In so far as it shows that right or wrong we still have no prob running cases like this all the way to the supreme court, so it encourages schools to be fairly careful about applying such rules. Let's keep in mind that Frederick ended up getting $45,000 from the school plus other stuff. Silly sign anyway.

My main objection against Frederick was the idea that because he was accross the street it was just fine, which is so much BS. Under that rationale a student could call the school from home and leave nasty messages on the machine, or use a bullhorn to scream obscenities, it would seem to fall under the same rationale as why you can't open up a porn shop across the road either, or why your neighbors can call the cops on you for blasting your stereo in your house. Though honestly I think the school seriously over-reacted and the court made a real iffy decision.

Fraser's speech was, honestly, another real borderliner, primarily IMO because if a teacher had said that crap we'd have fired them so quick they'd have bounced when they hit the pavement. Personally I thought it was a amateurish attempt at humor, and that the school went a tad overboard, but cases like these don't bug me much because I see them as pretty healthy. When our free speech rights are gettting 'tread on' by such horriblly oppresive things as a two day suspension and a ban on delivering a graduation address, I don't feel too worried. Had I been the prinicipal on that one I think I'd have just said "Nice speech, we thought it was so good we sent a copy to your mother so she could she what a great writer you are." and left it at that. Actually that's BS, as a long-winded SOB I'd probably have giving him a 20 minute lecture on the sorts of public figures who have been summarily dropped into the gaping political garbage chute because of some silly quip they or one of their supporters gave that turned out not to be as funny as they thought it was.

Of course, if I had my way we wouldn't bother having school elections, since it wastes much time and gives people the impression that they should have any say, as a student and minor with free tuition, in how things get run. I think it also tends to leave the impression that democratic processes result in electing powerless token figureheads whose qualification for office is that they are popular, which of course not how things actually work, or are supposed to, and I suspect causes a fair amount of the jaded and cynical attitude towards elections that end sup as something of a self-fullfilling prophecy... but I digress



I think it holds fairly well. Note that while the schools won, they amounted to incredibly pyhrric victories that are more likely to encourage schools to be fairly reluctant to apply the rules to anything but very necessary cases, which is more or less what I think we want. Two very minor speedbumps in a pretty solid policy that's been in place four around forty years. Not too bad.