MORSE et al. v. FREDERICK

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393 OCTOBER TERM, 2006
Syllabus
MORSE et al. v. FREDERICK
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 06–278. Argued March 19, 2007—Decided June 25, 2007
At a school-sanctioned and school-supervised event, petitioner Morse, the
high school principal, saw students unfurl a banner stating “BONG
HiTS 4 JESUS,” which she regarded as promoting illegal drug use.
Consistent with established school policy prohibiting such messages at
school events, Morse directed the students to take down the banner.
When one of the students who had brought the banner to the event—
respondent Frederick—refused, Morse confiscated the banner and later
suspended him. The school superintendent upheld the suspension, ex
plaining, inter alia, that Frederick was disciplined because his banner
appeared to advocate illegal drug use in violation of school policy. Peti
tioner school board also upheld the suspension. Frederick filed suit
under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that the school board and Morse had
violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court granted peti
tioners summary judgment, ruling that they were entitled to qualified
immunity and that they had not infringed Frederick’s speech rights.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. Accepting that Frederick acted during a
school-authorized activity and that the banner expressed a positive sen
timent about marijuana use, the court nonetheless found a First Amend
ment violation because the school punished Frederick without demon
strating that his speech threatened substantial disruption. It also
concluded that Morse was not entitled to qualified immunity because
Frederick’s right to display the banner was so clearly established that
a reasonable principal in Morse’s position would have understood that
her actions were unconstitutional.
Held: Because schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to
their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging
illegal drug use, the school officials in this case did not violate the First
Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and suspending Fred
erick. Pp. 400–410.
(a) Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case is re
jected. The event in question occurred during normal school hours and
was sanctioned by Morse as an approved social event at which the dis
trict’s student conduct rules expressly applied. Teachers and adminis
trators were among the students and were charged with supervising
them. Frederick stood among other students across the street from

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the school and directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly
visible to most students. Under these circumstances, Frederick cannot
claim he was not at school. Pp. 400–401.
(b) The Court agrees with Morse that those who viewed the banner
would interpret it as advocating or promoting illegal drug use, in viola
tion of school policy. At least two interpretations of the banner’s
words—that they constitute an imperative encouraging viewers to
smoke marijuana or, alternatively, that they celebrate drug use—dem
onstrate that the sign promoted such use. This pro-drug interpretation
gains further plausibility from the paucity of alternative meanings the
banner might bear. Pp. 401–403.
(c) A principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict
student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed
as promoting illegal drug use. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent
Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, the Court declared, in holding
that a policy prohibiting high school students from wearing antiwar
armbands violated the First Amendment, id., at 504, that student ex
pression may not be suppressed unless school officials reasonably con
clude that it will “materially and substantially disrupt the work and
discipline of the school,” id., at 513. The Court in Bethel School Dist.
No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, however, upheld the suspension of a
student who delivered a high school assembly speech employing “an
elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor,” id., at 678. Analyz
ing the case under Tinker, the lower courts had found no disruption,
and therefore no basis for discipline. 478 U. S., at 679–680. This Court
reversed, holding that the school was “within its permissible authority
in imposing sanctions . . . in response to [the student’s] offensively lewd
and indecent speech.” Id., at 685. Two basic principles may be dis
tilled from Fraser. First, it demonstrates that “the constitutional
rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive
with the rights of adults in other settings.” Id., at 682. Had Fraser
delivered the same speech in a public forum outside the school context,
he would have been protected. See id., at 682–683. In school, how
ever, his First Amendment rights were circumscribed “in light of the
special characteristics of the school environment.” Tinker, supra, at
506. Second, Fraser established that Tinker’s mode of analysis is not
absolute, since the Fraser Court did not conduct the “substantial disrup
tion” analysis. Subsequently, the Court has held in the Fourth Amend
ment context that “while children assuredly do not ‘shed their constitu
tional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate,’ . . . the nature of those rights
is what is appropriate for children in school,” Vernonia School Dist. 47J
v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 655–656, and has recognized that deterring drug
use by schoolchildren is an “important—indeed, perhaps compelling”

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interest, id., at 661. Drug abuse by the Nation’s youth is a serious
problem. For example, Congress has declared that part of a school’s
job is educating students about the dangers of drug abuse, see, e. g., the
Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1994, and petition
ers and many other schools have adopted policies aimed at implementing
this message. Student speech celebrating illegal drug use at a school
event, in the presence of school administrators and teachers, poses a
particular challenge for school officials working to protect those en
trusted to their care. The “special characteristics of the school environ
ment,” Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506, and the governmental interest in stop
ping student drug abuse allow schools to restrict student expression
that they reasonably regard as promoting such abuse. Id., at 508, 509,
distinguished. Pp. 403–410.
439 F. 3d 1114, reversed and remanded.
Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia,
Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring
opinion, post, p. 410. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ken
nedy, J., joined, post, p. 422. Breyer, J., filed an opinion concurring in
the judgment in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 425. Stevens, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter and Ginsburg, JJ., joined,
post, p. 433.
Kenneth W. Starr argued the cause for petitioners. With
him on the briefs were Rick Richmond and Eric W. Hagen.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for
the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With
him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant
Attorney General Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Garre,
Daryl Joseffer, Robert D. Kamenshine, Kent D. Talbert, Ste
phen H. Freid, Edward H. Jurith, and Linda V. Priebe.
Douglas K. Mertz argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief were Jason Brandeis and Steven R.
Shapiro.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for D. A. R. E.
America et al. by Gene C. Schaerr, Steffen N. Johnson, and Linda T. Cob
erly; and for the National School Boards Association et al. by Michael E.
Smith, Francisco M. Negro´ n, Jr., Naomi E. Gittins, Thomas E. M. Hut
ton, and Lisa E. Soronen.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American
Center for Law and Justice by Jay Alan Sekulow, Colby M. May, Stuart

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Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the
Court.
At a school-sanctioned and school-supervised event, a high
school principal saw some of her students unfurl a large
banner conveying a message she reasonably regarded as pro
moting illegal drug use. Consistent with established school
policy prohibiting such messages at school events, the princi
pal directed the students to take down the banner. One stu
dent—among those who had brought the banner to the
event—refused to do so. The principal confiscated the ban
ner and later suspended the student. The Ninth Circuit
held that the principal’s actions violated the First Amend
ment, and that the student could sue the principal for
damages.
Our cases make clear that students do not “shed their con
stitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the
schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent
Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969). At the
same time, we have held that “the constitutional rights of
students in public school are not automatically coextensive
J. Roth, James M. Henderson, Sr., and Walter M. Weber; for the Center
for Individual Rights by Michael E. Rosman; for the Christian Legal Soci
ety by Gregory S. Baylor, Kimberlee Wood Colby, and Steven H. Aden;
for the Drug Policy Alliance et al. by David T. Goldberg and Daniel N.
Abrahamson; for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.,
by Jon W. Davidson, Gregory R. Nevins, F. Brian Chase, and James P.
Madigan; for the National Coalition Against Censorship et al. by Preeta
D. Bansal, Joan E. Bertin, and Marjorie Heins; for the Rutherford Insti
tute by James J. Knicely and John W. Whitehead; for Students for Sensi
ble Drug Policy by Brooks M. Beard; and for the Student Press Law Cen
ter et al. by Sonja R. West, Michele L. Earl-Hubbard, S. Mark Goodman,
and Michael C. Hiestand.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Alliance Defense Fund by
Kevin H. Theriot, Benjamin W. Bull, and Jordan W. Lorence; for Liberty
Counsel by Mathew D. Staver, Anita L. Staver, Erik W. Stanley, and
Mary E. McAlister; and for the Liberty Legal Institute by Kelly J. Shack
elford, Douglas Laycock, and Robert A. Destro.

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with the rights of adults in other settings,” Bethel School
Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986), and that the
rights of students “must be ‘applied in light of the special
characteristics of the school environment,’ ” Hazelwood
School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260, 266 (1988) (quoting
Tinker, supra, at 506). Consistent with these principles, we
hold that schools may take steps to safeguard those en
trusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be re
garded as encouraging illegal drug use. We conclude that
the school officials in this case did not violate the First
Amendment by confiscating the pro-drug banner and sus
pending the student responsible for it.
I
On January 24, 2002, the Olympic Torch Relay passed
through Juneau, Alaska, on its way to the winter games in
Salt Lake City, Utah. The torchbearers were to proceed
along a street in front of Juneau-Douglas High School
(JDHS) while school was in session. Petitioner Deborah
Morse, the school principal, decided to permit staff and stu
dents to participate in the Torch Relay as an approved social
event or class trip. App. 22–23. Students were allowed
to leave class to observe the relay from either side of the
street. Teachers and administrative officials monitored the
students’ actions.
Respondent Joseph Frederick, a JDHS senior, was late to
school that day. When he arrived, he joined his friends (all
but one of whom were JDHS students) across the street from
the school to watch the event. Not all the students waited
patiently. Some became rambunctious, throwing plastic cola
bottles and snowballs and scuffling with their classmates.
As the torchbearers and camera crews passed by, Frederick
and his friends unfurled a 14-foot banner bearing the phrase:
“BONG HiTS 4 JESUS.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 70a. The
large banner was easily readable by the students on the
other side of the street.

