Why on Earth would the Supreme Court accept to hear such a stupid case? I challenge you to go back and look at what cases they passes on hearing and you’ll find better fodder than this.

I mean if the sign said “Abortion is Murder” do you think you would either care or the Supreme Court would take the case? Of course not.

Or, as Kip puts it, the Court has effectively decided that the War On Drugs trumps the First Amendment.

There’s truth in the statement that the real strength of government over its people rests in its war powers. This is true of the War on Terror, the War on Crime, the War on Poverty, and, of course, the War on Drugs.

Why else would politicians be so quick to declare war on so many things.

It just proves that often the “strict constructionists” are willing to expand the meaning of the constitution when it matches their own beliefs about what government should be allowed to do.

Maybe if Ron Paul gets elected, he’ll do the right thing and nominate Janice Rogers Brown to the high court!

1. “In other words, the actual content of the message doesn’t matter so long as someone in authority thinks that it advocates something that violates school rules.”

… clearly unequivocal messages are hard to come by. So an INTERPRETIVE JUDGEMENT is going to be something that is usually called for in a case like this.
The call is made by the person on the scene, then to be questioned by higher authorities as needed (for schools, there is a chain of authority: teacher, principal, school board, local court, etc.) Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts said “that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one” indicating that the opinion of the authority (Principal in this case) should meet a reasonable standard. Lawyers love that word, but often there really isn’t a better one. It means the judgement call has to stand scrutiny on a case-by-case basis, unless broader guidelines (legal precedence) have been established. Like yelling “fire” in a theater. Let’s test your principle. Imagine a legal defense that says “I can yell FIRE in a crowded theater- because I *meant* “fire” as in I advocate the actor losing his job”. So INTENT means everything and the listeners UNDERSTANDING or interpretion has zero force? That’s just not the way the law works. (lookup “fighting words” in your jurisdiction…)
Every 1st amendment case is going to involve an interpretive judgement of the message, don’t you think? “What does that mean?” is something argued over constantly, literally a pivotal issue here. So I have to give your outrage here a pass for failing to meet a basic understanding of the logic involved in the kind of case. You can’t argue the school administrators opinion of the message is not relevent- or be surprised that the Court took it into consideration. A better question is who determines what is a reasonable interpretation or not?

2. “More disturbing, though, is the fact that the Court does not seem to even address the fact that this happened outside the school”

Case law clearly establishes that school authority extends off campus when the school provides transportation, organizes or promotes the event, excuses regular class to attend such an event, finds a significant gathering of students supervised by school faculty, etc. Ever heard of a Field trip? Do school rules not apply to field trips? How about proms? I’m not sure why the concept is “disturbing”.

So… everybody is entitled to an opinion, and everybody is entitled to be ignorant, and everybody is entitled to both at the same time… but I discourage it.

I fail to see defense of this kind of intentionally incendiary statement as anything more than knee-jerk anti-authoritarianism. But that is the new philosophy, isn’t it? The principal made a reasonable judgement call. It’s what he/she gets paid for. The LESSON here for everybody else in the school (should they be able to heed it) is don’t go looking for trouble with an attitude. Most grownups already know that… most teenagers don’t.

If you advocate anybody can say anything at any time regardless of the consequences to the people around the speaker, clearly say so… and be ready for the courts and everybody else to tell you your opinion is… just that. Unless you are a judge that is… ;)