Bong Hits 4 Jesus is a phrase that you will hear a lot about over the next few months or so as the Supreme Court is taking up an interesting case of student free speech that could help or hurt First Amendment rights in the schools.

A few weeks ago I wrote about this case. Briefly, some smartass high school kid in Alaska posted a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," visible to his classmates on a school field trip. The smartass was not on school property, but the school disciplined him anyway since it affected a school program. The banner was obviously satire and nonsensical, but what's a little satire among authoritarians?

At the moment, I don't see how Mr. Smartass could lose this case. A federal court has already ruled in his favor, but the general view among Supreme Court watchers is that the Court will mostly take cases to rule in the other direction. There is something about this case that has attracted the Court's attention, and I hope I am wrong in suspecting that the Court wants to reign in student speech.

Presently, students have the right to speak in schools (and off school property if it somehow connects with the school) if it does not disrupt the educational process and is not vulgar or obscene. What other exceptions to the First Amendment are available to the schools? May schools ban any speech that makes any reference to drugs? What about satire, traditionally protected First Amendment speech no matter how silly? What about student speech that simply challenges school policy? The Court has not ruled on these issues, yet.

It's been a long time since the Supreme Court took up a student speech case. In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that schools could freely edit and censor school-sponsored student newspapers. I would imagine that someone smart enough to make it to the Supreme Court was probably working for his or her student newspaper in high school, dutifully covering school board meetings and writing about the high school football team.

But when I think about student journalism, I am reminded of subversive articles and editorials that challenge authority and allow the student to gain confidence in her ability to reach out to peers and the community. I doubt the goodie-goodies recently appointed to the Court by George W. Bush will sympathize with smartass speech by some high school kid. The challenge for these Republican conservatives is to look at the larger picture and find that free speech protects everyone, including the local smartass.