Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Monday, March 26, 2007
Bong Hits 4 Jesus - Supreme Courts says OK
In one of the most important student free speech cases in decades, the ACLU joined attorneys for former student Joseph Frederick before the U.S. Supreme Court this week and urged the high court not to abandon its famous 1969 ruling that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
In 2002, high school senior Joseph Frederick was suspended from his Juneau, AK high school for displaying a sign that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" at an Olympic Torch Relay not sponsored by the school.
“For decades the law has been that students have the constitutional right to free speech even on school campuses,” said Frederick’s attorney, Douglas K. Mertz, who argued the case for the ACLU. “This is not a case about drugs or drug policy. This case is about freedom of speech and teaching our young people the importance of free speech.”
In a recent phone interview with Frederick, he stated: “I conducted my free speech experiment in order to assert my rights at a time when I felt that free speech was being eroded in America. The high school I attended advocated that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights did not apply to students. I was skeptical of my own free speech rights and I wanted to know more precisely the boundaries of my freedom.”
The case has attracted support from more than a dozen groups across the ideological spectrum, from the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, Christian Legal Society and Rutherford Institute to the Student Press Law Center, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Drug Policy Alliance and National Coalition Against Censorship.
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