Bong Hits For SCOTUS

Student Press Law Center via John Lott:

“All sorts of missions are undermined by legitimate and protected speech — a school’s anti-gun mission would be undermined by a student passing around copies of John R. Lott’s book,’More Guns, Less Crime;’ a school’s anti-alcohol mission would be undermined by a student e-mailing links to a medical study showing less heart disease among moderate drinkers than teetotalers; and a school’s traffic safety mission would be undermined by a student circulating copies of articles showing that traffic cameras and automatic ticketing systems for cars that run red lights increase accidents.

I don’t have an opinion on the “Bong Hits for Jesus” case, so I cannot say on which side I would rule if I were a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. (I can just hear hundreds of leftists screeching in horror at that concept.) However, I don’t think that these SPLC (not Morris Dees’s) examples logically follow to the BHFJ issue.

First off, guns and alcohol are legal for many people, and the issue being debated at SCOTUS is time, place and manner of expression of political opinion, not expressing it or having it.

This is why I tend to think SCOTUS will come down in favor of the school district, because they will find that the time, place and manner of the political speech was disruptive.

Second, a school can’t have an “anti-gun” mission or an “anti-alcohol” mission in the sense that guns or alcohol should be further restricted in a legal sense than they already are. That’s a political opinion, that may, can and should be balanced with the Lott book and the medical study cited above, as long as countering opinions are done in a non-disruptive manner. It can have “anti-gun” and “anti-alcohol” missions inasmuch as guns and alcohol might have legal restrictions on possession and use of them by minors, and/or by anyone on school property.

Even through all that, if a relevant and orderly classroom discussion revolved around legalizing drugs or not doing so, or loosening firearms regulations or not, or lowering the drinking age or not, the school district wouldn’t have had a problem with any student that advocated legalizing or loosening the rules for any of these things. But I think they’re saying that the banner was untimely, out of place, disrespectful and untactful.