Free speech tested at Alaska high school

The United States Supreme Court will rule on the free speech rights of public school students by July. The controversy arises out of a prank which tests the limits of free speech in America’s high schools. Not since Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988), has the Court had occasion to provide guidance to public schools — and to parents and students — with respect to the delicate balance between students’ constitutional rights, on the one hand, and the solemn duty of school administrators, on the other, to maintain order and instill fundamental values in the challenging context of public education.

On a snowy, January afternoon five years ago when the Olympic Torch Relay was passing through Juneau, Alaska on its way to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, a high school student, Joseph Frederick, had a plan to get his 15 minutes of fame. The event had attracted a fair amount of press coverage and television crews were out in full force filming the energetic crowd. Frederick and his friends, knowing there would be cameras there, had planned a prank to cause a stir.

That afternoon, Frederick showed up across the street from the school and stood with his friends who were waiting to see the Olympic torch. When television cameras panned by the group, Frederick unfurled a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” JDHS principal, Deborah Morse, quickly crossed the street and ordered Frederick to take down the banner. He refused and she took the banner away and informed Frederick that he would be suspended for 10 days.

Frederick appealed his suspension to the superintendent of the school district. Appeals court documents said that Frederick claimed that the banner had been “designed to be meaningless and funny in order to get on television.” However, the superintendent upheld the punishment, stating that the sign conflicted with the mission of the school and had created a disruption. Frederick appealed to the school board, but on March 19, 2002, the board upheld the punishment.

On April 25, 2002, Frederick filed a lawsuit against Morse and the school board in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska claiming that his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated. His case also emphasized the fact that he was off school property and thus not subject to school rules. The federal court ruled in favor of the school district finding that it had acted within its rights when it disciplined Frederick for violating the school’s policy on offensive material.

Frederick appealed the case and on March 10, 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the lower court. The panel of three judges ruled that the school had violated Frederick’s free speech rights by “censor[ing] non-disruptive, off-campus speech.” They also ruled that Morse was not immune from incurring damages in the case.

The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and the arguments were made on March 19, 2007, with a decision expected by July. The issues before the court were:

1. Whether the First Amendment allows public schools to prohibit students from displaying messages promoting the use of illegal substances at school-sponsored, faculty-supervised events.
2. Whether the Ninth Circuit departed from established principles of qualified immunity in holding that a public high school principal was liable in a damages lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when, pursuant to the school district’s policy against displaying messages promoting illegal substances, she disciplined a student for displaying a large banner with a slang marijuana reference at a school-sponsored, faculty-supervised event.

“I thought we wanted our schools to teach something, including something besides just basic elements, including the character formation and not to use drugs,” Chief Justice Roberts said Monday during the argument.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote several opinions in favor of student speech rights while a federal appeals court judge, seemed more concerned by the administration’s broad argument in favor of schools than did his fellow conservatives. “I find that a very, a very disturbing argument,” Alito told Justice Department lawyer Edwin Kneedler, “because schools have … defined their educational mission so broadly that they can suppress all sorts of political speech and speech expressing fundamental values of the students, under the banner of getting rid of speech that’s inconsistent with educational missions.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, in the court’s liberal wing, said he was troubled a ruling in favor of Frederick, even if he was making a joke, would make it harder to principals to run their schools. “We’ll suddenly see people testing limits all over the place in the high schools,” Breyer said. On the other hand, he said, a decision favorable to the schools “may really limit people’s rights on free speech. That’s what I’m struggling with.”

The National School Board Association (NSBA) filed an amicus brief submitted in support of the school district, which argued that the student’s speech was nonpolitical and properly regulated within the U.S. Supreme Court trilogy of student speech cases. The school district’s response to the ruling, posted on its website criticizes the decision for leaving school administrators with no clear guidance on various issues and, especially, for the court’s “disturbing… determination that Principal Morse is not entitled to qualified immunity from an award of damages.” Noting that the U.S. District Court had concluded that Ms. Morse “was not only entitled to discipline Frederick for his display of the banner, but that she may have been obligated to do so,” the statement says, “we don’t understand how the Ninth Circuit could conclude that a high school principal should have known that it wasn’t.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a full page of reference materials on the case, including copies of all of the briefs filed. The Juneau, Alaska school district’s web-site also contains updated information on the case.

