Student free speech vs. school drug policy
The US Supreme Court is set to hear the case of an Alaska teen who was suspended after unfurling a banner near school.
from the March 19, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Ramifications for both sides
The case is being closely watched by school administrators and antidrug officials who are concerned that a ruling upholding the appeals court could undercut school efforts to foster a drug-free atmosphere. On the other side are free-speech advocates who worry that a Supreme Court endorsement of the principal's approach would open the door to widespread censorship of students.
"[Morse has] asked the court to enunciate a very broad rule that school officials have discretion to censor any kind of student speech that they deem contrary to the educational mission of the school," says Preeta Bansal, a New York lawyer who authored a friend-of-the-court brief for the National Coalition Against Censorship. Such discretion would be standardless and "very dangerous," she says.
In his brief, Mr. Mertz asks the justices to examine whether school administrators have the power to censor speech solely because it disagrees with the school's own preferred message.
"There is no dispute that schools have an important message to deliver regarding the perils of drug abuse," he writes. "But the First Amendment recognizes a critical distinction between delivering that message to students and imposing an enforced orthodoxy that tramples free speech."
The case revolves around an incident that took place in January 2002 when the Olympic torch relay passed through Juneau on its way to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics. The torch was set to be carried down Glacier Avenue in front of the high school. School officials allowed students to assemble in front of the school to watch the event.
As the torch and television cameras approached, Frederick and nine other individuals standing across the street from the school unfurled the banner, which was 14 feet in length.
The banner was meant as a meaningless and humorous phrase that might attract the attention of the TV cameras covering the relay, Mertz says. It was a joke, not an advertisement urging students to use illicit drugs, the lawyer says in his brief.
But if it were just a joke, the principal wasn't laughing. She crossed the street and confronted those holding the banner. Frederick refused to take it down, saying he had a First Amendment right to display the banner since he was across the street and off school grounds. Frederick says he told the school administrator that Thomas Jefferson once said that free speech can't "be limited without being lost."
The principal confiscated the banner and suspended Frederick from school for 10 days.
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