Anyone who's followed the Bong Hits for Jesus case in the news lately has, I hope, been enjoying the loads of unintentional comedy that it has generated. Really, any time you can get constitutional law scholars on TV debating the purposes and definitions of a bong, and trying to infer meaning from the juxtaposition of Jesus next to the word 'bong' you're in for a treat.

But setting aside the unintentional humor of the case, the claims at stake here have serious implications on education and free speech in America. Indeed, there is an inherent tension between the authority of school administrators and the constitutional liberties of students in any democracy that offers free public education to its youth, since on the one hand part of the burden for preparing our youth to become responsible citizens and democratic actors falls on schools but on the other hand the the exercise of free speech is a much trickier thing than the textbook version for schools trying to maintain order and an educational mission.

The facts in this case are actually quite simple: a student unfurled a large, 14-foot banner outside of school grounds during the school day that read, "Bong Hits For Jesus" and displayed it to a passing Olympic torch procession with the hopes of catching the attention of nearby camera crews. He instead caught the attention of the school principal who immediately took down the banner and suspended the student for his disruptive and pro-illicit substance message.

The questions at hand are two-fold. One, and this may be the easy out for the Supreme Court who heard oral arguments last Monday, is whether a principal has the authority to suspend a student for any kind of a message or statement like this while off-school grounds. The court could side-step the full free speech implications of the case by simply stating that the principal was wrong to take punitive actions because the sign was displayed off school grounds. As my colleague Ethan has pointed out though, this punt-of-an-answer is less than satisfactory because it leaves the next question poorly answered, could a student have walked around with a similar or even worse banner up for an entire field trip to a museum without punishment?

Which leads us to the second question: does a school have cart blanche discretion to subvert any messages that students attempt to deliver which it finds to be at odds with its "educational mission"? This is the basic holding from previous Supreme Court cases that the defense is submitting should be extended to cover the principal's action; that school administrators and faculty need to have the ability to prevent students from doing things that disrupt the "educational mission" of the school, and that the Bong Hits sign, so far as it was an advertisement for illegal drug use, runs against the educational mission of the school. The problem, of course, is that if this argument holds true, a school can define its educational mission so broadly and define what qualifies as meeting that definition equally broadly such that one might justify suspending a student for almost anything that isn't on the straight and narrow. How are students to appreciate their rights and responsibilities as American citizens if they aren't allowed to exercise them in the place they spend the most waking hours during the first 18 years of their lives?

This has implications on Our Education's work as well. Already we've been told by a few school principals that they don't want the Our Education petition for an American right to education done on school grounds during school hours because it may be "disruptive". I personally don't believe that there is anyway to justify this kind of infringement by an administrator from a constitutional perspective, since the right to petition government for redress of grievances is explicitly guaranteed in the first amendment, and the court has held since Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) that students do not shed their constitutional liberties at the school house gate. A petition calling on politicians to improve educational resources and policies is not nearly as controversial, most would agree, as a Bong Hits for Jesus sign. While we've yet to come across a student who would want to take their principal's decision to the court, I wonder what the justices' ultimate decision on the Bong Hits case will imply for an Our Education petition drive? Or what about a student anti-war protest?

For these reasons (and the unintentional comedy), I will be one of many people waiting with baited breath as the court hands down its ruling.