—Decided June 25, 2007

At a school-sanctioned and school-supervised event, petitioner Morse, the high school principal, saw students unfurl a banner stating “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS,” which she regarded as promoting illegal drug use. Consistent with established school policy prohibiting such messages at school events, Morse directed the students to take down the banner. When one of the students who had brought the banner to the event—respondent Frederick—refused, Morse confiscated the banner and later suspended him. The school superintendent upheld the suspension, explaining, inter alia, that Frederick was disciplined because his banner appeared to advocate illegal drug use in violationof school policy. Petitioner school board also upheld the suspension.Frederick filed suit under 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging that the school board and Morse had violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court granted petitioners summary judgment, ruling that they were entitled to qualified immunity and that they had not infringed Frederick’s speech rights. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Accepting that Frederick acted during a school-authorized activity and that the banner expressed a positive sentiment about marijuana use, thecourt nonetheless found a First Amendment violation because the school punished Frederick without demonstrating that his speech threatened substantial disruption. It also concluded that Morse was not entitled to qualified immunity because Frederick’s right to display the banner was so clearly established that a reasonable principal in Morse’s position would have understood that her actions were unconstitutional.

Held: Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Frederick. Pp. 5–15.
(a)
Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case is rejected. The event in question occurred during normal school hours and was sanctioned by Morse as an approved social event at which the district’s student-conduct rules expressly applied. Teachers and administrators were among the students and were charged with supervising them. Frederick stood among other students across the street from the school and directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, Frederick cannot claim he was not at school. Pp. 5–6.
(b)
The Court agrees with Morse that those who viewed the banner would interpret it as advocating or promoting illegal drug use, in violation of school policy. At least two interpretations of the banner’s words—that they constitute an imperative encouraging viewers tosmoke marijuana or, alternatively, that they celebrate drug use—demonstrate that the sign promoted such use. This pro-drug interpretation gains further plausibility from the paucity of alternative meanings the banner might bear. Pp. 6–8.
(c)
A principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrictstudent speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, the Court declared, in holding that a policy prohibiting high school students from wearing antiwar armbands violated the First Amendment, id., at 504, that student expression may not be suppressed unless school officials reasonably conclude that it will “materially and substantially disruptthe work and discipline of the school,” id., at 513. The Court in Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, however, upheld the suspension of a student who delivered a high school assembly speech employing “an elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor,” id., at 678. Analyzing the case under Tinker, the lower courts had found no disruption, and therefore no basis for discipline. 478 U.S., at 679–680. This Court reversed, holding that the school was “within its permissible authority in imposing sanctions . . . in response to [the student’s] offensively lewd and indecent speech.” Id., at 685. Two basic principles may be distilled from Fraser. First, it demonstrates that “the constitutional rights of students in publicschool are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults inother settings.” Id., at 682. Had Fraser delivered the same speech ina public forum outside the school context, he would have been protected. See, id., at 682–683. In school, however, his First Amendment rights were circumscribed “in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.” Tinker, supra, at 506. Second, Fraser established that Tinker’s mode of analysis is not absolute, since the Fraser Court did not conduct the “substantial disruption” analysis.Subsequently, the Court has held in the Fourth Amendment context that “while children assuredly do not ‘shed their constitutional rights. . . at the schoolhouse gate,’ . . . the nature of those rights is what is appropriate for children in school,” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 655–656, and has recognized that deterring druguse by schoolchildren is an “important—indeed, perhaps compelling” interest, id., at 661. Drug abuse by the Nation’s youth is a serious problem. For example, Congress has declared that part of a school’s job is educating students about the dangers of drug abuse, see, e.g., the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1994, and petitioners and many other schools have adopted policies aimed atimplementing this message. Student speech celebrating illegal druguse at a school event, in the presence of school administrators andteachers, poses a particular challenge for school officials working to protect those entrusted to their care. The “special characteristics of the school environment,” Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506, and the governmental interest in stopping student drug abuse allow schools to restrict student expression that they reasonably regard as promoting such abuse. Id., at 508, 509, distinguished. Pp. 8–15.

439 F. 3d 1114, reversed and remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment inpart and dissenting in part. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

[dOc]

The only thing i would add to Ozzy's comment is that he did use the word "bong" on the banner, and that is a known and defined slang term for drug paraphernalia. If he had pipe hits for jesus he would have even had a better chance. Think about it, you can't even say the word bong in a head shop without being kicked out because of the ridiculous paraphernalia laws. I dunno about the rest of the case. Wasn't he off school grounds and did not attend school that day...so why was he made to look as if he were participating in a school function? I really don't know the answer to that one. Either way I don't see it having too much ramification.

[mpm51]

Justice Stevens Wafts Into Marijuana Debate <http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/06/25/justice-stevens-wafts-into-marijuana-debate/>

Posted by Peter Lattman

 In another 5-4 ruling, the Supremes held that school officials did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the banner. A principal suspended an Alaska student from high school in 2002 after he held up the banner as the Olympic torch passed by.

There’s lots of good material in the 60-page opinion <http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-278.pdf> . In a concurrence, Justice Thomas suggests the court to entirely jettison the Tinker <http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1968/1968_21/>  decision, effectively saying that public school students don’t have First Amendment rights at school. There’s also a fun vivsection of the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” phrase by Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion.

But we’d like to highlight Justice Stevens’s dissent. “Although this case began with a silly, nonsensical banner, it ends with the Court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, at least so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message,” he writes. “Our First Amendment jurisprudence has identified some categories of expression that are less deserving of protection than others—fighting words, obscenity, and commercial speech, to name a few.” Justice Stevens then mentions some “personal recollections” that have influenced his view that it’s unwise to create special rules for drug- and alcohol-related speech:

        “. . . The current dominant opinion supporting the war on drugs in general, and our anti-marijuana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student. While alcoholic beverages are now regarded as ordinary articles of commerce, their use was then condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports the war on drugs. The ensuing change in public opinion occurred much more slowly than the relatively rapid shift in Americans’ views on the Vietnam War, and progressed on a state-by-state basis over a period of many years. But just as prohibition in the 1920’s and early 1930’s was secretly questioned by thousands of otherwise law-abiding patrons of bootleggers and speakeasies, today the actions of literally millions of otherwise law-abiding users of marijuana, and of the majority of voters in each of the several States that tolerate medicinal uses of the product, lead me to wonder whether the fear of disapproval by those in the majority is silencing opponents of the war on drugs. Surely our national experience with alcohol should make us wary of dampening speech suggesting —however inarticulately — that it would be better to tax and regulate marijuana than to persevere in a futile effort to ban its use entirely.

        . . . In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority’s viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.

[dOc]

Bravo, Justice Stevens...