Civil Liberties Where These Three

Civil Liberties

Where these three articles are concerned there are definitely some freedom of expression issues. In the case of the student who rolled out a banner calling for 'bong hits 4 Jesus' and was suspended, I personally can see why school officials had a problem with that. The young man admitted to doing it deliberately to try to provoke the principal, who had disciplined him before, and that he just thought it would be funny. However, most people - whether they find the banner funny, offensive, or something else - would have to agree that it appears to promote drug use. Because he was at a school-sanctioned event and the school has clear rules against the promotion of illegal drugs, I agree that his freedom of speech should have been restricted and I think the court was right in ruling against him.

Regarding the dress code case, there needs to be dress codes in schools, but schools have gone FAR overboard in what is acceptable and what is not. They have to be realistic. Students need to be covered, and they don't need to wear something that advertises drugs, alcohol, or sexual promiscuity, or that contains vulgar language. Other than that, many dress codes cause too much restriction of freedoms and are more trouble than they are actually worth. There is no reason that a student can't wear a particular color, just because a gang somewhere across the country wears that color. At that rate, no one would be able to wear any color because of various (often mistaken) connotations, which is just silly.