US Supreme Court's Mixed Signals on Free Speech

The Supreme Court decided that free speech does give people and groups the right to air advertisements during a period close to elections. This decision rejects a portion of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. That's a good thing. The ruling can be found here (Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., Dkt. No. 06-969, 6/25/2007).

The Court, however, found that schools could restrict certain forms of student speech.

Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a 5-4 ruling.

Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended the banner to proclaim his right to say anything at all.

His principal, Deborah Morse, said the phrase was a pro-drug message that had no place at a school-sanctioned event. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use.

''The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic,'' Roberts said. ''But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one.''

Morse suspended the student, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Students in public schools don't have the same rights as adults, but neither do they leave their constitutional protections at the schoolhouse gate, as the court said in a landmark speech-rights ruling from Vietnam era.

The court has limited what students can do in subsequent cases, saying they may not be disruptive or lewd or interfere with a school's basic educational mission.

The idea that students do not have the same rights to speech as adults is one that I find troublesome. The actual content of the speech could be considered political speech (as noted by Souter - which calls the case ruling 6-3 and not 5-4 as in the NYT above), which is exactly the kind of speech that the First Amendment is designed to protect, and the last time I checked, there is no age restriction on when the Constitution and Bill of Rights applies to only some individuals and not others. The text of the decision can be found here (Morse v. Frederick, Dkt. No. 06-278, 6/25/2007).

More analysis to follow.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has quick hits on the major cases that came down today, and suggests that the speech related cases (Morse and FEC) suggest a conservative approach is taking shape, even though the decisions were fractured with concurrences and Anthony Kennedy was the deciding vote. Also, the FEC case doesn't exactly invalidate a portion of the BRCA but rather may force the Court to take up the constitutionality of those provisions in the future. SCOTUSBlog, Powerline, and Orin Kerr also weigh in on the decisions.