Dozens of high school students with signs and banners will hold a free speech rally outside the Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments in Morse v. Frederick. If the government has its way, the ruling in the case could allow school administrators to punish students just for questioning the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. program, the humiliation of school drug testing policies, or the invasiveness of random locker searches.
The case focuses on Joseph Frederick, who was suspended in 2002 from a high school in Alaska after holding up a âBong Hits 4 Jesusâ banner during a school trip to see the Olympic torch parade pass by.
This rally, organized by Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), will feature two students who had political campaign t-shirts advocating medical marijuana confiscated by school officials, as well as students prevented from starting an SSDP chapter at their public high school because their principal didnât agree with the groupâs anti-drug war message. The students will display a large âFree Speech 4 Studentsâ banner on the steps of the Court.
* Links to the organizationsâ amicus briefs can be found online at www.ssdp.org/freespeech/ and www.drugpolicy.org/news/freespeech.cfm *
Location
U.S. Supreme Court steps
E Capitol St. NE and 1st St. NE
Washington, DC
United States
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.