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Principal Morse immediately crossed the street and de
manded that the banner be taken down. Everyone but
Frederick complied. Morse confiscated the banner and told
Frederick to report to her office, where she suspended him
for 10 days. Morse later explained that she told Frederick
to take the banner down because she thought it encouraged
illegal drug use, in violation of established school policy.
Juneau School Board Policy No. 5520 states: “The Board spe
cifically prohibits any assembly or public expression that
. . . advocates the use of substances that are illegal to
minors . . . .” Id., at 53a. In addition, Juneau School Board
Policy No. 5850 subjects “[p]upils who participate in ap
proved social events and class trips” to the same student
conduct rules that apply during the regular school program.
Id., at 58a.
Frederick administratively appealed his suspension, but
the Juneau School District Superintendent upheld it, limiting
it to time served (eight days). In a memorandum setting
forth his reasons, the superintendent determined that Fred
erick had displayed his banner “in the midst of his fellow
students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activ
ity.” Id., at 63a. He further explained that Frederick “was
not disciplined because the principal of the school ‘disagreed’
with his message, but because his speech appeared to advo
cate the use of illegal drugs.” Id., at 61a.
The superintendent continued:
“The common-sense understanding of the phrase
‘bong hits’ is that it is a reference to a means of smoking
marijuana. Given [Frederick’s] inability or unwilling
ness to express any other credible meaning for the
phrase, I can only agree with the principal and countless
others who saw the banner as advocating the use of ille
gal drugs. [Frederick’s] speech was not political. He
was not advocating the legalization of marijuana or pro
moting a religious belief. He was displaying a fairly
silly message promoting illegal drug usage in the midst

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of a school activity, for the benefit of television cameras
covering the Torch Relay. [Frederick’s] speech was po
tentially disruptive to the event and clearly disruptive
of and inconsistent with the school’s educational mission
to educate students about the dangers of illegal drugs
and to discourage their use.” Id., at 61a–62a.
Relying on our decision in Fraser, supra, the superintendent
concluded that the principal’s actions were permissible be
cause Frederick’s banner was “speech or action that intrudes
upon the work of the schools.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a
(internal quotation marks omitted). The Juneau School Dis
trict Board of Education upheld the suspension.
Frederick then filed suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging
that the school board and Morse had violated his First
Amendment rights. He sought declaratory and injunctive
relief, unspecified compensatory damages, punitive damages,
and attorney’s fees. The District Court granted summary
judgment for the school board and Morse, ruling that they
were entitled to qualified immunity and that they had not
infringed Frederick’s First Amendment rights. The court
found that Morse reasonably interpreted the banner as
promoting illegal drug use—a message that “directly con
travened the Board’s policies relating to drug abuse pre
vention.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a–38a. Under the
circumstances, the court held that “Morse had the authority,
if not the obligation, to stop such messages at a school
sanctioned activity.” Id., at 37a.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. Deciding that Frederick
acted during a “school-authorized activit[y],” and “pro
ceed[ing] on the basis that the banner expressed a positive
sentiment about marijuana use,” the court nonetheless found
a violation of Frederick’s First Amendment rights because
the school punished Frederick without demonstrating that
his speech gave rise to a “risk of substantial disruption.”
439 F. 3d 1114, 1118, 1121–1123 (2006). The court further
concluded that Frederick’s right to display his banner was

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so “clearly established” that a reasonable principal in Morse’s
position would have understood that her actions were uncon
stitutional, and that Morse was therefore not entitled to
qualified immunity. Id., at 1123–1125.
We granted certiorari on two questions: whether Freder
ick had a First Amendment right to wield his banner, and, if
so, whether that right was so clearly established that the
principal may be held liable for damages. 549 U. S. 1075
(2006). We resolve the first question against Frederick, and
therefore have no occasion to reach the second.1
II
At the outset, we reject Frederick’s argument that this is
not a school speech case—as has every other authority to
address the question. See App. 22–23 (Principal Morse);
App. to Pet. for Cert. 63a (superintendent); id., at 69a (school
board); id., at 34a–35a (District Court); 439 F. 3d, at 1117
(Ninth Circuit). The event occurred during normal school
hours. It was sanctioned by Principal Morse “as an ap
proved social event or class trip,” App. 22–23, and the school
district’s rules expressly provide that pupils in “approved
social events and class trips are subject to district rules for
1 Justice Breyer would rest decision on qualified immunity without
reaching the underlying First Amendment question. The problem with
this approach is the rather significant one that it is inadequate to decide
the case before us. Qualified immunity shields public officials from money
damages only. See Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308, 314, n. 6 (1975). In
this case, Frederick asked not just for damages, but also for declaratory
and injunctive relief. App. 13. Justice Breyer’s proposed decision on
qualified immunity grounds would dispose of the damages claims, but
Frederick’s other claims would remain unaddressed. To get around that
problem, Justice Breyer hypothesizes that Frederick’s suspension—the
target of his request for injunctive relief—“may well be justified on non
speech-related grounds.” See post, at 433 (opinion concurring in judg
ment in part and dissenting in part). That hypothesis was never consid
ered by the courts below, never raised by any of the parties, and is belied
by the record, which nowhere suggests that the suspension would have
been justified solely on non-speech-related grounds.

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student conduct,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a. Teachers and
administrators were interspersed among the students and
charged with supervising them. The high school band and
cheerleaders performed. Frederick, standing among other
JDHS students across the street from the school, directed
his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to
most students. Under these circumstances, we agree with
the superintendent that Frederick cannot “stand in the midst
of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school
sanctioned activity and claim he is not at school.” Id., at
63a. There is some uncertainty at the outer boundaries as
to when courts should apply school speech precedents, see
Porter v. Ascension Parish School Bd., 393 F. 3d 608, 615,
n. 22 (CA5 2004), but not on these facts.
III
The message on Frederick’s banner is cryptic. It is no
doubt offensive to some, perhaps amusing to others. To still
others, it probably means nothing at all. Frederick himself
claimed “that the words were just nonsense meant to attract
television cameras.” 439 F. 3d, at 1117–1118. But Principal
Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those
viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpreta
tion is plainly a reasonable one.
As Morse later explained in a declaration, when she saw
the sign, she thought that “the reference to a ‘bong hit’
would be widely understood by high school students and
others as referring to smoking marijuana.” App. 24. She
further believed that “display of the banner would be con
strued by students, District personnel, parents and others
witnessing the display of the banner, as advocating or pro
moting illegal drug use”—in violation of school policy. Id.,
at 25; see ibid. (“I told Frederick and the other members of
his group to put the banner down because I felt that it vio
lated the [school] policy against displaying . . . material that
advertises or promotes use of illegal drugs”).

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We agree with Morse. At least two interpretations of the
words on the banner demonstrate that the sign advocated
the use of illegal drugs. First, the phrase could be inter
preted as an imperative: “[Take] bong hits . . . ”—a message
equivalent, as Morse explained in her declaration, to “smoke
marijuana” or “use an illegal drug.” Alternatively, the
phrase could be viewed as celebrating drug use—“bong hits
[are a good thing],” or “[we take] bong hits”—and we discern
no meaningful distinction between celebrating illegal drug
use in the midst of fellow students and outright advocacy or
promotion. See Guiles v. Marineau, 461 F. 3d 320, 328 (CA2
2006) (discussing the present case and describing the sign as
“a clearly pro-drug banner”).
The pro-drug interpretation of the banner gains further
plausibility given the paucity of alternative meanings the
banner might bear. The best Frederick can come up with is
that the banner is “meaningless and funny.” 439 F. 3d, at
1116. The dissent similarly refers to the sign’s message as
“curious,” post, at 434 (opinion of Stevens, J.), “ambiguous,”
ibid., “nonsense,” post, at 435, “ridiculous,” post, at 438, “ob
scure,” post, at 439, “silly,” post, at 444, “quixotic,” post, at
445, and “stupid,” ibid. Gibberish is surely a possible inter
pretation of the words on the banner, but it is not the only
one, and dismissing the banner as meaningless ignores its
undeniable reference to illegal drugs.
The dissent mentions Frederick’s “credible and uncontra
dicted explanation for the message—he just wanted to get
on television.” Post, at 444. But that is a description of
Frederick’s motive for displaying the banner; it is not an
interpretation of what the banner says. The way Frederick
was going to fulfill his ambition of appearing on television
was by unfurling a pro-drug banner at a school event, in the
presence of teachers and fellow students.
Elsewhere in its opinion, the dissent emphasizes the im
portance of political speech and the need to foster “national
debate about a serious issue,” post, at 448, as if to suggest

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that the banner is political speech. But not even Frederick
argues that the banner conveys any sort of political or reli
gious message. Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, see
post, at 446–448, this is plainly not a case about political de
bate over the criminalization of drug use or possession.
IV
The question thus becomes whether a principal may, con
sistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech
at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as
promoting illegal drug use. We hold that she may.
In Tinker, this Court made clear that “First Amendment
rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the
school environment, are available to teachers and students.”
393 U. S., at 506. Tinker involved a group of high school
students who decided to wear black armbands to protest the
Vietnam War. School officials learned of the plan and then
adopted a policy prohibiting students from wearing arm
bands. When several students nonetheless wore armbands
to school, they were suspended. Id., at 504. The students
sued, claiming that their First Amendment rights had been
violated, and this Court agreed.
Tinker held that student expression may not be sup
pressed unless school officials reasonably conclude that it will
“materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline
of the school.” Id., at 513. The essential facts of Tinker
are quite stark, implicating concerns at the heart of the First
Amendment. The students sought to engage in political
speech, using the armbands to express their “disapproval of
the Vietnam hostilities and their advocacy of a truce, to make
their views known, and, by their example, to influence others
to adopt them.” Id., at 514. Political speech, of course, is
“at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to
protect.” Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343, 365 (2003) (plu
rality opinion). The only interest the Court discerned un
derlying the school’s actions was the “mere desire to avoid

