Getting High With The High Court

The Supreme Court is firing up a fat one with the first free speech case since Barbara Bush told a veteran in a wheelchair to "walk it off, you big pussy."

OK, I made that up, but it could happen.

It's true that for the first time in nearly 20 years, the highest court in the land is hearing a case about how far a school principal can go in shutting up one of her students.

The facts, if my short term memory is accurate, are these: In 2002, Principal Deborah Morse of Juneau, Alaska let her young charges skip class so they could watch the Olympic torch pass by.

As an aside, isn't that one of the lamest field trips ever? When I was a young boy they let us out of school so we could watch the Vice President whisk past in his limo and that was Richard Frickin' Nixon. We're talking history here, children, not some ectomorph trotting by with a ball of flame on a stick.

Anyway, one of the students, a kid named Joseph Frederick, waited until the TV cameras were almost on him and then unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Immediately Principal Morse got a migraine. Then she suspended Joseph.

Now the Supreme Court is contemplating whether stupidity is protected by the First Amendment or whether school principals can use the Bill of Rights to roll up a big fat doobie and set a match to it.

David Souter, a guy who looks like he's no stranger to a one-hit toker, said, "It's political speech, it seems to me. I don't see what it disrupts."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg added, "And no one was smoking pot in that crowd."

Asked why he did it, Joseph Frederick said he just wanted to get on television. That I can believe.

But Principal Morse has her panties in a twist. She said she suspended Frederick because "bong hits" referred to smoking marijuana. Well, duh. She also said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy although I suspect she was more disturbed by the thought of Jesus firing up than she was anything else. Just a suspicion.

Stephen Breyer, who is named for yummy ice cream, said a ruling for Frederick could result in students "testing limits all over the place," like students don't already test limits in high schools across the land. On the other hand, he also said that a ruling for Principal Morse "may really limit people's rights on free speech."

Can we guess what side the Bush administration is on? Headed by a surly drunk who famously said, "there ought to be limits to freedom?" Is there any doubt that the government is siding with Principal Morse? Not once you see Morse's lawyer is. He's none other than Ken Starr, the guy who started out investigating a failed real estate deal and ended up encouraging a homely girl to tape a fat girl so he could nail the president for lying about a little humma humma on the side.

Starr said that Morse is right for censoring speech about drugs and another government attorney argued that public schools don't have to tolerate a message inconsistent with its educational mission and that makes me wonder if teaching the Constitution is part of this school's educational mission.

Sam Alito doesn't like that line of reasoning any better than I do. "I find that a very, very disturbing argument," he said. He argued that schools could define their mission so broadly that they could suppress any political speech.

Anthony Kennedy asked if Principal Morse had the authority to squelch the banner if it had said "vote Republican, vote Democrat" and the government hack said she did have the authority, so there.

Clarence Thomas asked, "Have you ever really looked at your hand?"

Frederick's lawyer, a guy named Doug Mertz (no relation to Fred) said, "This is a case about free speech. It is not a case about drugs," and asked the court to remember the famous 1969 ruling that said students don't "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech ... at the schoolhouse gate." But that was a different time.

Lately the court has come down more in favor of the hobnail boot ruling that students' right to free speech isn't absolute, interpreting the words, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..." unless it's about drugs and it's just kids who can't vote anyway so fuck 'em.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June around 4:20 PM.