Muzzled In Alaska

High school students have a right to free speech, even if that speech concerns something controversial. This is a principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in the past, and one that it should reaffirm in deciding a case it heard last week concerning a student who was punished for displaying a drug-related message across the street from his school.

The case concerns Joseph Frederick, a high school student who was suspended for holding up a 14-foot banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” on the sidewalk next to his school at the 2002 Olympic torch relay in Juneau, Alaska. His principal argued that the sign encouraged drug use and interfered with the educational mission of the school. Kenneth Starr of Monica Lewinsky fame, who represented the principal, asked the court to carve out a “drug exception” to student free speech. This represents the virulent erosion of centuries of constitutional precedent and is a slippery slope towards an even sharper reduction in the free speech rights of students. After all, if “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” tangentially relates to school curriculum, almost anything could be linked to the school’s mission.

Frederick’s message is almost incomprehensible, but his rights remain inviolable. He expressed an opinion at a public event off school property. As Justice David H. Souter ’61 pointed out during the argument, “It’s political speech…I don’t see what it disrupts.” There is thus no justification for Frederick’s banner to fall under the principal’s jurisdiction.

The court should rely on the precedent set by Tinker v. Des Moines School District, the 1969 Supreme Court case that famously determined that students do not leave their right to free speech “at the schoolhouse gate.” The argument that it interferes with the school’s ability to educate other students is tangential at best—it does not disrupt instruction in any way, shape, or form.

Schools must, of course, be permitted to protect their educational purpose, but that protection has limits. If a vague reference to marijuana can be declared disruptive under the school’s policy, then these tendrils run too deep. Students spend a great deal of their time expressing diffuse or controversial views, and this level of invasion represents a threat to dialogue and stability. It also gives principals broad leeway in deciding what to censor, since anything a principal deems harmful to a school’s “educational mission”—a vague term at best—could potentially be banned under such terms.

It’s unfortunate that this most inane incident has caused the greatest uproar, but regardless, the significance of the trial cannot be understated. The incremental retreat of student rights here represents a threat to the foundation of rights everywhere. We agree with Justice Samuel A. Alito, who said that claiming that schools can block any speech that interferes with their educational mission is “a very, very disturbing argument.”