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the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany
an unpopular viewpoint,” or “an urgent wish to avoid the
controversy which might result from the expression.” Tin
ker, 393 U. S., at 509, 510. That interest was not enough
to justify banning “a silent, passive expression of opinion,
unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance.” Id., at 508.
This Court’s next student speech case was Fraser, 478
U. S. 675. Matthew Fraser was suspended for delivering a
speech before a high school assembly in which he employed
what this Court called “an elaborate, graphic, and explicit
sexual metaphor.” Id., at 678. Analyzing the case under
Tinker, the District Court and Court of Appeals found no
disruption, and therefore no basis for disciplining Fraser.
478 U. S., at 679–680. This Court reversed, holding that the
“School District acted entirely within its permissible author
ity in imposing sanctions upon Fraser in response to his of
fensively lewd and indecent speech.” Id., at 685.
The mode of analysis employed in Fraser is not entirely
clear. The Court was plainly attuned to the content of Fra
ser’s speech, citing the “marked distinction between the po
litical ‘message’ of the armbands in Tinker and the sexual
content of [Fraser’s] speech.” Id., at 680. But the Court
also reasoned that school boards have the authority to deter
mine “what manner of speech in the classroom or in school
assembly is inappropriate.” Id., at 683. Cf. id., at 689
(Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (“In the present case,
school officials sought only to ensure that a high school as
sembly proceed in an orderly manner. There is no sugges
tion that school officials attempted to regulate [Fraser’s]
speech because they disagreed with the views he sought to
express”).
We need not resolve this debate to decide this case. For
present purposes, it is enough to distill from Fraser two
basic principles. First, Fraser’s holding demonstrates that
“the constitutional rights of students in public school are not
automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other

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settings.” Id., at 682. Had Fraser delivered the same
speech in a public forum outside the school context, it would
have been protected. See Cohen v. California, 403 U. S. 15
(1971); Fraser, supra, at 682–683. In school, however, Fra
ser’s First Amendment rights were circumscribed “in light
of the special characteristics of the school environment.”
Tinker, supra, at 506. Second, Fraser established that the
mode of analysis set forth in Tinker is not absolute. What
ever approach Fraser employed, it certainly did not conduct
the “substantial disruption” analysis prescribed by Tinker,
supra, at 514. See Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S., at 271, n. 4 (dis
agreeing with the proposition that there is “no difference
between the First Amendment analysis applied in Tinker
and that applied in Fraser,” and noting that the holding
in Fraser was not based on any showing of substantial
disruption).
Our most recent student speech case, Kuhlmeier, con
cerned “expressive activities that students, parents, and
members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the
imprimatur of the school.” 484 U. S., at 271. Staff mem
bers of a high school newspaper sued their school when it
chose not to publish two of their articles. The Court of Ap
peals analyzed the case under Tinker, ruling in favor of the
students because it found no evidence of material disruption
to classwork or school discipline. Kuhlmeier v. Hazelwood
School Dist., 795 F. 2d 1368, 1375 (CA8 1986). This Court
reversed, holding that “educators do not offend the First
Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style
and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive
activities so long as their actions are reasonably related
to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S.,
at 273.
Kuhlmeier does not control this case because no one would
reasonably believe that Frederick’s banner bore the school’s
imprimatur. The case is nevertheless instructive because it
confirms both principles cited above. Kuhlmeier acknowl

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edged that schools may regulate some speech “even though
the government could not censor similar speech outside the
school.” Id., at 266. And, like Fraser, it confirms that the
rule of Tinker is not the only basis for restricting student
speech.2
Drawing on the principles applied in our student speech
cases, we have held in the Fourth Amendment context that
“while children assuredly do not ‘shed their constitutional
rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate,’ . . . the nature of
those rights is what is appropriate for children in school.”
Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 655–656
(1995) (quoting Tinker, supra, at 506). In particular, “the
school setting requires some easing of the restrictions to
which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject.”
New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 340 (1985). See
Vernonia, supra, at 656 (“Fourth Amendment rights, no less
than First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, are different
in public schools than elsewhere . . . ”); Board of Ed. of Inde
pendent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls,
536 U. S. 822, 829–830 (2002) (“ ‘special needs’ inhere in the
public school context”; “[w]hile schoolchildren do not shed
their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse,
Fourth Amendment rights . . . are different in public schools
than elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disre
gard the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for
children” (quoting Vernonia, 515 U. S., at 656; citation and
some internal quotation marks omitted)).
2 The dissent’s effort to find inconsistency between our approach here
and the opinion in Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life,
Inc., post, p. 449, see post, at 444–445, overlooks what was made clear
in Tinker, Fraser, and Kuhlmeier: Student First Amendment rights are
“applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment.”
Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506. See Fraser, 478 U. S., at 682; Kuhlmeier, 484
U. S., at 266. And, as discussed above, supra, at 402–403, there is no
serious argument that Frederick’s banner is political speech of the sort at
issue in Wisconsin Right to Life.

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Opinion of the Court
Even more to the point, these cases also recognize that
deterring drug use by schoolchildren is an “important—
indeed, perhaps compelling” interest. Id., at 661. Drug
abuse can cause severe and permanent damage to the health
and well-being of young people:
“School years are the time when the physical, psycholog
ical, and addictive effects of drugs are most severe.
Maturing nervous systems are more critically impaired
by intoxicants than mature ones are; childhood losses in
learning are lifelong and profound; children grow chemi
cally dependent more quickly than adults, and their rec
ord of recovery is depressingly poor. And of course the
effects of a drug-infested school are visited not just upon
the users, but upon the entire student body and faculty,
as the educational process is disrupted.” Id., at 661–
662 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Just five years ago, we wrote: “The drug abuse problem
among our Nation’s youth has hardly abated since Vernonia
was decided in 1995. In fact, evidence suggests that it has
only grown worse.” Earls, supra, at 834, and n. 5.
The problem remains serious today. See generally 1 Na
tional Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of
Health, Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on
Drug Use, 1975–2005, Secondary School Students (2006).
About half of American 12th graders have used an illicit
drug, as have more than a third of 10th graders and about
one-fifth of 8th graders. Id., at 99. Nearly one in four 12th
graders has used an illicit drug in the past month. Id., at
101. Some 25% of high schoolers say that they have been
offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property
within the past year. Dept. of Health and Human Services,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Be
havior Surveillance—United States, 2005, 55 Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report, Surveillance Summaries, No.
SS–5, p. 19 (June 9, 2006).

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408 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Opinion of the Court
Congress has declared that part of a school’s job is educat
ing students about the dangers of illegal drug use. It has
provided billions of dollars to support state and local drug
prevention programs, Brief for United States as Amicus Cu
riae 1, and required that schools receiving federal funds
under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act
of 1994 certify that their drug-prevention programs “convey
a clear and consistent message that . . . the illegal use of
drugs [is] wrong and harmful,” 20 U. S. C. § 7114(d)(6) (2000
ed., Supp. IV).
Thousands of school boards throughout the country—in
cluding JDHS—have adopted policies aimed at effectuating
this message. See Pet. for Cert. 17–21. Those school
boards know that peer pressure is perhaps “the single most
important factor leading schoolchildren to take drugs,” and
that students are more likely to use drugs when the norms
in school appear to tolerate such behavior. Earls, supra,
at 840 (Breyer, J., concurring). Student speech celebrating
illegal drug use at a school event, in the presence of school
administrators and teachers, thus poses a particular chal
lenge for school officials working to protect those entrusted
to their care from the dangers of drug abuse.
The “special characteristics of the school environment,”
Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506, and the governmental interest in
stopping student drug abuse—reflected in the policies of
Congress and myriad school boards, including JDHS—allow
schools to restrict student expression that they reasonably
regard as promoting illegal drug use. Tinker warned that
schools may not prohibit student speech because of “undiffer
entiated fear or apprehension of disturbance” or “a mere de
sire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always
accompany an unpopular viewpoint.” Id., at 508, 509. The
danger here is far more serious and palpable. The particu
lar concern to prevent student drug abuse at issue here, em
bodied in established school policy, App. 92–95; App. to Pet.

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Opinion of the Court
for Cert. 53a, extends well beyond an abstract desire to
avoid controversy.
Petitioners urge us to adopt the broader rule that Freder
ick’s speech is proscribable because it is plainly “offensive” as
that term is used in Fraser. See Reply Brief for Petitioners
14–15. We think this stretches Fraser too far; that case
should not be read to encompass any speech that could fit
under some definition of “offensive.” After all, much politi
cal and religious speech might be perceived as offensive to
some. The concern here is not that Frederick’s speech was
offensive, but that it was reasonably viewed as promoting
illegal drug use.
Although accusing this decision of doing “serious violence
to the First Amendment” by authorizing “viewpoint discrim
ination,” post, at 435, 437, the dissent concludes that “it
might well be appropriate to tolerate some targeted view
point discrimination in this unique setting,” post, at 439.
Nor do we understand the dissent to take the position that
schools are required to tolerate student advocacy of illegal
drug use at school events, even if that advocacy falls short
of inviting “imminent” lawless action. See ibid. (“[I]t is pos
sible that our rigid imminence requirement ought to be re
laxed at schools”). And even the dissent recognizes that the
issues here are close enough that the principal should not
be held liable in damages, but should instead enjoy qualified
immunity for her actions. See post, at 434. Stripped of
rhetorical flourishes, then, the debate between the dissent
and this opinion is less about constitutional first principles
than about whether Frederick’s banner constitutes promo
tion of illegal drug use. We have explained our view that it
does. The dissent’s contrary view on that relatively narrow
question hardly justifies sounding the First Amendment
bugle.
* * *
School principals have a difficult job, and a vitally impor
tant one. When Frederick suddenly and unexpectedly un

