WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- A case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington tests the limits of student free-speech rules set by the court during the Vietnam War.
The case was brought by Joseph Frederick, 23, who as a high school student in Juneau, Alaska, was suspended in 2002 for holding a 14-foot banner seen as offensive during a school function, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The incident five years ago revolved around a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" that Fredrick held up outside the school when students were released to witness the Olympic torch being carried through the city. The school's principal, Deborah Morse, confiscated the banner and suspended Frederick for 10 days.
Steven Shapiro, national legal director for the ACLU which is representing Frederick, said the "extraordinarily broad claim" made by the government over the right to control speech inside the school system "would in effect overrule the entire architecture of student speech law that the Supreme Court has so carefully constructed over the past 40 years."
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case Monday.
