Scotus 1-0 Free speech

Liar

now with 17% more class
Joined
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Posts
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Seriously, wtf?

And this is however legal?



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Court limits student free-speech rights

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a 5-4 ruling.

Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended the banner to proclaim his right to say anything at all.

His principal, Deborah Morse, said the phrase was a pro-drug message that had no place at a school-sanctioned event. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use.

"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Roberts said. "But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one."

Morse suspended the student, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.

The winning side in the case was quick to assert that the decision was not anti-free speech

In their concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy specified that the court's opinion provides no support for any restriction on speech that goes to political or social issues.

It's a narrow ruling that "should not be read more broadly," said Kenneth Starr, whose law firm represented the school principal.

Students in public schools don't have the same rights as adults, but neither do they leave their constitutional protections at the schoolhouse gate, as the court said in a landmark speech-rights ruling from Vietnam era.

The court has limited what students can do in subsequent cases, saying they may not be disruptive or lewd or interfere with a school's basic educational mission.

Frederick, now 23, said he later had to drop out of college after his father lost his job. The elder Frederick, who worked for the company that insures the Juneau schools, was fired in connection with his son's legal fight, the son said. A jury recently awarded Frank Frederick $200,000 in a lawsuit he filed over his firing.

Joseph Frederick, who has been teaching and studying in China, pleaded guilty in 2004 to a misdemeanor charge of selling marijuana at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, according to court records.

Conservative groups that often are allied with the administration are backing Frederick out of concern that a ruling for Morse would let schools clamp down on religious expression, including speech that might oppose homosexuality or abortion.

The case is Morse v. Frederick, 06-278.
 
In their concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy specified that the court's opinion provides no support for any restriction on speech that goes to political or social issues.

Of course it doesn't. :rolleyes:
 
Liar said:
Seriously, wtf?

And this is however legal?
The Phelps are not students.

The US has a rocky and uncomfortable relationship with college and University students, who are all too often inclined to think for themselves....
 
The sign read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"; this dork was at a High School event.

*shakes head*

There's nothing uglier than a litigious pothead.

WWJSD? (What would Jeff Spicoli Do?)
 
Picodiribibi said:
The sign read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"; this dork was at a High School event.

*shakes head*

There's nothing uglier than a litigious pothead.

WWJSD? (What would Jeff Spicoli Do?)
Nice! :D

This crap makes me nuts. People who are so bored they feel that they need to do shit like this to get attention. Around here, t-shirts with slogans get banned all the time, accept often it's to keep down on assaults and murders. I would have suspended him just for being a dumb-ass. Maybe he could have served an in-school suspension. I have several schools in mind he could have served it at. Maybe he could have learned a little bit about what life is really like. :rolleyes:
 
rgraham666 said:
Of course it doesn't. :rolleyes:

...because, of course, the criminalization of drugs is not a political or social issue. Or a freedom issue, for that matter. Drugs are a pharmaceuticals issue, which is different, and therefore not protected by the First Amendment. I guess.

:more rolling of eyes:

Edited to add:

Isn't there a later addendum to the First Amendment which limits free speech to certain views on certain topics? If there's not, there should be!

"There ought to be limits on freedom."

~ George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas, commenting on the first "Bushisms" website.
 
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S-Des said:
Nice! :D

This crap makes me nuts. People who are so bored they feel that they need to do shit like this to get attention. Around here, t-shirts with slogans get banned all the time, accept often it's to keep down on assaults and murders. I would have suspended him just for being a dumb-ass. Maybe he could have served an in-school suspension. I have several schools in mind he could have served it at. Maybe he could have learned a little bit about what life is really like. :rolleyes:

Imagine, a student doing something silly just to get attention! What's wrong with him? Back in my day, students were too busy organizing nude parades to pull ridiculous stunts like that.

This whole free speech thing has been blown all out of proportion, hasn't it?

If the Founding Fathers had known the First Amendment would be used as an excuse to say things that only a tiny minority of people will appreciate, they'd have skipped directly to the Second Amendment.

I mean, really! As if our Lord Jesus Christ would condone the use of bongs. Everybody knows, Jesus rolled His own.
 
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Eh. If you think so little of your right to free spreech that that's the most important thing you can think of doing with it, then you're the worst enemy to free speech present in the court, whatever they decide. You're the one who will be remembered each time someone else takes a stand for the right to free speech, and you're the one who will turn people against it. Why teach the world that the most treasured right of the American people is the right to act like a jackass at public events?
 