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410 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Thomas, J., concurring
furled his banner, Morse had to decide to act—or not act—
on the spot. It was reasonable for her to conclude that the
banner promoted illegal drug use—in violation of established
school policy—and that failing to act would send a powerful
message to the students in her charge, including Frederick,
about how serious the school was about the dangers of illegal
drug use. The First Amendment does not require schools
to tolerate at school events student expression that contrib
utes to those dangers.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, concurring.
The Court today decides that a public school may prohibit
speech advocating illegal drug use. I agree and therefore
join its opinion in full. I write separately to state my view
that the standard set forth in Tinker v. Des Moines Inde
pendent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969), is
without basis in the Constitution.
I
The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make
no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” As this Court
has previously observed, the First Amendment was not orig
inally understood to permit all sorts of speech; instead,
“[t]here are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes
of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have
never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem.”
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571–572 (1942);
see also Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 554 (1965). In my
view, the history of public education suggests that the First
Amendment, as originally understood, does not protect stu

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Thomas, J., concurring
dent speech in public schools. Although colonial schools
were exclusively private, public education proliferated in the
early 1800’s. By the time the States ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment, public schools had become relatively common.
W. Reese, America’s Public Schools: From the Common
School to “No Child Left Behind” 11–12 (2005) (hereinafter
Reese). If students in public schools were originally under
stood as having free-speech rights, one would have expected
19th-century public schools to have respected those rights
and courts to have enforced them.1 They did not.
A
During the colonial era, private schools and tutors offered
the only educational opportunities for children, and teachers
managed classrooms with an iron hand. R. Butts & L.
Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture 121,
123 (1953) (hereinafter Butts). Public schooling arose, in
part, as a way to educate those too poor to afford private
schools. See Kaestle & Vinovskis, From Apron Strings to
ABCs: Parents, Children, and Schooling in Nineteenth-
Century Massachusetts, 84 Am. J. Sociology S39, S49 (Supp.
1978). Because public schools were initially created as sub
stitutes for private schools, when States developed public
education systems in the early 1800’s, no one doubted the
government’s ability to educate and discipline children as
private schools did. Like their private counterparts, early
public schools were not places for freewheeling debates or
exploration of competing ideas. Rather, teachers instilled
“a core of common values” in students and taught them self
control. Reese 23; A. Potter & G. Emerson, The School and
1 Although the First Amendment did not apply to the States until at
least the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, most state constitu
tions included free-speech guarantees during the period when public edu
cation expanded. E. g., Cal. Const., Art. I, § 9 (1849); Conn. Const., Art. I,
§ 5 (1818); Ind. Const., Art. I, § 9 (1816).

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the Schoolmaster: A Manual 125 (1843) (“By its discipline
it contributes, insensibly, to generate a spirit of subordi
nation to lawful authority, a power of self-control, and a
habit of postponing present indulgence to a greater future
good . . . ”); D. Parkerson & J. Parkerson, The Emergence of
the Common School in the U. S. Countryside 6 (1998) (herein
after Parkerson) (noting that early education activists, such
as Benjamin Rush, believed public schools “help[ed] control
the innate selfishness of the individual”).
Teachers instilled these values not only by presenting
ideas but also through strict discipline. Butts 274–275.
Schools punished students for behavior the school considered
disrespectful or wrong. Parkerson 65 (noting that children
were punished for idleness, talking, profanity, and sloven
liness). Rules of etiquette were enforced, and courteous
behavior was demanded. Reese 40. To meet their educa
tional objectives, schools required absolute obedience. C.
Northend, The Teacher’s Assistant or Hints and Methods in
School Discipline and Instruction 44, 52 (1865) (“I consider a
school judiciously governed, where order prevails; where the
strictest sense of propriety is manifested by the pupils to
wards the teacher, and towards each other . . . ” (internal
quotation marks omitted)).2
In short, in the earliest public schools, teachers taught,
and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students
obeyed. Teachers did not rely solely on the power of ideas
to persuade; they relied on discipline to maintain order.
2 Even at the college level, strict obedience was required of students:
“The English model fostered absolute institutional control of students by
faculty both inside and outside the classroom. At all the early American
schools, students lived and worked under a vast array of rules and restric
tions. This one-sided relationship between the student and the college
mirrored the situation at English schools where the emphasis on hierarchi
cal authority stemmed from medieval Christian theology and the unique
legal privileges afforded the university corporation.” Note, 44 Vand. L.
Rev. 1135, 1140 (1991) (footnote omitted).

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B
Through the legal doctrine of in loco parentis, courts up
held the right of schools to discipline students, to enforce
rules, and to maintain order.3 Rooted in the English com
mon law, in loco parentis originally governed the legal rights
and obligations of tutors and private schools. 1 W. Black
stone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 441 (1765) (“[A
parent] may also delegate part of his parental authority, dur
ing his life, to the tutor or schoolmaster of his child; who is
then in loco parentis, and has such a portion of the power of
the parent committed to his charge, viz. that of restraint and
correction, as may be necessary to answer the purposes for
which he is employed”). Chancellor James Kent noted the
acceptance of the doctrine as part of American law in the
early 19th century. 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American
Law *205, *206–*207 (“So the power allowed by law to the
parent over the person of the child may be delegated to a
tutor or instructor, the better to accomplish the purpose of
education”).
As early as 1837, state courts applied the in loco parentis
principle to public schools:
“One of the most sacred duties of parents, is to train
up and qualify their children, for becoming useful and
virtuous members of society; this duty cannot be effec
tually performed without the ability to command obedi
ence, to control stubbornness, to quicken diligence, and
3 My discussion is limited to elementary and secondary education. In
these settings, courts have applied the doctrine of in loco parentis regard
less of the student’s age. See, e. g., Stevens v. Fassett, 27 Me. 266, 281
(1847) (holding that a student over the age of 21 is “liab[le] to punishment”
on the same terms as other students if he “present[s] himself as a pupil,
[and] is received and instructed by the master”); State v. Mizner, 45 Iowa
248, 250–252 (1876) (same); Sheehan v. Sturges, 53 Conn. 481, 484, 2 A. 841,
843 (1885) (same). Therefore, the fact that Frederick was 18 and not a
minor under Alaska law, 439 F. 3d 1114, 1117, n. 4 (CA9 2006), is
inconsequential.

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to reform bad habits . . . . The teacher is the substitute
of the parent; . . . and in the exercise of these delegated
duties, is invested with his power.” State v. Pender
grass, 19 N. C. 365, 365–366 (1837).
Applying in loco parentis, the judiciary was reluctant to in
terfere in the routine business of school administration,
allowing schools and teachers to set and enforce rules and to
maintain order. Sheehan v. Sturges, 53 Conn. 481, 483–484,
2 A. 841, 842 (1885). Thus, in the early years of public
schooling, schools and teachers had considerable discretion
in disciplinary matters:
“To accomplish th[e] desirable ends [of teaching self
restraint, obedience, and other civic virtues], the master
of a school is necessarily invested with much discretion
ary power. . . . He must govern these pupils, quicken the
slothful, spur the indolent, restrain the impetuous, and
control the stubborn. He must make rules, give com
mands, and punish disobedience. What rules, what
commands, and what punishments shall be imposed, are
necessarily largely within the discretion of the master,
where none are defined by the school board.” Patter
son v. Nutter, 78 Me. 509, 511, 7 A. 273, 274 (1886).4
A review of the case law shows that in loco parentis al
lowed schools to regulate student speech as well. Courts
routinely preserved the rights of teachers to punish speech
that the school or teacher thought was contrary to the inter
ests of the school and its educational goals. For example,
the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the corporal punishment
of a student who called his teacher “Old Jack Seaver” in
4 Even courts that did not favor the broad discretion given to teachers
to impose corporal punishment recognized that the law provided it.
Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Ind. 290, 291 (1853) (stating that “[t]he public seem
to cling to a despotism in the government of schools which has been dis
carded everywhere else”).

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front of other students. Lander v. Seaver, 32 Vt. 114, 115
(1859). The court explained its decision as follows:
“[L]anguage used to other scholars to stir up disorder
and subordination, or to heap odium and disgrace upon
the master; writings and pictures placed so as to suggest
evil and corrupt language, images and thoughts to the
youth who must frequent the school; all such or similar
acts tend directly to impair the usefulness of the school,
the welfare of the scholars and the authority of the mas
ter. By common consent and by the universal custom
in our New England schools, the master has always been
deemed to have the right to punish such offences. Such
power is essential to the preservation of order, decency,
decorum and good government in schools.” Id., at 121.
Similarly, the California Court of Appeal upheld the expul
sion of a student who gave a speech before the student body
that criticized the administration for having an unsafe build
ing “because of the possibility of fire.” Wooster v. Sunder
land, 27 Cal. App. 51, 52, 148 P. 959 (1915). The punishment
was appropriate, the court stated, because the speech “was
intended to discredit and humiliate the board in the eyes of
the students, and tended to impair the discipline of the
school.” Id., at 55, 148 P., at 960. Likewise, the Missouri
Supreme Court explained that a “rule which forbade the use
of profane language [and] quarrelling” “was not only reason
able, but necessary to the orderly conduct of the school.”
Deskins v. Gose, 85 Mo. 485, 487, 488 (1885). And the Indi
ana Supreme Court upheld the punishment of a student who
made distracting demonstrations in class for “a breach of
good deportment.” Vanvactor v. State, 113 Ind. 276, 281, 15
N. E. 341, 343 (1888).5
5 Courts also upheld punishment when children refused to speak after
being requested to do so by their teachers. See Board of Ed. v. Helston,
32 Ill. App. 300, 305–307 (1890) (upholding the suspension of a boy who
refused to provide information about who had defaced the school building);

