Deborah Morse, et al. v. Joseph Frederick (551 U.S. 393)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 25, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 551 U.S. 393 · 127 S. Ct. 2618
- Decided
- June 25, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2006
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- First Amendment
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court. At a school-sanctioned and school-supervised event, a high school principal saw some of her students unfurl a large banner conveying a message she reasonably regarded as promoting illegal drug use. Consistent with established school policy prohibiting such messages at school events, the principal directed the students to take down the banner. One student — among those who had brought the banner to the event — refused to do so. The principal confiscated the banner and later suspended the student. The Ninth Circuit held that the principal’s actions violated the First Amendment, and that the student could sue the principal for damages. Our cases make clear that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969). At the same time, we have held that “the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings,” Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986), and that the rights of students “must be ‘applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment,’” Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260, 266 (1988) (quoting Tinker, supra, at 506). Consistent with these…
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