Importance of music in education

Communities across Massachusetts are facing unprecedented budget cuts to school budgets. These budget squeezes have many causes from many sources, but their impact is felt directly by the children in our classrooms. Anne Louise White, a music teacher from the Fort River Elementary School in Amherst, Massachusetts, wrote an impassioned letter to her School Committee about the effect of cuts on the music programs in her school. It spoke to many issues we face here in Franklin, so I thought it would be meaningful to reproduce it here:

For eight years, I have had the joy of teaching general and choral music at Fort River Elementary School. In light of the impending budget cuts, I would like to set out in this letter my professional perspective of the educational centrality of the Specials classes, and invite you to visit one of my classes to experience for yourselves how music deepens the core curriculum.

As the focus in education moves toward integrated studies, the value of music and the arts becomes essential to a well-rounded education.

Through music and drama, students are actively engaged in language arts, critical thinking and the study of history. Our music classes are rich in langauage arts, as students read song lyrics, compose their own songs, play rhyming games, and act out dramatic roles. They offer children one more tool for understanding subjects: experientially, rather than by reading or listening to lectures.

I have purposefully integrated into my music program lessons and topics that my students are studying in English and social studies (history and geography). For instance, when the fifth grade students study immigration, I introduce them to songs written by Irish people during the great potato famine. These songs serve as historical artifacts, filled with information about the potato blight, the voyage across the Atlantic by ship, the search for jobs in America, and the harsh realities of racism in the workplace. The class puts on a musical play written by fifth grade students six years ago, which tells of the journey of different families from Ireland to America. We examine the pros and cons of deciding to leave behind Ireland to go to America, including the expense of boat travel, the issue of nutrition and diseases both in Ireland and on board the ship, the trauma of leaving behind family and the motherland. Each character must weigh all of these factors and then make his or her own decision. Through drama, each student must “step inside the skin” of a character from that time, encouraging them to view history through different perspectives, thereby expanding their insight into the complexity of historical events and choices.

When my fourth grade students study colonial American history, I supplement their core history curriculum with songs written at that time.

There are examples of British tunes which the patriots “stole” and sang with new text as a parody in order to speak out against British rule.

“Father Abbey’s Will” is a musical recitation of all of one colonist’s belongings. “The Man who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” tells of the hardships of farming during colonial times. Each of these songs were chosen as much for the historical and cultural information and vocabulary they offer from the time period as for their musical value, and because they let the students live the life of the characters, seeing history from the inside out.

When my third grade students study the Middle Ages as part of their social studies curriculum, my music class explores what life was like at that time through song and drama. Students learn about the hierarchies that existed during feudal times both in the Church and in the secular world, acting out roles as artisans, serfs, merchants, vassals and lords.

We culminate our study with a medieval festival complete with Mummers’ chants, a maypole dance and other historical festivities.

Music and the arts offer the children the opportunity to expand their multicultural understanding as well. With each art project and musical piece chosen, the children also receive an introduction to the culture from which it came, how it was constructed musically or artistically within the culture, and of course, details about where the culture flourished geographically and historically.

The teachers of music, art, physical education, computer and library information technology are the only teachers who teach every child in the school. As a result, we are in an extraordinary position to watch the children interact with each other and grow, year after year, throughout elementary school. We are also in a position to teach social skills within a large group: how to take turns, how to listen to each other, how to recognize body language and respond to social cues, all crucial elements to creating an effective team or ensemble.

Music and physical education are also the primary classes where children can move as they learn. They exercise the gross motor skills that are essential for growth, and they can expend some of the energy which might impede their ability to focus and learn in their other classes.

Finally, I urge you to see through my eyes that the Specials classes (physical education, art, music, computer and library) are not entities separate from the general academic curriculum: they are academic. They are an integral part of the comprehensive educational scheme for Amherst schoolchildren. Teachers of Specials classes need to meet with classroom teachers to coordinate the curriculum. We need to meet with our principals just as classroom teachers do. As I have already mentioned, only the teachers of Specials classes see each child every year throughout their schooling. We have valuable insights to offer and are ready and willing to share. We need to be included in curriculum planning. We need to be included in budget planning, especially now when everyone faces cuts but teachers of Specials are given vague promises that they will assume other duties that are academic on Wednesdays, without their own input and without a clear idea of options under consideration. If there is one point I want to emphasize, it is that the Specials classes are academic.

Once again, I invite you to visit one of my classes to see how broad and deep the education can be when the core curriculum is integrated into and enhanced by music. I look forward to scheduling your visit. 

I also urge you to view the video at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66.  In it, Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.