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The doctrine of in loco parentis limited the ability of
schools to set rules and control their classrooms in almost no
way. It merely limited the imposition of excessive physical
punishment. In this area, the case law was split. One line
of cases specified that punishment was wholly discretionary
as long as the teacher did not act with legal malice or cause
permanent injury. E. g., Boyd v. State, 88 Ala. 169, 170–172,
7 So. 268, 269 (1890) (allowing liability where the “punish
ment inflicted is immoderate, or excessive, and . . . it was
induced by legal malice, or wickedness of motive”). An
other line allowed courts to intervene where the corporal
punishment was “clearly excessive.” E. g., Lander, supra,
at 124. Under both lines of cases, courts struck down only
punishments that were excessively harsh; they almost never
questioned the substantive restrictions on student conduct
set by teachers and schools. E. g., Sheehan, supra, at 483–
484, 2 A., at 842; Gardner v. State, 4 Ind. 632, 635 (1853);
Anderson v. State, 40 Tenn. 455, 456 (1859); Hardy v. James,
5 Ky. Op. 36 (1872).6
II
Tinker effected a sea change in students’ speech rights,
extending them well beyond traditional bounds. The case
cf. Sewell v. Board of Ed. of Defiance Union School, 29 Ohio St. 89, 92
(1876) (upholding the suspension of a student who failed to complete a
rhetorical exercise in the allotted time).
6 At least nominally, this Court has continued to recognize the applicabil
ity of the in loco parentis doctrine to public schools. See Vernonia
School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 654, 655 (1995) (“Traditionally at
common law, and still today, unemancipated minors lack some of the most
fundamental rights of self-determination . . . . They are subject . . . to
the control of their parents or guardians. When parents place minor chil
dren in private schools for their education, the teachers and administrators
of those schools stand in loco parentis over the children entrusted to
them” (citation omitted)); Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S.
675, 684 (1986) (“These cases recognize the obvious concern on the part of
parents, and school authorities acting in loco parentis, to protect chil
dren—especially in a captive audience—from exposure to sexually explicit,
indecent, or lewd speech”).

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Thomas, J., concurring
arose when a school punished several students for wearing
black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. 393
U. S., at 504. Determining that the punishment infringed
the students’ First Amendment rights, this Court created a
new standard for students’ freedom of speech in public
schools:
“[W]here there is no finding and no showing that en
gaging in the forbidden conduct would materially and
substantially interfere with the requirements of ap
propriate discipline in the operation of the school, the
prohibition cannot be sustained.” Id., at 509 (internal
quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly, unless a student’s speech would disrupt the edu
cational process, students had a fundamental right to speak
their minds (or wear their armbands)—even on matters the
school disagreed with or found objectionable. Ibid. (“[The
school] must be able to show that its action was caused by
something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort
and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular
viewpoint”).
Justice Black dissented, criticizing the Court for “sub
ject[ing] all the public schools in the country to the whims
and caprices of their loudest-mouthed, but maybe not their
brightest, students.” Id., at 525. He emphasized the in
structive purpose of schools: “[T]axpayers send children to
school on the premise that at their age they need to learn,
not teach.” Id., at 522. In his view, the Court’s decision
“surrender[ed] control of the American public school system
to public school students.” Id., at 526.
Of course, Tinker’s reasoning conflicted with the tradi
tional understanding of the judiciary’s role in relation to pub
lic schooling, a role limited by in loco parentis. Perhaps for
that reason, the Court has since scaled back Tinker’s stand
ard, or rather set the standard aside on an ad hoc basis. In
Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 677, 678

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(1986), a public school suspended a student for delivering a
speech that contained “an elaborate, graphic, and explicit
sexual metaphor.” The Court of Appeals found that the
speech caused no disruption under the Tinker standard, and
this Court did not question that holding. 478 U. S., at 679–
680. The Court nonetheless permitted the school to punish
the student because of the objectionable content of his
speech. Id., at 685 (“A high school assembly or classroom is
no place for a sexually explicit monologue directed towards
an unsuspecting audience of teenage students”). Signaling
at least a partial break with Tinker, Fraser left the regula
tion of indecent student speech to local schools.7 478 U. S.,
at 683.
Similarly, in Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484
U. S. 260 (1988), the Court made an exception to Tinker for
school-sponsored activities. The Court characterized news
papers and similar school-sponsored activities “as part of the
school curriculum” and held that “[e]ducators are entitled to
exercise greater control over” these forms of student expres
sion. 484 U. S., at 271. Accordingly, the Court expressly
refused to apply Tinker’s standard. 484 U. S., at 272–273.
Instead, for school-sponsored activities, the Court created a
new standard that permitted school regulations of student
speech that are “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical
concerns.” Id., at 273.
Today, the Court creates another exception. In doing so,
we continue to distance ourselves from Tinker, but we nei
ther overrule it nor offer an explanation of when it operates
and when it does not. Ante, at 404–409. I am afraid that
our jurisprudence now says that students have a right to
speak in schools except when they do not—a standard contin
uously developed through litigation against local schools and
their administrators. In my view, petitioners could prevail
for a much simpler reason: As originally understood, the
7 Distancing itself from Tinker’s approach, the Fraser Court quoted Jus
tice Black’s dissent in Tinker. 478 U. S., at 686.

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Constitution does not afford students a right to free speech
in public schools.
III
In light of the history of American public education, it
cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment
“freedom of speech” encompasses a student’s right to speak
in public schools. Early public schools gave total control
to teachers, who expected obedience and respect from
students. And courts routinely deferred to schools’ author
ity to make rules and to discipline students for violating
those rules. Several points are clear: (1) Under in loco pa
rentis, speech rules and other school rules were treated iden
tically; (2) the in loco parentis doctrine imposed almost no
limits on the types of rules that a school could set while
students were in school; and (3) schools and teachers had
tremendous discretion in imposing punishments for viola
tions of those rules.
It might be suggested that the early school speech cases
dealt only with slurs and profanity. But that criticism does
not withstand scrutiny. First, state courts repeatedly rea
soned that schools had discretion to impose discipline to
maintain order. The substance of the student’s speech or
conduct played no part in the analysis. Second, some cases
involved punishment for speech on weightier matters, for in
stance a speech criticizing school administrators for creating
a fire hazard. See Wooster, 27 Cal. App., at 52–53, 148 P., at
959. Yet courts refused to find an exception to in loco pa
rentis even for this advocacy of public safety.
To be sure, our educational system faces administrative
and pedagogical challenges different from those faced by
19th-century schools. And the idea of treating children as
though it were still the 19th century would find little sup
port today. But I see no constitutional imperative requiring
public schools to allow all student speech. Parents de
cide whether to send their children to public schools.
Cf. Hamilton v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 293 U. S. 245, 262

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(1934) (“California has not drafted or called them to attend
the university. They are seeking education offered by the
State and at the same time insisting that they be excluded
from the prescribed course . . . ”); id., at 266 (Cardozo, J.,
concurring). If parents do not like the rules imposed by
those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legis
latures; they can send their children to private schools or
homeschool them; or they can simply move. Whatever rules
apply to student speech in public schools, those rules can be
challenged by parents in the political process.
In place of that democratic regime, Tinker substituted ju
dicial oversight of the day-to-day affairs of public schools.
The Tinker Court made little attempt to ground its holding
in the history of education or in the original understanding
of the First Amendment.8 Instead, it imposed a new and
malleable standard: Schools could not inhibit student speech
unless it “substantially interfere[d] with the requirements of
appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.” 393
U. S., at 509 (internal quotation marks omitted). Inherent
8 The Tinker Court claimed that “[i]t can hardly be argued that either
students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech
or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable
holding of this Court for almost 50 years.” 393 U. S., at 506. But the
cases the Court cited in favor of that bold proposition do not support it.
Tinker chiefly relies upon Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923) (striking
down a law prohibiting the teaching of German). However, Meyer in
volved a challenge by a private school, id., at 396, and the Meyer Court
was quick to note that no “challenge [has] been made of the State’s power
to prescribe a curriculum for institutions which it supports,” id., at 402.
Meyer provides absolutely no support for the proposition that free-speech
rights apply within schools operated by the State. And notably, Meyer
relied as its chief support on the Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905),
line of cases, 262 U. S., at 399, a line of cases that has long been criticized,
United Haulers Assn., Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management
Authority, 550 U. S. 330 (2007). Tinker also relied on Pierce v. Society
of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925). Pierce has nothing to say on this issue
either. Pierce simply upheld the right of parents to send their children
to private school. Id., at 535.

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Thomas, J., concurring
in the application of that standard are judgment calls about
what constitutes interference and what constitutes appro
priate discipline. See id., at 517–518 (Black, J., dissenting)
(arguing that the armbands in fact caused a disruption).
Historically, courts reasoned that only local school districts
were entitled to make those calls. The Tinker Court
usurped that traditional authority for the judiciary.
And because Tinker utterly ignored the history of public
education, courts (including this one) routinely find it neces
sary to create ad hoc exceptions to its central premise. This
doctrine of exceptions creates confusion without fixing the
underlying problem by returning to first principles. Just
as I cannot accept Tinker’s standard, I cannot subscribe
to Kuhlmeier’s alternative. Local school boards, not the
courts, should determine what pedagogical interests are “le
gitimate” and what rules “reasonably relat[e]” to those inter
ests. 484 U. S., at 273.
Justice Black may not have been “a prophet or the son of
a prophet,” but his dissent in Tinker has proved prophetic.
393 U. S., at 525. In the name of the First Amendment, Tin
ker has undermined the traditional authority of teachers to
maintain order in public schools. “Once a society that gen
erally respected the authority of teachers, deferred to their
judgment, and trusted them to act in the best interest of
school children, we now accept defiance, disrespect, and dis
order as daily occurrences in many of our public schools.”
Dupre, Should Students Have Constitutional Rights? Keep
ing Order in the Public Schools, 65 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 49, 50
(1996). We need look no further than this case for an exam
ple: Frederick asserts a constitutional right to utter at a
school event what is either “[g]ibberish,” ante, at 402, or an
open call to use illegal drugs. To elevate such impertinence
to the status of constitutional protection would be farcical
and would indeed be to “surrender control of the American
public school system to public school students.” Tinker,
supra, at 526 (Black, J., dissenting).

