After he unfurled his 14-foot ”Bong Hits 4 Jesus” banner on a Juneau, Alaska, street one winter morning in 2002, Frederick got a 10-day school suspension. Five years later, he has a date Monday at the Supreme Court in what is shaping up as an important test of constitutional rights.
”What the banner said was, ’Look here, I have the right to free speech and I’m asserting it’. I wasn’t trying to say anything religious, anything about drugs,” Frederick said in a telephone news conference from China, where he now teaches English and studies Mandarin.
”It was the wrong message, at the wrong time and in the wrong place,” said former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who is representing the school district free of charge, in court papers.
Frederick had previous run-ins with school administrators before the banner dispute. He said he first saw the slogan on a snowboard and thought it would make a good test of his rights because, though meaningless, it sounds provocative.
No comments:
Post a Comment