Word: bong
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...same day that the Supreme Court imposed a new limit on students' free speech in the Bong Hits 4 Jesus decision, the Justices ruled the opposite way in another First Amendment case, protecting the rights of corporations and unions to shell out money for political ads shortly before an election...
...such a restriction, it invents "out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs." Stevens is fine with a rule that prohibits students from promoting illegal drugs. But no matter what the principal argued in this case, the bong-hits banner conveyed "nonsense," speech "that was never meant to persuade anyone to do anything...
...better lines from Monday's opinions, Stevens explains that most students knew the bong-hits message had no meaning, because most of them "do not shed their brains at the schoolhouse gate." And so to allow schools to ban speech that merely alludes to drugs might, he says, squelch "a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana," a topic at the heart of political debate. (Justice Stephen Breyer, often in accord with the case's dissenters, writes separately (and alone) to say the court should just declare that...
...though, Roberts seems to have best kept his eye on the bigger picture. There's a lot more going on in this case than whether the law should allow kids at school to talk about sucking on a bong, and the chief puts his finger on it when he responds to Stevens' dissent by explaining that political speech is just not an issue here...
...know whether the court took these factors into account in the Bong Hits opinion, but Roberts makes the point clearly enough. "School principals have a difficult job, and a vitally important one," he writes. "When Frederick suddenly and unexpectedly unfurled his banner, Morse (the principal) had to decide to act - or not to act - on the spot." She acted, of course, and for the good of the schools and students, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing...