Students have no, and I mean no rights

I remember back in my days of mandatory school. I'm not talking about college or law school, where they didn't care if you went to class or what you wore. Elementary school and junior high were, for me, a place where teachers had unquestioned authority. Part of it was my conformity to the system and part of it was knowing that if my parents found out I sassed a teacher, well, I'd be in a world of hurt. High school was the same for the most part, at least until I was a senior. Then, perhaps an unwritten rule gave us freedom to skip class, wander the halls during class, etc. However, if a teacher told me to get back to class, I would.

This brings us to the case recently decided by the Supreme Court, where the justices, by a 5 to 4 decision, upheld the rights of a school to regulate activities of students with regards to speech. The question that I have, that I haven't had answered to my satisfaction, was whether this student was at a "school sponsored event." In a wonderful column, James Kilpatrick dissects this most ill decided opinion. He seems to think that this was not a school sponsored event. If not, it opens up the door to teacher regulation of student behavior anytime.

However, whether on school time or not, I think that the Court overturned the Tinker case, where a previous court upheld the wearing of black armbands to protest the Vietname war. As the court stated here the test seems to be whether, in the opinion of the teacher or administrator, the action of the student upsets good order and discipline. In this case, the court said the "Bong Hits for Jesus" was determined by the principal to advocate drug use. It follows, using the court's logic, that advocating drug use upsets good order and discipline in a school. This means that the administrator was well within their rights to suspend this student.

The court leaves it to the teachers and administrators, then, to be the decider as to what is disruptive to good order and discipline . As long as there is a rational basis for the teacher's decision it will be upheld. If we believe Kilpatrick, then a student can be spanked down anywhere, for anything, depending on the mood of the teacher or administrator (and presumably their political affiliation) So, if you have cool teachers, you are okay. However, if you have a bunch of hard assess, well, you better not even speak ill (even at the mall) of our chimpanzee in the white house you you gonna get a suspending.