We All Went to Heaven in a Little Row Boat

Congratulations once again to Mr. Andrew Shipp (a.k.a. “The T.J. Hooker, excuse me, Hooper”) for correctly naming "Round Here" by Counting Crows as the Thursday Song of the Day.

In the interest of full disclosure, the following series will probably have a brief, meteoric run for obvious reasons...

You Better Know a Supreme Court Litigant

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the first in a series of posts aiming to provide you with a more concrete connection to the Supreme Court of the United States. Solely for the purposes of efficiency, I will use SCOTUS throughout the rest of this post and the ones to come. You like acronyms, don't you?

Yesterday in Civil Liberties, during the portion of the syllabus dealing with symbolic speech, we covered the recently decided case of Morse v. Frederick*. In addition to a discussion of the legal principles involved in the resolution of the matter, we were also enlightened on the inner-workings in the field of ceramic drug paraphernalia. Some of you might know the Frederick case by its alternate name, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus".

A quick summary of the facts follows:

The dispute arose in advance of the Winter Olympics of 2002. The Olympic torch relay was passing through Juneau as the torch was on its way to Salt Lake City, and Juneau schools decided to turn the event into a teachable moment by letting students watch.

At Juneau-Douglas High School, Principal Deborah Morse allowed students, under supervision, to watch the torch runner pass in front of the school. School cheerleaders and the pep band performed.

Some students watched from across the street as well. In that group, student Joseph Frederick had other plans for when the torch passed. As cameras recorded the moment, he and other students unfurled a large banner that read: "BONG HITS 4 JESUS." He later described it as a humorous, meaningless, and not at all pro-drug, message.

When Morse asked the students to take down the banner, all complied except Frederick, who asserted his First Amendment rights. Morse grabbed and crumpled the banner and suspended Frederick for five days. During a later discussion, according to his brief, Frederick quoted Thomas Jefferson to her -- and his suspension was increased to 10 days. Frederick sued in federal court.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 5-person majority, asserted that although students do have some right to political speech even while in school, this right does not extend to pro-drug messages that may undermine the school's important mission to discourage drug use. The majority held that Frederick's message, though "cryptic," was reasonably interpreted as promoting marijuana use - equivalent to "[Take] bong hits" or "bong hits [are a good thing]." In ruling for Morse, the Court affirmed that the speech rights of public school students are not as extensive as those adults normally enjoy.

That's all very well and good, but besides learning that I could not have walked into Whitehouse High School wearing my favorite "Bong Hits for Cheech and Chong" jacket** without expecting some type of punishment, the truly interesting aspect of this case, at least for me, was that Frederick was actually the cousin of some of my best friends growing up.

Although I cannot say that I would have laid a little cash on the proposition that Frederick would be the only person I have ever met that was a Supreme Court litigant, in hindsight, it does not seem like a very risky wager. Frederick grew up in Henderson, which for those of you who know East Texas, is just a county over from the Tyler/Whitehouse/Bullard metropolitan area. My friends Bryan and Brad (Frederick's cousins) would frequently comment that their cousin was one of the more outspoken/wacky kids that they had ever met, but when you're in middle school, who isn't a bit odd?

After Frederick's parents divorced, he went with his Dad to Alaska, which is why he found himself on a Juneau street in 2002, watching the Olympic Torch pass by and waiting to unfurl a banner that would ultimately lead him to the SCOTUS.
Following the events of 1/24/02, he received a settlement from the Juneau Police Department for harassment happening after the Bong Hits incident, and his father received a settlement from his employer -- the school district's insurance company (he claims he was fired for not pressuring Joseph into dropping the suit).

Frederick is now teaching English in China.

This has been the first post in the series "You Better Know a Supreme Court Litigant". Any suggestions for future posts in the series would be greatly appreciated.

*Morse v. Frederick, 75 LW 4487 (2007)
**I did not own one of these, nor do I think that one actually exists.