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Morse v. Frederick (2007)

Shunying Wang and Mallory Shoemaker

What do you think?

Significant Justices' Opinions

Chief Justice John Roberts

Background

Do you believe Frederick's speech should be protected?

Joseph Frederick, Juneau- Douglas High School Senior.

Late to school, joined friends when he arrived.

Held up a large 14-foot banner with the words "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" on it.

Deborah Morse, the school principle, immediately demanded that Frederick take the banner down.

Refused.

Ten day suspension as punishment.

Justice Clarence Thomas, concurring

  • Ad Hoc Balancing Theory
  • Case by case decision
  • Free expression is NOT the only important right
  • "... the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings," (p. 296).
  • "... school boards have the authority to determine 'what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate.' " (p. 300)
  • Frederick presented a non-political, silly message (p.297)
  • School officials' attempt is not Banning a certain viewpoint

VS.

Deborah Morse, et al.

Joseph Frederick

April 25, 2002

School appealed.

Writ of certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Morse and the Juneau School District (Juneau Empire).

Frederick sued Morse.

The Juneau School District in the U.S. District Court, District of Alaska claimed his constitutional rights were violated (Juneau Empire).

2006

December 1, 2006

  • Originalism
  • "First Amendment was not originally understood to permit all speech... [t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem," (p. 304).
  • No speech protection in public schools
  • Teacher vs. Student
  • "To meet their educaitonal objectives, schools required absolute obedience," (p. 305).
  • "Court routinely preserved the rights of teachers to punish speech that the school or teacher thought was contrary to the interests of the school and its educational goals," (p. 307).

2002

March 10, 2006

Finally, the case was seen before the Supreme Court.

The Court's Vote, How the Court Decided the Case

May 27, 2003

Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting

Frederick won.

The 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals reversed lower court decision, finding Morse personally liable for violating Frederick's constitutional rights. (Juneau Empire)

Morse won.

Deborah Morse claimed that the banner could be seen as promoting illegal drug use.

The U.S. District Court, District of Alaska ruled in favor of Morse. The Principle's interpretation of the reading on the banner was reasonable.

Majority voted in favor of the principle, Deborah Morse. 5/4

"Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care form speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Fredrick," (p. 294).

"The constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings," (p. 295).

Precedent Cases

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier

1988

  • Frederick's banner did not cause disruption to the school.
  • "reasonably regarded as promoting illegal drug use" cannot justify disciplining Frederick for his attempt to make an ambiguous statement to a television audience simply because it contained an oblique reference to drugs. The First Amendment demands more, indeed, much more," (p. 319).
  • The First Amendment protection only loses its power when Frederick actually promoted illegal drug use. However, his message was vague.
  • "... non-disruptive speech that merely expresses a viewpoint that is unpopular or contrary to the school's preferred message," (p. 322).
  • Frederick's speech expressed a viewpoint.

Tinker v. Des Moines

1969

Key Issues

School sponsored newspaper written and edited by students.

School principle found two pages to be inappropriate for the student body. One page had an article on divorce and the other had info for birth control.

Tammy Hawkins was one of the editors.

Court ruled in favor of the school, 5/3.

Brother and sister wore black arm bands to protest Vietnam war.

School told them to take them off, if they refused suspension would result.

Tinker siblings wore the bands again the next day and were suspended.

Tinker siblings sued the school claiming violation of First Amendment rights.

Tinker siblings won 7/2. Symbolic political speech protected.

Bethel High School v. Fraser

1986

  • Frederick's banner clearly supported and encouraged illegal drug use.

  • Question of student's First Amendment rights being violated.

  • Boundary of school policy reach unclear.

  • Marijuana legalization was being discussed in Alaska at the time and people were concerned about it.

Matthew Fraser made speech nominating another student for student office.

His speech used "graphic sexual metaphor."

School administrators suspended him for two days and removed his name from the running for office.

Lower court ruled in favor of Fraser

But Supreme Court ruled reversed the ruling: 7/2 in favor of Bethel High School.

Our Opinion

Major Implications to Communication Law

Has the ruling lasted or been modified?

Significance to the "Good Society"

  • Do you believe the First Amendment should allow public schools to prohibit students from displaying messages promoting the use of illegal drugs at school-supervised events (Morse v. Frederick, oyez.org)?

  • Would it have changed your opinion in any way if Frederick's message had been political, such as promoting legalization of marijuana?

  • Does Frederick’s behavior fall under symbolic action or communication in your mind?

Final Thoughts and Questions

  • Agree with the Court.
  • First Amendment -- limited for students within the school spectrum.
  • Location: on or off campus?
  • Speech Types: 1) political, 2) symbolic, or 3) expressing a viewpoint, or simply silly?
  • A "clean" environment is essential for education
  • It was a fair case.

Morse v. Frederick continued to answer the question that Tinker began: What are the First Amendment rights of students in the classroom?

  • Morse almost added more protection to student speech in the sense that the Court was very specific in their ruling.
  • This case helped define what sort of speech is considered harmful.
  • We believe that it is important to protect student's right to petition the government and speak freely about political issues, regardless of whether they are at home or at school.

  • We also believe that it is the responsibility of the school to step in when that speech crosses the line of political speech and becomes instead a harmful encouragement of illegal activity.

Morse v. Frederick, in a lot of ways, has served as our most current addition to the student free speech/First Amendment case timeline.

Though the burden of proof has remained on the school, the development of Tinker to Bethel to Hazelwood to Morse has increasingly stripped away more and more First Amendment rights of students and put more discretion in the hands of the public schools.

Bibliography

DEBORAH MORSE, et al., Petitioners v. JOSEPH FREDERICK. (n.d.). LexisNexis. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.plu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic//

Empire. (n.d.). Morse v. Frederick Timeline. Juneau Empire. Retrieved October 25, 2013, from http://juneauempire.com/stories/031807/loc_20070318018.shtml

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1941/1941_255

APA formatting by BibMe.org.

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