by the end of his junior year he was a senior when this happened at the end of his junior year he had enough credits to graduate with a good g p a he was working a construction job you've actually went on to graduate two years of college he's now if you think marine was a serious expression by a serious person he chose the circumstances of his assertion of the first amendment rights carefully he chose to do it on campus on a public sidewalk just so that it wouldn't get mixed up with any  assertions high school irrespective he did not come to school that day has not been on campus was not released with any class and under the supervision of any teacher he was not part of any group of students who were being supervised by any teacher ever going to school that morning at all that's correct he didn't this is an open campus even if he had when you are between classes he would have been had he been in school that day he was greeted come and go as he chose but he did not go to school that day parked his car away from the campus never went on school property his banner was obviously not of seen or all very good not inside or threatened  doesn't mean anything you know that is a question that people have asked all along and mr frederick was quite clear in his deposition and that his affidavit he was intending by the banner to assert first amendment free which he can sigurd in jeopardy in this country and he attempted to do it by creating a banner saying that he thought was humorous was a parody and he chose the words on it he said that there would be some controversial concert hall though the words themselves the trial court found that there was a communicative intent although everybody with one exception  submitted information or affidavits for deposition testimony said they didn't know what it meant the one exception was the principal the only person in all of this who said well that's an incursion into illegal drug use everybody else said we don't know what it meant but he did intend it as an assertion of his first many rare any harm to your case if we assume that bong hits refers to marijuana smoking if you take the principle also something about adult public place free speech case in which case you only look at the exceptions imminent incitation of violence or obscenity the very few exceptions but going back right let's suppose that what he held up was a sign saying william f buckley says legalize marijuana and totally on ambiguous actually court just prudence that foolish statements are just as protected as intelligent statements and there are certainly the supreme court does not allow any public official to decide to what  effectiveness was probably exactly what he intended namely to assert the fact that he could make any non disruptive even nonsensical humorous statement in public off school where i'm wondering if they have anything to do with it is this just an adult in a public forum public sidewalk not on school property and not anyone has been used either exceeded her authority  were here because the principal seized it and punished them so it came up through the procedure of a school proceeding leading to the question of whether the school had authority to do it to do it now our analogous case is this court's case in birch b barker which is where students are put together on their own time with their own materials the newspaper intending it to be distributed on campus and the school said you can't do it without us  giving approval first here same dynamic or it was created by students who were on their own time with their own materials and although they did not intend to distribute here on campus absent a showing of imminent substantial disruption question a process which we know did not occur here basically it's our fourth where analogy to the facts in this case and since unpleasantness that a company and a popular expression do not justify punishing free speech one important adjunct to that his the fact that although some person you know i should say one person the principal found it to be personally offensive and you're the only person we know of who found it to be personally offensive your personal offense in this has never been grounds to allow  remote effect on some students it would be deleterious to the school's mission as very good remote as that directly contrary to the actual imminent substantial disruption that is required here fortunately the law does not permit a public official to violate the first amendment because their buttons are pushed to get where they want to go to school district  has had to stretch several theories to the breaking point they claim that on campus rules of conduct apply off high campus because coincident with mr fr display the banner some students were allowed to go and watch this non school event now we know it was not a field trip in traditional sense of away from campus students or parent permission slip students have problems and so  frederick was on the field trip for the rest of this interview show up i was assuming exactly the same situation here where he's doing it independently and i will say one thing to note on the record his that it was a matter of  joining other students who happened to be there he went there first went to the far side of the non school side of the street and then other students came over and joined him only other students but non students he sees the vendor from at least one non students as well theory that they stretch beyond the breaking point is theory that speech which is somebody to the principal can be punished can be prohibited when it's done by a student even if it's not vulgar or obscene or lou lou under fraser and now we know of please the court my name is david crosby i'm here this morning on behalf of the juneau school board and you know douglas high school principal deborah morse i'd like to address first a few of the questions were raised by the court the court ask whether true that he never went to school at all that day that is not correct he was on his way to school his reason why he wasn't in classes supposedly of his car was stuck it was in his intent for to speak to school and he did in fact receive school after this incident oh hold on a sec you said it was in correct that he had never been to school that day if i understand you right and then what you said was he was on its way to school which relay where he held up the sign so correct he had not been in school he had been in school the day before when it was announced that classes with me to go to this particular function he wasn't in school and then released for that's correct that's correct  if you