High Court Declines To Hear Student Free-Speech Case

At the moment I am taking a Constitutional Law Class here at St. Peters, so I figured it was interesting to see an article regarding the always hot topic of the Freedom of Speech, and Education. The basis of the article is centered around a student who goes by the name of Andrew Smith, and who attends Novato High School in California, a predominantly liberal state. The source of controversy surrounding this whole case is an article Smith wrote for the high school newspaper the BUZZ, a sponsored extracurricular activity his senior year. In one of his articles which dates all the way back to the year 2001 (just to give a little timeline on how long this case took to be decided and now denied by the Supreme Court) he addresses the issues of illegal immigration, and expresses his dissatisfaction with the state of his community which happens to be located in a heavily populated area of "illegals." As a result many of the parents in the school district, who naturally are I'm sure ethnically similar to the people he is describing as "drug dealers, thieves, who milk the welfare system of the United States" were very upset that the article was made public, and available to the school community. Although the student is entitled to his own opinion, and the school can either choose to let the article go to press or not, there was a large backlash that resulted from the article. The negative reception was bad enough for the principle for send out a letter of apology to the whole Novato high school community, thus deteriorating the impact and intent that such an article could bring about. In repsonse to the action of the principle Smith and his father sued the school for its "student expression policy" that impinged on Smith's Freedom of Speech Luckily the school district knew their boundaries and didn't take the extra, and in my view, inapropriate approach and repremand the student for his honest, and newsworthy article exposing not only a Novato High School issue, but a national issue that politicians and American society for the most part choose to ignore. The article has made enough racket that it was brought up the California State trial court, which deemed the article wasn't in fact protected by freedom of speech because it contained "derogatory, insulting, and disrepectful speech." The case was then brought up to a three judge panel of the California- Appeals Court which ruled unanimously that the decision made in the state trial court had in fact violated Mr. Smiths Freedom of Speech. I find this article to be eye-catching because it deals with a seemingly hamrless extracurricular aspect of high school, and in this case was used to a students advantage only to be shot down because of political correctness. I commend the student for recognizing the potential of power he had, and addressed an issue that is high debated, and will surely make a big diffence in the upcoming Presidential race of 2008. I hope that everyone gets a chance to check it out and see what all the "hooplaa" is all about. <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/27/25scotus.h27.html?tmp=138428594>