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422 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Alito, J., concurring
* * *
I join the Court’s opinion because it erodes Tinker’s hold
in the realm of student speech, even though it does so by
adding to the patchwork of exceptions to the Tinker stand
ard. I think the better approach is to dispense with Tinker
altogether, and given the opportunity, I would do so.
Justice Alito, with whom Justice Kennedy joins,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court on the understanding that
(1) it goes no further than to hold that a public school may
restrict speech that a reasonable observer would interpret
as advocating illegal drug use and (2) it provides no support
for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be inter
preted as commenting on any political or social issue, includ
ing speech on issues such as “the wisdom of the war on drugs
or of legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.” See post, at
445 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
The opinion of the Court correctly reaffirms the recog
nition in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community
School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969), of the fundamental
principle that students do not “shed their constitutional
rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse
gate.” The Court is also correct in noting that Tinker,
which permits the regulation of student speech that threat
ens a concrete and “substantial disruption,” id., at 514, does
not set out the only ground on which in-school student speech
may be regulated by state actors in a way that would not be
constitutional in other settings.
But I do not read the opinion to mean that there are neces
sarily any grounds for such regulation that are not already
recognized in the holdings of this Court. In addition to Tin
ker, the decision in the present case allows the restriction
of speech advocating illegal drug use; Bethel School Dist.
No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675 (1986), permits the regulation
of speech that is delivered in a lewd or vulgar manner as

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423 Cite as: 551 U. S. 393 (2007)
Alito, J., concurring
part of a high school program; and Hazelwood School Dist.
v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260 (1988), allows a school to regulate
what is in essence the school’s own speech, that is, articles
that appear in a publication that is an official school organ.
I join the opinion of the Court on the understanding that
the opinion does not hold that the special characteristics
of the public schools necessarily justify any other speech
restrictions.
The opinion of the Court does not endorse the broad argu
ment advanced by petitioners and the United States that the
First Amendment permits public school officials to censor
any student speech that interferes with a school’s “educa
tional mission.” See Brief for Petitioners 21; Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 6. This argument can eas
ily be manipulated in dangerous ways, and I would reject it
before such abuse occurs. The “educational mission” of the
public schools is defined by the elected and appointed public
officials with authority over the schools and by the school
administrators and faculty. As a result, some public schools
have defined their educational missions as including the in
culcation of whatever political and social views are held by
the members of these groups.
During the Tinker era, a public school could have defined
its educational mission to include solidarity with our soldiers
and their families and thus could have attempted to outlaw
the wearing of black armbands on the ground that they un
dermined this mission. Alternatively, a school could have
defined its educational mission to include the promotion of
world peace and could have sought to ban the wearing of
buttons expressing support for the troops on the ground
that the buttons signified approval of war. The “educational
mission” argument would give public school authorities a
license to suppress speech on political and social issues
based on disagreement with the viewpoint expressed. The
argument, therefore, strikes at the very heart of the First
Amendment.

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424 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Alito, J., concurring
The public schools are invaluable and beneficent institu
tions, but they are, after all, organs of the State. When
public school authorities regulate student speech, they act as
agents of the State; they do not stand in the shoes of the
students’ parents. It is a dangerous fiction to pretend that
parents simply delegate their authority—including their au
thority to determine what their children may say and hear—
to public school authorities. It is even more dangerous to
assume that such a delegation of authority somehow strips
public school authorities of their status as agents of the
State. Most parents, realistically, have no choice but to
send their children to a public school and little ability to in
fluence what occurs in the school. It is therefore wrong to
treat public school officials, for purposes relevant to the First
Amendment, as if they were private, nongovernmental
actors standing in loco parentis.
For these reasons, any argument for altering the usual
free speech rules in the public schools cannot rest on a theory
of delegation but must instead be based on some special char
acteristic of the school setting. The special characteristic
that is relevant in this case is the threat to the physical
safety of students. School attendance can expose students
to threats to their physical safety that they would not other
wise face. Outside of school, parents can attempt to protect
their children in many ways and may take steps to monitor
and exercise control over the persons with whom their chil
dren associate. Similarly, students, when not in school, may
be able to avoid threatening individuals and situations.
During school hours, however, parents are not present to
provide protection and guidance, and students’ movements
and their ability to choose the persons with whom they spend
time are severely restricted. Students may be compelled on
a daily basis to spend time at close quarters with other stu
dents who may do them harm. Experience shows that
schools can be places of special danger.

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425 Cite as: 551 U. S. 393 (2007)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
In most settings, the First Amendment strongly limits the
government’s ability to suppress speech on the ground that
it presents a threat of violence. See Brandenburg v. Ohio,
395 U. S. 444 (1969) (per curiam). But due to the special
features of the school environment, school officials must have
greater authority to intervene before speech leads to vio
lence. And, in most cases, Tinker’s “substantial disruption”
standard permits school officials to step in before actual vio
lence erupts. See 393 U. S., at 508–509.
Speech advocating illegal drug use poses a threat to stu
dent safety that is just as serious, if not always as immedi
ately obvious. As we have recognized in the past and as the
opinion of the Court today details, illegal drug use presents
a grave and in many ways unique threat to the physical
safety of students. I therefore conclude that the public
schools may ban speech advocating illegal drug use. But I
regard such regulation as standing at the far reaches of what
the First Amendment permits. I join the opinion of the
Court with the understanding that the opinion does not en
dorse any further extension.
Justice Breyer, concurring in the judgment in part and
dissenting in part.
This Court need not and should not decide this difficult
First Amendment issue on the merits. Rather, I believe
that it should simply hold that qualified immunity bars the
student’s claim for monetary damages and say no more.
I
Resolving the First Amendment question presented in
this case is, in my view, unwise and unnecessary. In part
that is because the question focuses upon specific content
narrowly defined: May a school board punish students for
speech that advocates drug use and, if so, when? At the
same time, the underlying facts suggest that Principal Morse
acted as she did not simply because of the specific content

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426 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Opinion of Breyer, J.
and viewpoint of Joseph Frederick’s speech but also because
of the surrounding context and manner in which Frederick
expressed his views. To say that school officials might rea
sonably prohibit students during school-related events from
unfurling 14-foot banners (with any kind of irrelevant or
inappropriate message) designed to attract attention from
television cameras seems unlikely to undermine basic First
Amendment principles. But to hold, as the Court does, that
“schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their
care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encour
aging illegal drug use” (and that “schools” may “restrict stu
dent expression that they reasonably regard as promoting
illegal drug use”) is quite a different matter. Ante, at 397,
408. This holding, based as it is on viewpoint restrictions,
raises a host of serious concerns.
One concern is that, while the holding is theoretically lim
ited to speech promoting the use of illegal drugs, it could in
fact authorize further viewpoint-based restrictions. Illegal
drugs, after all, are not the only illegal substances. What
about encouraging the underage consumption of alcohol?
Moreover, it is unclear how far the Court’s rule regarding
drug advocacy extends. What about a conversation during
the lunch period where one student suggests that glaucoma
sufferers should smoke marijuana to relieve the pain? What
about deprecating commentary about an antidrug film shown
in school? And what about drug messages mixed with
other, more expressly political, content? If, for example,
Frederick’s banner had read “LEGALIZE BONG HiTS,” he
might be thought to receive protection from the majority’s
rule, which goes to speech “encouraging illegal drug use.”
Ante, at 397 (emphasis added). But speech advocating
change in drug laws might also be perceived of as promoting
the disregard of existing drug laws.
Legal principles must treat like instances alike. Those
principles do not permit treating “drug use” separately with
out a satisfying explanation of why drug use is sui generis.

