History
In January 2002, Joseph Frederick, a student at JDHS, unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across from the school in an effort to get on television as the Olympic torch relay passed the school. The principal at the time, Deborah Morse, took the banner from him and suspended him for ten days, on the grounds that the banner opposed the school's mission and anti-drug policy. On March 10, 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Morse had violated Frederick's right to free speech, overturning an earlier Alaskan federal court ruling. Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion, "Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself." Frederick was also cleared to seek damages from Morse.
On December 1, 2006 the United States Supreme Court announced that they agreed to hear an appeal of the case; it is Juneau School Board v. Frederick, 06-278. On June 25, 2007, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, holding that the school district did not violate Frederick's First Amendment rights.
Read more about this topic: Juneau-Douglas High School
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)