As for the kid, he is no longer in the country.

CNN

As for Frederick, he is halfway across the globe, teaching English to students in China.

Now 24, he told reporters in March that he displayed the banner in a deliberate attempt to provoke a response from principal Morse, by whom he had been disciplined previously. But Frederick claimed his message of free speech is very important to him, even if the wording of the infamous banner itself was not.

"I find it absurdly funny," he said. "I was not promoting drugs. ... I assumed most people would take it as a joke."
I guess he's got a lot to tell his students about free speech in a democracy, yes?
 
BlackShanglan said:
Eh. If you think so little of your right to free spreech that that's the most important thing you can think of doing with it, then you're the worst enemy to free speech present in the court, whatever they decide. You're the one who will be remembered each time someone else takes a stand for the right to free speech, and you're the one who will turn people against it. Why teach the world that the most treasured right of the American people is the right to act like a jackass at public events?

If Americans didn't have both the right to say harmful, idiotic shit and the right to be stupid, then GWB wouldn't be President.
 
shereads said:
If the Founding Fathers had known the First Amendment would be used as an excuse to say things that only a tiny minority of people will appreciate, they'd have skipped directly to the Second Amendment.

Or, in the words of Jeff Spicoli,

"So what Jefferson was saying was 'Hey! You know, we left this England place because it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too.' Yeah?"

shereads said:
I mean, really! As if our Lord Jesus Christ would condone the use of bongs. Everybody knows, Jesus rolled His own.

Verily, verily :) I thought that was Him on packages of Zig-Zags.
 
He got suspended, probably for about three days, and then turned it into a court case? Nothing better to do? Idiot, should have unfurled the sign on private property while people were on the way to the event or leaving it. School officials couldn't have suspended him for it.
 
Edward Teach said:
If Americans didn't have both the right to say harmful, idiotic shit and the right to be stupid, then GWB wouldn't be President.
Sounds like a good reason to curtail that right.
 
MagicaPractica said:
He got suspended, probably for about three days, and then turned it into a court case? Nothing better to do? Idiot, should have unfurled the sign on private property while people were on the way to the event or leaving it. School officials couldn't have suspended him for it.

He got suspended for five days, then 10 for not cooperating with the principal and sell-out the kids who helped him hold the banner.

Frederick obviously knew where he was going with his action--over the principal, to the School Superintendent, to the School Board, to the District Court and, finally, to the Supreme Court. Right up the chain, to prove a point: His right to do things that irritate and offend his principal. Now we have a stupid legal precedent on the books that just makes it that much easier for the government to pass and enforce legislation that limits the rest of our rights. Thanks, asshole.

I think he does have the Constitutional right to do what he did and the S. C. ruling was wrong, but wtf? Just because you think your principal is a bitch? In my day--that was only 20 years ago!--if some teacher or whatever was giving us a hard time we'd, I don't know, ditch class and give her the finger behind her back...not sue the school board! Jeez, where did respect for authority go?
Okay, I get everyone's point about the Phelps thing now. What the fuck is the world coming to?
 
It's a pretty complicated legal issue. Usually whichever side Clarance "The Idiot" Thomas and his puppetmaster Anton "I claim I'm an originalist, but really I just make shit up to suit my whims" Scalia are on is the wrong one, but this issue isn't as simple for me.

I support the decriminalization of Marijuana. I also support free speech. At the same time, there are limits to free speech with regards to supporting illegal activity. But the flipside of that is speech which argues policy cannot and should never be prohibited. This is largely why groups like NAMBLA and the KKK, while abhorrent, can't be eliminated just for advocating a position.

Unfortunately for the student in question, he may have fallen just shy of the protection of free speech with his choice of wording. "Jesus would legalize Bong Hits" would have been easier to claim as political speech advocating a policy change.

I feel bad for the kid, I think he's getting fucked over for an extremely benign criminal act, far more permissible to me than drunk driving. However, I feel the error in this case was on the parts of the university rather than the courts, which probably made the legally correct, if not unfortunate, ruling.
 
starrkers said:
Sounds like a good reason to curtail that right.

Nah, just pass a law that every candidate for President has to have an IQ of at least 80 and be able to read.

I mean, if we're gonna be big advocates of testing, then...

Eddie the Solutionist

.
 