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Opinion of Breyer, J.
To say that illegal drug use is harmful to students, while
surely true, does not itself constitute a satisfying explanation
because there are many such harms. During a real war, one
less metaphorical than the war on drugs, the Court declined
an opportunity to draw narrow subject-matter-based lines.
Cf. West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943)
(holding students cannot be compelled to recite the Pledge
of Allegiance during World War II). We should decline this
opportunity today.
Although the dissent avoids some of the majority’s pitfalls,
I fear that, if adopted as law, it would risk significant inter
ference with reasonable school efforts to maintain discipline.
What is a principal to do when a student unfurls a 14-foot
banner (carrying an irrelevant or inappropriate message)
during a school-related event in an effort to capture the
attention of television cameras? Nothing? In my view, a
principal or a teacher might reasonably view Frederick’s
conduct, in this setting, as simply beyond the pale. And a
school official, knowing that adolescents often test the outer
boundaries of acceptable behavior, may believe it is impor
tant (for the offending student and his classmates) to estab
lish when a student has gone too far.
Neither can I simply say that Morse may have taken the
right action (confiscating Frederick’s banner) but for the
wrong reason (“drug speech”). Teachers are neither law
yers nor police officers; and the law should not demand that
they fully understand the intricacies of our First Amend
ment jurisprudence. As the majority rightly points out, the
circumstances here called for a quick decision. See ante, at
410 (noting that “Morse had to decide to act—or not act—on
the spot”). But this consideration is better understood in
terms of qualified immunity than of the First Amendment.
See infra, at 429–432.
All of this is to say that, regardless of the outcome of the
constitutional determination, a decision on the underlying
First Amendment issue is both difficult and unusually por

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428 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Opinion of Breyer, J.
tentous. And that is a reason for us not to decide the issue
unless we must.
In some instances, it is appropriate to decide a constitu
tional issue in order to provide “guidance” for the future.
But I cannot find much guidance in today’s decision. The
Court makes clear that school officials may “restrict” student
speech that promotes “illegal drug use” and that they may
“take steps” to “safeguard” students from speech that en
courages “illegal drug use.” Ante, at 397, 403. Beyond
“steps” that prohibit the unfurling of banners at school out
ings, the Court does not explain just what those “restric
t[ions]” or those “steps” might be.
Nor, if we are to avoid the risk of interpretations that are
too broad or too narrow, is it easy to offer practically valu
able guidance. Students will test the limits of acceptable
behavior in myriad ways better known to schoolteachers
than to judges; school officials need a degree of flexible au
thority to respond to disciplinary challenges; and the law has
always considered the relationship between teachers and
students special. Under these circumstances, the more de
tailed the Court’s supervision becomes, the more likely its
law will engender further disputes among teachers and stu
dents. Consequently, larger numbers of those disputes will
likely make their way from the schoolhouse to the court
house. Yet no one wishes to substitute courts for school
boards, or to turn the judge’s chambers into the principal’s
office.
In order to avoid resolving the fractious underlying consti
tutional question, we need only decide a different question
that this case presents, the question of “qualified immunity.”
See Pet. for Cert. 23–28. The principle of qualified immu
nity fits this case perfectly and, by saying so, we would di
minish the risk of bringing about the adverse consequences
I have identified. More importantly, we should also adhere
to a basic constitutional obligation by avoiding unnecessary
decision of constitutional questions. See Ashwander v.

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Opinion of Breyer, J.
TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring)
(“The Court will not pass upon a constitutional question al
though properly presented by the record, if there is also
present some other ground upon which the case may be dis
posed of ”).
II
A
The defense of “qualified immunity” requires courts to
enter judgment in favor of a government employee unless
the employee’s conduct violates “clearly established statu
tory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800,
818 (1982). The defense is designed to protect “all but the
plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”
Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986).
Qualified immunity applies here and entitles Principal
Morse to judgment on Frederick’s monetary damages claim
because she did not clearly violate the law during her con
frontation with the student. At the time of that confronta
tion, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School
Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 513 (1969), indicated that school officials
could not prohibit students from wearing an armband in pro
test of the Vietnam War, where the conduct at issue did not
“materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline
of the school”; Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S.
675 (1986), indicated that school officials could restrict a stu
dent’s freedom to give a school assembly speech containing
an elaborate sexual metaphor; and Hazelwood School Dist. v.
Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260 (1988), indicated that school officials
could restrict student contributions to a school-sponsored
newspaper, even without threat of imminent disruption.
None of these cases clearly governs the case at hand.
The Ninth Circuit thought it “clear” that these cases did
not permit Morse’s actions. See 439 F. 3d 1114, 1124 (2006).
That is because, in the Ninth Circuit’s view, this case in

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Opinion of Breyer, J.
volved neither lewd speech, cf. Fraser, supra, nor school
sponsored speech, cf. Kuhlmeier, supra, and hence Tinker’s
substantial disruption test must guide the inquiry. See 439
F. 3d, at 1123. But unlike the Ninth Circuit, other courts
have described the tests these cases suggest as complex and
often difficult to apply. See, e. g., Guiles v. Marineau, 461
F. 3d 320, 326 (CA2 2006) (“It is not entirely clear whether
Tinker’s rule applies to all student speech that is not spon
sored by schools, subject to the rule of Fraser, or whether it
applies only to political speech or to political viewpoint-based
discrimination”); Baxter v. Vigo Cty. School Corp., 26 F. 3d
728, 737 (CA7 1994) (pointing out that Fraser “cast some
doubt on the extent to which students retain free speech
rights in the school setting”). Indeed, the fact that this
Court divides on the constitutional question (and that the
majority reverses the Ninth Circuit’s constitutional determi
nation) strongly suggests that the answer as to how to apply
prior law to these facts was unclear.
The relative ease with which we could decide this case on
the qualified immunity ground, and thereby avoid deciding a
far more difficult constitutional question, underscores the
need to lift the rigid “order of battle” decisionmaking re
quirement that this Court imposed upon lower courts in Sau
cier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 201–202 (2001). In Saucier, the
Court wrote that lower courts’ “first inquiry must be
whether a constitutional right would have been violated on
the facts alleged.” Id., at 200. Only if there is a constitu
tional violation can lower courts proceed to consider whether
the official is entitled to “qualified immunity.” See ibid.
I have previously explained why I believe we should aban
don Saucier’s order-of-battle rule. See Scott v. Harris, 550
U. S. 372, 387–389 (2007) (concurring opinion); Brosseau v.
Haugen, 543 U. S. 194, 201–202 (2004) (same). Sometimes
the rule will require lower courts unnecessarily to answer
difficult constitutional questions, thereby wasting judicial re
sources. Sometimes it will require them to resolve constitu

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Opinion of Breyer, J.
tional issues that are poorly presented. Sometimes the rule
will immunize an incorrect constitutional holding from fur
ther review. And often the rule violates the longstanding
principle that courts should “not . . . pass on questions of
constitutionality . . . unless such adjudication is unavoidable.”
Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101,
105 (1944).
This last point warrants amplification. In resolving the
underlying constitutional question, we produce several dif
fering opinions. It is utterly unnecessary to do so. Were
we to decide this case on the ground of qualified immu
nity, our decision would be unanimous, for the dissent con
cedes that Morse should not be held liable in damages for
confiscating Frederick’s banner. Post, at 434 (opinion of
Stevens, J.). And the “cardinal principle of judicial re
straint” is that “if it is not necessary to decide more, it is
necessary not to decide more.” PDK Labs., Inc. v. Drug
Enforcement Admin., 362 F. 3d 786, 799 (CADC 2004) (Rob
erts, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
If it is Saucier that tempts this Court to adhere to the
rigid “order of battle” that binds lower courts, it should re
sist that temptation. Saucier does not bind this Court.
Regardless, the rule of Saucier has generated considerable
criticism from both commentators and judges. See Leval,
Judging Under the Constitution: Dicta About Dicta, 81
N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1249, 1275 (2006) (calling the requirement
“a puzzling misadventure in constitutional dictum”); Dirrane
v. Brookline Police Dept., 315 F. 3d 65, 69–70 (CA1 2002)
(referring to the requirement as “an uncomfortable exercise”
when “the answer whether there was a violation may depend
on a kaleidoscope of facts not yet fully developed”); Lyons v.
Xenia, 417 F. 3d 565, 580–584 (CA6 2005) (Sutton, J., concur
ring). While Saucier justified its rule by contending that it
was necessary to permit constitutional law to develop, see
533 U. S., at 201, this concern is overstated because overrul
ing Saucier would not mean that the law prohibited judges

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Opinion of Breyer, J.
from passing on constitutional questions, only that it did not
require them to do so. Given that Saucier is a judge-made
procedural rule, stare decisis concerns supporting preserva
tion of the rule are weak. See, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501
U. S. 808, 828 (1991) (“Considerations in favor of stare deci
sis” are at their weakest in cases “involving procedural and
evidentiary rules”).
Finally, several Members of this Court have previously
suggested that always requiring lower courts first to answer
constitutional questions is misguided. See County of Sacra
mento v. Lewis, 523 U. S. 833, 859 (1998) (Stevens, J., con
curring in judgment) (resolving the constitutional question
first is inappropriate when that “question is both difficult and
unresolved”); Bunting v. Mellen, 541 U. S. 1019, 1025 (2004)
(Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (“We should
either make clear that constitutional determinations are not
insulated from our review . . . or else drop any pretense at
requiring the ordering in every case”); Saucier, supra, at 210
(Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment) (“The two-part test
today’s decision imposes holds large potential to confuse”);
Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U. S. 226, 235 (1991) (Kennedy, J., con
curring in judgment) (“If it is plain that a plaintiff ’s required
malice allegations are insufficient but there is some doubt as
to the constitutional right asserted, it seems to reverse the
usual ordering of issues to tell the trial and appellate courts
that they should resolve the constitutional question first”).
I would end the failed Saucier experiment now.
B
There is one remaining objection to deciding this case on
the basis of qualified immunity alone. The plaintiff in this
case has sought not only damages; he has also sought an
injunction requiring the school district to expunge his sus
pension from its records. A “qualified immunity” defense
applies in respect to damages actions, but not to injunctive
relief. See, e. g., Wood v. Strickland, 420 U. S. 308, 314, n. 6

