Background and Procedural History
On January 23, 2002, students and staff at Juneau-Douglas High School were permitted to leave classes to watch the Olympic Torch pass by. Joseph Frederick, who was late for school that day, joined some friends on the sidewalk across from the high school, off school grounds. Frederick and his friends waited for the television cameras so they could unfurl a banner reading "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS". Frederick was quoted as saying he'd first seen the phrase on a snowboard sticker. When they displayed the banner, then-principal Deborah Morse ran across the street and seized it.
Morse initially suspended Frederick for five days for violating the school district's anti-drug policy, but later increased the suspension to ten days after Frederick quoted Thomas Jefferson. Frederick administratively appealed his suspension to the superintendent, who denied his appeal but limited it to the time Frederick had already spent out of school prior to his appeal to the superintendent (eight days). Frederick then appealed to the Juneau School Board, which upheld the suspension on March 19, 2002.
Read more about this topic: Morse V. Frederick
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