Thursday, May 7, 2009

BONG HITS 4 JESUS!


I do not agree with the Supreme Court case's ruling. Due to the circumstances of the child being underage, it was a tough matter to address. I think Frederick should have been allowed to freely demonstrate his Constitutional Amendments. "Accepting that Frederick had acted during a school-authorized activity and that the banner expressed a positive sentiment about marijuana use, the court nonetheless found a First Amendment violation because the school had punished Frederick without demonstrating that his speech threatened substantial disruption." The school never addressed that these actions were a problem. He didn’t hurt or offend anyone. Whatever his project may have been, the rules of the assignment should have explained what was acceptable and what was inappropriate. I personally think what happened to the child was wrong because it limited his creative freedom. Even so, "BONG HITS 4 JESUS" doesn't necessarily promote drug use or even specific paraphernalia for that matter. Bongs are sold everywhere for the manufacturer’s purpose of tobacco. Maybe Frederick imagined that Jesus likes to smoke tobacco, grass, or maybe even something silly like pop rocks. It shouldn’t have been assumed that the usages of bongs are solely for the purposes of marijuana use. If the school found that there was a problem with Frederick’s behavior they should have had a Required Parent Teacher Conference and brought it to his parents’ attention. The Court explained that these cases demonstrated that "the constitutional rights of students in public school were not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings." Had the student in the assembly delivered the same speech in a public forum outside the school context, he would have been protected. In school, however, his First Amendment rights were circumscribed "in light of the special characteristics of the school environment." I don’t understand why the court ruled this not okay. In other circumstances where children to something wrong they can be tried as an adult. Well in this circumstance, why can’t the child protect themselves by holding rights like an adult? Does the place of the event really matter? Does being in school really make a difference as opposed to being in public? Either way his rights were obstructed.

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