look at the picture that's in the record of the students holding up the banner i are almost morse knew was that mr frederick was in and roll student i he was standing with other students it was during school hours the parents expect their children to be under the supervision and care of the school administrators really pose a hypo through i went to school in the washington d c area and they used to release us day and a principal saw somebody that you knew to be a student in a school holding up a banner that opposed whoever was getting  this is not a situation where the school said you don't have to come to school stay the students were expected to come to school they were then permitted to go out in the limited area in front of the school on either side of the street for the purpose of watching this particular function in which students were participating in the band participated the cheerleaders participated athletes were running and there was there was a decision made at the district level and at the building level that this was a function that has an educational and some civic value for that reason the students for permitted to go outside the classroom onto the street under the supervision and control of their teachers and administrators that's a very different situation from just saying you don't have to come to school tomorrow because an arguer a sion day so in that particular instance they are not under the supervision of control and the jurisdiction of their teachers and administrators and as far as the message it's one thing to say i now take the drug aspect of the case you're concerned with that it's against public policy i have trouble grasping why you're focusing on that it seems to me that the essence of free speech is to be able to oppose government policy are the leading students free speech case the students who are opposing government policy government policy was to prosecute the war in vietnam the black armbands expressed hostility to th out there is a federal statute that requires that you know a school district or certify that in its programs it consistently conveys the message that use of illegal drugs first i thought that statute meant that if they're going to take federal money for the federal anti growth programs their message has to be anti drug in the program in the program but i don't get where it can mean that they control independent non where words that type of stuff but if you look at fraser's talking about something much stronger talks about schools not having to tolerate speech that is inconsistent with the educational mission of the school it talks about in well you've raised a number of issues the first to use this phrase or just apply to speech that occurs at some kind of school function or assembly this circuit has said that the phrase or analysis applies regardless of whether it was the speech of hers at a school function or whether there's any disruption involved now that the question then becomes are we talking about frasier the question of in school out of school is a question about you know where where does the jurisdiction of the school administrators extend do you cut it off at the school property boundary even though the students are still part of the student body if for example if you say that you can't use vulgar speech in an assembly the way that the student didn't phrase it does that mean that the student could wear the same words on a t shirt and walk around the high school and if you're going to take that student on i think cohen group this california would have to come out the other way if although it was not in high school  high understand if you're thinking cohen had been a high school student and the principal had been offended by the jacket that corner where the court room then the principal could discipline cohen and he would not have a constitutional right to wear that jacket if you w the jacket in the classroom the courtroom so the courtroom when he's not under the jurisdiction of the other teacher no but if the teacher takes her classroom and raise it to the classroom art it's saying it should not be confined to sexual innuendo and that sort of thing but i understood this language and handler to mean the opposite of page five twenty nine and we conclude as discussed below that the standard for how does your arguments square up with that statement and can work i just the question here is whether a stance of means something other than lewd and vulgar and obscene  supreme court would permit teachers and administrators in the classroom and in situations where the students are under the control of their teachers and administrators would permit them to suppress that kind of language as open discussion about the legalization of marijuana there is a policy called the controversial issues policy in school you can talk about these things in an academic setting and which factors such as safety are brought out  the school does not permit us this kind of sloganeering it doesn't permit them to wear t shirts that say this was for you know how does that contribute to the debate about marijuana this is not a case about joe frederick's rights to express his political views he was asked repeatedly were you trying to convey a political message he said he was not you know it seems like to me like like your demands here would outlaw opera stickers because they're just too crude and primitive an expression there's not enough content if i see a bumper sticker that says knowles or lisa it doesn't tell me why i should vote for noble's that doesn't tell me why i should both groups lisa is doesn't say what's good about knowles or what's good about me  jesus and he's not going to school that day and instead holding up a sign on the sidewalk across the street that says he's for jesus is there obviously there are limits there are lots of things that you don't permit kids to do in school that happen outside of school that the school has no jurisdiction over that's the parents problem when they bring it into the schools that's the school's problem the schools are asked to maintain a consistent message that drug use by adolescents or drug use period is not healthy as the federal statute says you have to be consistent and they taney that it is wrong and it is illegal that it's unhealthy that it is harmful now how are you supposed to do that when you've was submitted on that side there were affidavits that were submitted by four or five of joe frederick friends who said that they didn't know what it means when i asked joe frederick at his deposition you know what bar means and he said yes you know what right there's there's