Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 20, 2007 / 1 Nissan, 5767

Prankster at the schoolhouse gate

By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Every group in power has its fervent rationale for believing that it has a right, even a duty, to suppress speech it doesn't like. That's why America has a Supreme Court — to slap some sense into the censorious.


Yesterday, lawyers argued a case that should have been settled years ago. It began in January 2002. As an Alaska high school released students so that they could attend a "Winter Olympics Torch Relay," then-18-year-old senior Joseph Frederick unfurled a banner that read, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," from a Juneau sidewalk. Frederick thought the nonsensical message would get him on TV.


And it did — Frederick's name was broadcast across America last night.


Thank his high school principal, Deborah Morse. Morse saw the banner, crossed the street and tore it up. She also suspended Frederick for 10 days. Frederick appealed to the school board and lost. He went to court, where a federal judge ruled against him. But in 2006, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 for Frederick. Now the case is before the Big Bench.


Leaders of the religious right, who want to protect the free speech rights of religious students, have joined with drug-war dissidents, like the group Students for Sensible Drug Policy, whose members protested outside the Supreme Court building. Eric Sterling, an SSDP board member, told me this is not the first time he has been involved in "strange bedfellow" coalitions in which one group sees "the infringement of the civil liberties" of a group as likely to affect all.


On the school board's side stand the Bush administration and former special prosecutor Ken Starr, who has come up with a scary argument in support of Frederick's suspension. Starr told the justices that schools should be able to silence students if their speech disrupts "the educational mission of the school." Follow the logic. Juneau schools tell kids to stay away from drugs. If students argue — or even joke — they are being, in Starr's words, "disruptive."


The Ninth Circuit understood how this precedent could be used to punish free-thinking teens. Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote, "All sorts of missions are undermined by legitimate and protected speech — a school's anti-gun mission would be undermined by a student passing around copies of John R. Lott's book, 'More Guns, Less Crime'; a school's anti-alcohol mission would be undermined by a student e-mailing links to a medical study showing less heart disease among moderate drinkers than teetotalers."


Sterling predicted that the Supremes will "both uphold and reverse" the Ninth Circuit ruling, by agreeing that the suspension was a violation of Frederick's rights, but reversing the finding that Morse could be held personally liable for damages. The Big Bench must not walk away from a 1969 ruling that upheld students' rights to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, noting, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."


David Crosby, an attorney who represented Juneau schools early on, complained to the Anchorage Daily News that the "carefully manipulated image of Joe Frederick as a latter-day Thoreau" is "offensive and ludicrous."


Crosby has a point. Frederick won't even admit that "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" was a pro-marijuana message. Also, as the Anchorage Daily News reported, Frederick pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sale of marijuana in 2004. But if anyone has made Frederick into a civil-disobedience hero, it is Morse, who went overboard punishing a smart-aleck kid.


At first, she suspended Frederick for five days. Then, she upped it to 10 days — she says, because he would not name his accomplices; he says, because he quoted Thomas Jefferson on free speech.


She could have tried to reason with the kid. Or she could have used adults' most potent weapon — ignoring him. Instead, Morse gave the smart mouth the grounds to turn a prank into a federal case.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.

Debra J. Saunders Archives

© 2007, Creators Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works