Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sunday, December 3, 2006
Court to hear “bong hits 4 Jesus?”
You know, sometimes cases that make it to the U.S. Supreme Court just make you scratch your head. But this one is in league of its own.
A high school kid in Alaska in the audience as the Olympic torch runs by holds up a sign that says “Bong hits 4 Jesus” trying to get on T.V. and earns a 10-day suspension even though he was on his own time and nowhere near the school or any sort of school function. (Thanks to my good pal Frank Lockwood, the Bible Belt Blogger and religion writer for the Lexington (Ky) Herald-Leader for alerting me to this story.)
This little prank has opened quite a can of worms.
The principal justified the suspension by saying the kid was promoting drug use with the sign. But was he? As Lockwood points out, nobody seems to even know what he meant by the sign, or if it even meant anything other than “show me on T.V.”
San Francisco’s notoriously liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals sided with the kid, ruling the school violated his right to free speech. (This is the same court that ruled “under God” should be taken out of the pledge of allegiance a couple years ago before being over ruled by the Supremes.) Oh, and arguing the case for the school district is Ken Starr. Yes, THAT Ken Starr, the Bill Clinton Whitewater/Monicagate prosecutor.
As goofy as this case is, there is one thing about it that I find interesting. Where does a school’s authority to regulate a student’s behavior end? This is a murky area. Certainly public schools can regulate behavior of students at school or those involved in a school-sponsored activity. But what about students who are entirely on their own time but do something that is not illegal but that school officials find embarrassing? What about behavior of a student in his or her private home that is publicly revealed? What about students’ public comments and actions on the Internet?
Any ideas on how and where to draw this line?
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