no jurisdiction over him at that point this is we're talking about during the school day when parents expect their kids to be under the jurisdiction and the care of their teachers and their ministries all kinds of things that go on outside of that period of time but during that period of time they have the responsibility to look after these just what is this work toward chase what if joe frederick was standing where he was standing and he was hit by a snowball on lost his eyesight in his eye because the teachers and administrators fail to maintain discipline what if he was hit by a car because they hadn't maintained traffic it's clear that under those circumstances the school district would be liable and would be responsible authority is just the flipside of that responsibility it curved during school hours he was with students he was it was at a function that was supervised by the school district at that point he was within their jurisdiction there are supreme court cases dealing with fourth amendment that talk about the fact the need for the schools whole doesn't get less when you take the students off campus it gets more when they are with you when they are in a school activity they are under your jurisdiction the liberal rules with respect search and seizure apply to them there are cases in the first amendment area where where speech is formulated off campus but it is being back on the campus by a student and at that point the student become subject to the  rules and regulations of the school and this instance he was standing directly opposite from the high school he held up a banner if you look in the record you can see what was seen from the school property directly across the street being that message back to his fellow students how is the school supposed to maintain a consistent message that drugs are wrong and they're harmful when you get the peer pressure coming from the other direction with this kind of sloganeering it is not a rational debate of a whether or not to if if one student is turned away from the teachings about the harms of illegal drugs is that is that substantial amount or does it have to be fifty students or twenty five thousand who gets to decide that the federal court's going to come in and decide when these kinds of messages about drugs are substantial create substantial harm or maybe just a little bit of harm the general school board the elected officials who run that district says that these kinds of messages  was high school has a severe drug problem that sixty percent of the students by the time they graduate will be involved with marijuana and that which is above the national average if this had heard as iraq's one hundred copies of the alaska supreme court decision raven versus state do you remember when that and and then there was that decision where the alaska supreme court held that there is a constitutional right under the constitution at to possess a mouse for personal consumption of marijuana in the home and if he had xerox one hundred copies of raven off school property on his own distributed a copy of raven and he didn't have the whole notion he just had he just had what he regarded as the good parts i don't know would they be able to discipline no i don't think so and that you know that question i honestly can't say whether this question was asked and devolution i believe that it was the principal she said had he held up a sign that said legalize marijuana she probably would not have reacted i'm missing something here i understand that bong hits for jesus makes no sense that it's absurd but the message on the jacket that calling the order court also made no sense it's physically absurd i don't understand where the absurdity matters i'm not i don't think that this was i don't think this was absurd i think that this was joe frederick trying to leave himself an out but he knew what bong hits was all only court ever to the side that there is not one single court at any level in federal or state jurisdiction that has failed to uphold a regulation by a school  a discussion in the school room and a student says i think it's they had to criminalize marijuana use i think marijuana is good for many things and the list of violent and  isn't about an attempt to provoke a rational debate about whether or not marijuana should be legalized this is about a student putting up a sign that undercuts that mocks satirizes the seriousness with which the general douglas high school and the board of education and you know takes the issue of drugs in the school that's a different situation now in that other case comes up i don't know how the courts should decide it but i don't think that there is a single court that has ever passed upon this kind of issue that has said that it is appropriate for school teachers and administrators just to press those kinds of messages drug messages are different thank you so thank you i've only just a few brief points to make in rebuttal mr crosby uses the i mentioned them being back theory and as we acknowledged there was a possibility that a few students could have for a few something that occurs talk campus the course of always say ok you analyze it under tinker is there an imminent substantial disruption in the educational process and second mr acros whatever well he was doing this a car came along and hit him i think that's absolutely clear that given the circumstances that he was there on his own hadn't been in school hadn't been released with any look probably in the end i believe look to the fact that he was there independently by choice had not been on campus had not checked in for any classes and not been released from any class so when your view of this case it entirely different people in school and  across the state yeah yeah yeah that had been the case then you would analyze it in terms of what standards of what constitutional parameters apply to conduct  either on campus or off campus but in that kind of supervised setting and that's where once again i think that this knowledge you're analyzing this message i think then we look at undifferentiated fear of some possible remote harm is not sufficient and that is precisely what we're dealing with here there is no allegation other than differentiated fear of some possible remote har treated drugs differently in a reply brief we show that how not a single one of them in fact gave leave to suppress students speech because it involved drugs through simply isn't one of them that these prescriptions are available because there is a severe drug problem the only thing in the record about that is the newspaper article which they submitted and