The Supreme Court ruled June 25 in favor of a school’s right to exercise censorship over student speech. The case is one of the most important in nearly two decades concerning First Amendment rights of students in public schools.

The case involved a Juneau, Alaska, high school student, Joseph Frederick, who held a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at the torch relay for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. The students were released from school early that day to witness the event. The school principal, Deborah Morse, forced Frederick to release the banner and suspended him for 10 days.

“Bong” is a slang term for a pipe used for marijuana smoking.

Frederick filed suit, claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated. The case climbed all the way to the Supreme Court, where a 5-3 decision ruled in favor of Morse and the school district.

In his majority opinion, John Roberts, chief justice of the United States wrote: “Because school 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.”

He concluded: “The debate between the dissent and this opinion is less about constitutional First Amendment principles than about whether Frederick’s banner constitutes promotion of illegal drug use.” – a view Roberts called “plainly reasonable” and hardly justification for “sounding the First Amendment bugle.”

Frederick, now 23, said in press interviews that “the phrase was not important. I wasn’t trying to say anything about religion. I wasn’t trying to say anything about drugs. I was just trying to say something. I wanted to use my right to free speech, and I did it.”

The court decision is fourth in a string of Supreme Court cases which have discussed and determined the application of the First Amendment in public schools. In public schools, “kids have a diluted version of First Amendment Rights,” according to Jesse Choper, a professor of constitutional law at UC Berkeley. “If they create a substantial disruption in the school, they can be barred.”

With Frederick’s defeat in court in June, speech rights for students will have suffered limitations in three major court cases, and will have withstood limitations only once. This sole victory, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, established many of the rules of First Amendment practice and application in public schools.

It all goes to show that, in Choper's words, “Free speech is not absolute.”

Previous Supreme Court rulings on student free speech rights

TINKER v. DES MOINES INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
1969
7-2 vote in favor of student speech rights

In December of 1965, Mary Beth Tinker, 13, John Tinker, 15, and Christopher Eckhardt, 15. three Des Moines, Iowa students wore black armbands to their schools in passive protest of the Vietnam war. The school board caught wind of the armbands and promised punishment to any students wearing them. The Tinkers and Eckhardt elected to keep wearing their armbands, and all received immediate suspension.

Their parents quickly filed a suit against the public school system which would be the subject of a watershed Supreme Court ruling. Justice Abe Fortas, in his majority opinion delivery, maintained that the activity of the students did not violate or disrupt the Des Moines student population or school system. He added that they were merely exercising their constitutional right of symbolic speech and expression.

Justice Hugo Black, in his dissenting opinion, wrote, “I have never believed that any person has a right to give speeches or engage in demonstrations where he pleases and when he pleases.”

BETHEL SCHOOL DISTRICT v. FRASER
1986
7-2 vote in opposition of student speech rights

Mathew Fraser, a Bethel High School student in Pierce County, Wash., addressed the Bethel High School student body in April of 1983, speaking in support of a fellow student for school government office. His speech, littered with suggestive sexual language, would be the subject of the biggest Supreme Court case after the Tinker decision concerning the First Amendment rights of students. It would also be the first loss.

“I know a man who is firm- he’s firm in his pants, he’s firm in his shirts, his character is firm,” Fraser said. “Jeff is a man who will go to the very end- even the climax, for each and every one of you.”

Fraser was placed on suspension. Immediately afterward he filed suit against the school system. In the 1986 ruling against Matthew Fraser, the court wrote, “The undoubted freedom to advocate unpopular and controversial views in schools and classrooms must be balanced against the society’s countervailing interest in teaching students the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior.”

HAZELWOOD v. KUHLMEIER
1988
5-3 vote in opposition of student speech rights

In this controversial 1988 Supreme Court ruling, a Missouri student newspaper prepared two articles for publication which discussed the mature themes of divorce and teen pregnancy. The school principal, feeling that the articles failed to protect the anonymity of the subjects and would be inappropriate for the schools’ underclassmen, called for the withdrawal of the articles. A suit was quick to follow.

The Court ruled that the principal was perfectly within constitutional bounds with the withdrawal of the contested stories.

In its majority opinion, the Court wrote that educators are allowed to exercise “editorial control over the style and content of student speech” so long as “their actions are reasonably related” to legitimate educational concerns.

The censored stories were printed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and as a result of the trial were read by an audience far wider then they might receive were they to be published in the school newspaper.

- Andrew Herwitz

Were Frederick’s First Amendment rights violated?

Louis Bohan
Journalism major
“Yes. He’s just expressing his point of view. It’s not a factual inaccuracy, it’s just his point of view. It’s all ridiculous. He should be able to say what he wants.”

Erol Schaller
Urban design major
“He should be able to express whatever he wants to. It’s stupid.”

Dimitri Hagnere
Journalism major
“Yes. It was his idea. Just because he’s on a school field trip does he have a responsibility to represent the school. Regardless of the situation, he should be able to say anything he wants to say.”

Kira Quinn
Psychology major
“That’s wrong. It’s kind of inappropriate but it doesn’t offend anybody.”