Edward Teach said:
Nah, just pass a law that every candidate for President has to have an IQ of at least 80 and be able to read.

I mean, if we're gonna be big advocates of testing, then...

Eddie the Solutionist

.

Wouldn't matter. He'd cheat.;)
 
He should have defended it as religious speech.

All those depictions of Jesus... long hair, scraggly beard, free-love-and-shit...

Come On, Jesus Was A Stoner!

Then when Scotus slaps you down... you get to use it to slap down other religious speech.
 
Picodiribibi said:
Frederick obviously knew where he was going with his action--over the principal, to the School Superintendent, to the School Board, to the District Court and, finally, to the Supreme Court. Right up the chain, to prove a point: His right to do things that irritate and offend his principal. Now we have a stupid legal precedent on the books that just makes it that much easier for the government to pass and enforce legislation that limits the rest of our rights. Thanks, asshole.
To answer in the most pretentions way possible:

If the fabric of your beloved constitution is so weak that you have to tiptoe around it in order to not rip it apart, if it's only as solid as the people in charge of interpreting it, if it's even this open to intepretation, what was it worth in the first place?
 
JamesSD said:
I feel bad for the kid, I think he's getting fucked over for an extremely benign criminal act, far more permissible to me than drunk driving. However, I feel the error in this case was on the parts of the university rather than the courts, which probably made the legally correct, if not unfortunate, ruling.

He was a High School student, if that makes any difference. And he didn't get arrested, or anything, just suspended by his principal for violating his school's anti-drug policy. Which is bogus, I'm sure, but whatever.
And that's my point: It used to always be "whatever"...At least among the self-respecting potheads I know.

But this one has to get militant: he petitions his suspension to the Superintendent and School Board, who each uphold the principal's decision.

So then he sues and makes a Federal case out of it. What a tool.

@Liar: A Constitution is just words on paper. Shit, Uganda's Constitution puts ours to shame. Looks like a bastion of civil rights and democracy on paper. I know I don't have to tell you the document does not accurately represent the reality of life in Uganda.

Any constitution is only as strong as the people who uphold it: we, the people and, since we're a republic, those we elect to govern us. It's a living document in sense that if we don't internalize its values, it dies. It is subject to interpretation, and that is the scary part. If our values are corrupt, so will the interpretations, even interpretation based on the finest of documents. Case in point: Uganda.

Wait a minute, what's with the attitude? I think his speech is protected & I said so. I also think his parents probably brought him up telling him he could do no wrong and the same school system he so cynically opposes probably gave him a trophy for coming in 8th place, etc. Frederick is a punk with a sense of entitlement.
I don't know, it makes me uneasy to say he's right, that's all. I just think he needs a good spanking.
*shrug*
 
Freedom of Speech in Schools

Well, in my humble opinion, even kids (and unfortunately, morons too) have freedom of speech. I don't remember there being an age limit imposed on the First Amendment...

Schools take things too far. I have a friend whose daughter was forced to remove her necklace that had a cross on it. Who decides where to draw the line?

Thank God I homeschool my kids..

But, here's the thing, everyone feels like they have the right to interpret the Constitution their own way.. Even if I don't agree with what some moron says, I'd still respect his right to be a moron...
 
Liar said:
To answer in the most pretentions way possible:

If the fabric of your beloved constitution is so weak that you have to tiptoe around it in order to not rip it apart, if it's only as solid as the people in charge of interpreting it, if it's even this open to intepretation, what was it worth in the first place?

You know I hardly ever find your points in threads anything but brilliant, Liar. But I'd say, here, something similar in return. If the end goal of our constitution was to guarantee immature children the right to publically annoy their schoolmasters on the school's property in the middle of a completely unrelated event, what indeed was it worth?

I believe that political free speech is important and protected. I do not, however, feel that that means that any group of people must be an audience to any idiotic statement someone else cares to make. The people at the event were there for two reasons - for school (those on school property) and to see the Olympic torch pass. They ought to be allowed to enjoy those events, as part of their own rights. By all means, if the young man would like to advocate his position, such as it is, he should be allowed to - on his own time and his own property, or in public when he's not disrupting an unrelated event. But there is, I think, in law and speech as in all social institutions, a time and a place for everything, and I don't favor an interpretation of free speech that means that no one can plan any event without it becoming a political rally or a locus of juvenile behavior.

Shanglan
 
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