Principals of censorship: student speech and the drug war.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

WHEN JOSEPH Frederick, a Juneau, Alaska, high school senior, unrolled a 14-foot banner proclaiming "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at a 2002 Winter Olympics torch relay rally near his school, he was trying to attract TV cameras. Instead he caught the eye of Deborah Morse, the school's principal, who crossed the street, grabbed the banner, crumpled it up, and suspended Frederick for 10 days.

Morse was offended not by the banner's religious content but by what she took to be its pro-marijuana message. When the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of Morse's heavy-handed censorship in March, it seemed a majority might be prepared to accept her interpretation and obligingly carve out a "drug exception" to the First Amendment.

"Illegal drugs and the glorification of the drug culture are profoundly serious problems for our nation," former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr told the Court on behalf of Morse and the school district. Therefore, he implied, a First Amendment that protects a student's right to wear a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War might not protect his right to wear a "Legalize It" T-shirt in protest of the war on drugs.

Frederick's lawyer asserted that...