Let's see: The war on drugs is not a political issue. Advocating the overturning of draconian drug laws is not a political or social issue, and apparently is not protected speech. Good to know in a police state, fersherr!"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Chief Justice John Roberts said. But the school principal who suspended him "thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one," Roberts said in the majority opinion.
In a concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy said the court's opinion "goes no further" than speech interpreted as dealing with illegal drug use.
"It provides no support" for any restriction that goes to political or social issues, they said.
Oh, and "goes no further"?? Isn't this what these overrated sophists said in Bush v. Gore? Like they can cherry-pick future cases to which their personal distastes do or do not apply, as though chipping away at the Bill of Rights a little piece at a time doesn't count when you're the Gestapo. It is this kind of decision that gives stare decisis a bad name.
In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the ruling "does serious violence to the First Amendment."Amen!
4 comments:
Geez, you really need to get a grip here, and consider what you are advocating.
You fail to consider (1) precedent that distinguishes between speech by h.s. students and speech generally and (2) why the case was there in the first place. In sum, the police can't haul you in for advocating bong hits, but the principal can suspend you because it implicates a stronger set of police powers. Complicating the facts was the question as to whether the conduct was "in" or "out" of school. That did not appear to be in dispute, as the students were in front of their school, on school time, and for a school-sanctioned activity.
Further, the punishment in this instance concerned a policy regarding advocating illegal drug use. Nowhere in this instance is an argument made that the respondent was advocating overturning drug laws. Finally, remember that this is a 1983 action by the student against the prinicpal, seeking money damages. The 9th Circuit said that the student's rights were so clear that the principal did not have qualified immunity. So clear? There is a raft of SCOTUS precedent that says schools can control (tho not severely) what is said by students on school time. How in God's name were respondent's rights "clear" when Tinker and a long line of cases that follow, say otherwise?
Stevens was right in that it was a silly case, but I disagree that any new law was made here. Any new law was made by the 9th Circuit, sitting in (as if we couldn't foresee this) San Francisco, when they imposed a standard that there be a "risk of substantial disruption" before a school can restrict speech. They even accepted the facts in the case but decided to impose a "no harm, no foul" standard. That is the "whole cloth" in this case, notwithstanding what the Court's resident curmudgeon thinks.
I certainly understand your slipperly slope concerns. Same argument used by pro-choice and pro-2nd Amendment crowds. But are you advocating that anyone, anywhere, can say whatever he/she wants? Why is advocating illegal drug use sacrosanct but advocating for political candidates suspect? Isn't that a content-based analysis of the sort that the Court has consistently said is suspect absent a compelling reason? And where has the Court taken back a right that was present before the 9th Circuit showed us that they were taking a few bong hits for jurisprudence?
Finally, consider that upholding that bong-hit addled decision from the 9th Circuit's tie-dyed wing would have caused every school administrator, every principal and every teacher to second-guess every outburst and questionable, even outrageous or subtly threatening statement by a student, LEST THEY GET SUED!
Talk about unleashing the lawyers.
Commander Guy, Attorney at Law.
the slippery slope, you say, is precisely that... think on the literal implication of slipping down a slope: there's no climbing back up...
justice stevens is correct when he says this decision does violence to the first amendment...
but why worry, until they reestablish habeus corpus, all other rights are not guaranteed...
ve haff vays off making u tak!!
After what the courts and states and Congress has done to the 2nd and 5th Amendments, that is the truth. There are no sacrosanct rights, even under the Constitution. I wish there were.
Stevens apparently believes in a narrow test for risk of substantial disruption. But with such a test, you introduce subjectivity. And that is exactly why content-based analyses are inherently suspect. Having the bright-line restriction on certain topics in school speech is clear, not overly restrictive, and not content based except for purposes that similar cases agree are permissible to restrict.
Furthermore, the restriction wasn't a restraint on Respondent's speech, nor punishment for his beliefs (if he had any) He wasn't gagged a priori. He was told, not here, not now. If he had waited until after school, or did it outside his house, clearly untouchable speech. And the Court's decision recognizes that. But the 9th Circuit's decision that he had the right and, more importantly, that the right was apparent, is shocking. Furthermore, what of so-called hate speech. That decision would mean that students can wear t-shirts to school that say 'God hates fags' or display swastikas and the teachers could do nothing lest they risk a lawsuit, and one for which there is no qualified immunity--they get sued personally (meaning that they would back off--what teacher wants to risk a lawsuit over that?) What would the "progressives" and other liberals of think of that. They would be outraged. Yet, once you say swastikas and anti-gay speech is "disruptive," but hammer & sickles and drug glorification is not, you get into content-based speech.
Its a dilemma, isn't it?
-nuff said.
Commander Guy, Esq.
Personally, I
BTW, CIA declassified all the documents about their dirty tricks from decades past. This isn't news (it came to light in the 70's) but now the memos are public.
Surprised you haven't been all over that!
Post a Comment