Word: robertses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That may sound sweeping, but it's hard to know exactly what to make of the 5 to 4 decision, with the majority opinion also written, as in the Bong Hits case, by Chief Justice John Roberts. It seems to put a significant chink in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance...
Meanwhile, in another concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, sides with Roberts, but they fret about anyone construing his opinion too broadly. It's all right, they say, for schools to crack down on speech about drugs, because drugs can be a real threat to student...
But the problem, says Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent, is that the Roberts opinion not only provides support for such a restriction, it invents "out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech...
In the end, 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...
We don't 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...