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(1975). With respect to that claim, the underlying question
of constitutionality, at least conceivably, remains.
I seriously doubt, however, that it does remain. At the
plaintiff ’s request, the school superintendent reviewed Fred
erick’s 10-day suspension. The superintendent, in turn, re
duced the suspension to the eight days that Frederick had
served before the appeal. But in doing so the superintend
ent noted that several actions independent of Frederick’s
speech supported the suspension, including the plaintiff ’s
disregard of a school official’s instruction, his failure to re
port to the principal’s office on time, his “defiant [and] disrup
tive behavior,” and the “belligerent attitude” he displayed
when he finally reported. App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a. The
superintendent wrote that “were” he to “concede” that Fred
erick’s “speech . . . is protected . . . , the remainder of his
behavior was not excused.” Id., at 66a.
The upshot is that the school board’s refusal to erase the
suspension from the record may well be justified on non
speech-related grounds. In addition, plaintiff ’s counsel ap
peared to agree with the Court’s suggestion at oral argument
that Frederick “would not pursue” injunctive relief if he pre
vailed on the damages question. Tr. of Oral Arg. 46–48.
And finding that Morse was entitled to qualified immunity
would leave only the question of injunctive relief.
Given the high probability that Frederick’s request for an
injunction will not require a court to resolve the consti
tutional issue, see Ashwander, 297 U. S., at 347 (Brandeis,
J., concurring), I would decide only the qualified immunity
question and remand the rest of the case for an initial
consideration.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter and Jus
tice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
A significant fact barely mentioned by the Court sheds a
revelatory light on the motives of both the students and the
principal of Juneau-Douglas High School (JDHS). On Janu

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Stevens, J., dissenting
ary 24, 2002, the Olympic Torch Relay gave those Alaska
residents a rare chance to appear on national television. As
Joseph Frederick repeatedly explained, he did not address
the curious message—“BONG HiTS 4 JESUS”—to his fel
low students. He just wanted to get the camera crews’ at
tention. Moreover, concern about a nationwide evaluation
of the conduct of the JDHS student body would have justi
fied the principal’s decision to remove an attention-grabbing
14-foot banner, even if it had merely proclaimed “Glaciers
Melt!”
I agree with the Court that the principal should not be
held liable for pulling down Frederick’s banner. See Har
low v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982). I would hold,
however, that the school’s interest in protecting its students
from exposure to speech “reasonably regarded as promoting
illegal drug use,” ante, at 396, cannot justify disciplining
Frederick for his attempt to make an ambiguous statement
to a television audience simply because it contained an
oblique reference to drugs. The First Amendment demands
more, indeed, much more.
The Court holds otherwise only after laboring to establish
two uncontroversial propositions: first, that the constitu
tional rights of students in school settings are not coexten
sive with the rights of adults, see ante, at 403–406; and sec
ond, that deterring drug use by schoolchildren is a valid and
terribly important interest, see ante, at 407–408. As to the
first, I take the Court’s point that the message on Frederick’s
banner is not necessarily protected speech, even though it
unquestionably would have been had the banner been un
furled elsewhere. As to the second, I am willing to assume
that the Court is correct that the pressing need to deter drug
use supports JDHS’ rule prohibiting willful conduct that ex
pressly “advocates the use of substances that are illegal to
minors.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. But it is a gross non
sequitur to draw from these two unremarkable propositions
the remarkable conclusion that the school may suppress stu

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435 Cite as: 551 U. S. 393 (2007)
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dent speech that was never meant to persuade anyone to
do anything.
In my judgment, the First Amendment protects student
speech if the message itself neither violates a permissible
rule nor expressly advocates conduct that is illegal and
harmful to students. This nonsense banner does neither,
and the Court does serious violence to the First Amendment
in upholding—indeed, lauding—a school’s decision to punish
Frederick for expressing a view with which it disagreed.
I
In December 1965, we were engaged in a controversial
war, a war that “divided this country as few other issues
ever have.” Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Commu
nity School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 524 (1969) (Black, J., dissent
ing). Having learned that some students planned to wear
black armbands as a symbol of opposition to the country’s
involvement in Vietnam, officials of the Des Moines public
school district adopted a policy calling for the suspension of
any student who refused to remove the armband. As we
explained when we considered the propriety of that policy,
“[t]he school officials banned and sought to punish petitioners
for a silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by
any disorder or disturbance on the part of petitioners.” Id.,
at 508. The district justified its censorship on the ground
that it feared that the expression of a controversial and un
popular opinion would generate disturbances. Because the
school officials had insufficient reason to believe that those
disturbances would “materially and substantially interfere
with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the opera
tion of the school,” we found the justification for the rule to
lack any foundation and therefore held that the censorship
violated the First Amendment. Id., at 509 (internal quota
tion marks omitted).
Justice Harlan dissented, but not because he thought the
school district could censor a message with which it dis

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436 MORSE v. FREDERICK
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agreed. Rather, he would have upheld the district’s rule
only because the students never cast doubt on the district’s
antidisruption justification by proving that the rule was mo
tivated “by other than legitimate school concerns—for exam
ple, a desire to prohibit the expression of an unpopular point
of view, while permitting expression of the dominant opin
ion.” Id., at 526.
Two cardinal First Amendment principles animate both
the Court’s opinion in Tinker and Justice Harlan’s dissent.
First, censorship based on the content of speech, particularly
censorship that depends on the viewpoint of the speaker, is
subject to the most rigorous burden of justification:
“Discrimination against speech because of its message is
presumed to be unconstitutional. . . . When the govern
ment targets not subject matter, but particular views
taken by speakers on a subject, the violation of the First
Amendment is all the more blatant. Viewpoint discrim
ination is thus an egregious form of content discrimina
tion. The government must abstain from regulating
speech when the specific motivating ideology or the
opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for
the restriction.” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of
Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 828–829 (1995) (citation
omitted).
Second, punishing someone for advocating illegal conduct
is constitutional only when the advocacy is likely to pro
voke the harm that the government seeks to avoid. See
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 449 (1969) (per curiam)
(distinguishing “mere advocacy” of illegal conduct from “in
citement to imminent lawless action”).
However necessary it may be to modify those principles in
the school setting, Tinker affirmed their continuing vitality.
393 U. S., at 509 (“In order for the State in the person of
school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expres
sion of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was

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caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the
discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an un
popular viewpoint. Certainly where there is no finding and
no showing that engaging in the forbidden conduct would
materially and substantially interfere with the requirements
of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school, the
prohibition cannot be sustained” (internal quotation marks
omitted)). As other federal courts have long recognized,
under Tinker,
“regulation of student speech is generally permissible
only when the speech would substantially disrupt or in
terfere with the work of the school or the rights of other
students. . . . Tinker requires a specific and significant
fear of disruption, not just some remote apprehension
of disturbance.” Saxe v. State College Area School
Dist., 240 F. 3d 200, 211 (CA3 2001) (Alito, J.) (emphasis
added).
Yet today the Court fashions a test that trivializes the two
cardinal principles upon which Tinker rests. See ante, at
408 (“[S]chools [may] restrict student expression that they
reasonably regard as promoting illegal drug use”). The
Court’s test invites stark viewpoint discrimination. In this
case, for example, the principal has unabashedly acknowl
edged that she disciplined Frederick because she disagreed
with the pro-drug viewpoint she ascribed to the message on
the banner, see App. 25—a viewpoint, incidentally, that
Frederick has disavowed, see id., at 28. Unlike our recent
decision in Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Assn. v.
Brentwood Academy, ante, at 296 (plurality opinion), see also
ante, at 423 (Alito, J., concurring), the Court’s holding in
this case strikes at “the heart of the First Amendment” be
cause it upholds a punishment meted out on the basis of a
listener’s disagreement with her understanding (or, more
likely, misunderstanding) of the speaker’s viewpoint. “If
there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amend

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ment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expres
sion of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself
offensive or disagreeable.” Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397,
414 (1989).
It is also perfectly clear that “promoting illegal drug use,”
ante, at 409, comes nowhere close to proscribable “incitement
to imminent lawless action.” Brandenburg, 395 U. S., at
449. Encouraging drug use might well increase the likeli
hood that a listener will try an illegal drug, but that hardly
justifies censorship:
“Every denunciation of existing law tends in some
measure to increase the probability that there will be
violation of it. Condonation of a breach enhances the
probability. Expressions of approval add to the
probability. . . . Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it
still further. But even advocacy of violation, however
reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying
free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement
and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would
be immediately acted on.” Whitney v. California, 274
U. S. 357, 376 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (footnote
omitted).
No one seriously maintains that drug advocacy (much less
Frederick’s ridiculous sign) comes within the vanishingly
small category of speech that can be prohibited because of
its feared consequences. Such advocacy, to borrow from
Justice Holmes, “ha[s] no chance of starting a present con
flagration.” Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 673 (1925)
(dissenting opinion).
II
The Court rejects outright these twin foundations of Tin
ker because, in its view, the unusual importance of protecting
children from the scourge of drugs supports a ban on all
speech in the school environment that promotes drug use.
Whether or not such a rule is sensible as a matter of policy,
carving out pro-drug speech for uniquely harsh treatment

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finds no support in our case law and is inimical to the values
protected by the First Amendment.1 See infra, at 446–448.
I will nevertheless assume for the sake of argument that
the school’s concededly powerful interest in protecting its
students adequately supports its restriction on “any assem
bly or public expression that . . . advocates the use of sub
stances that are illegal to minors . . . .” App. to Pet. for
Cert. 53a. Given that the relationship between schools and
students “is custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of
supervision and control that could not be exercised over free
adults,” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646,
655 (1995), it might well be appropriate to tolerate some tar
geted viewpoint discrimination in this unique setting. And
while conventional speech may be restricted only when likely
to “incit[e] . . . imminent lawless action,” Brandenburg, 395
U. S., at 449, it is possible that our rigid imminence require
ment ought to be relaxed at schools. See Bethel School
Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675, 682 (1986) (“[T]he con
stitutional rights of students in public school are not auto
matically coextensive with the rights of adults in other
settings”).
But it is one thing to restrict speech that advocates drug
use. It is another thing entirely to prohibit an obscure mes
sage with a drug theme that a third party subjectively—
and not very reasonably—thinks is tantamount to express
advocacy. Cf. Masses Pub. Co. v. Patten, 244 F. 535, 540,
541 (SDNY 1917) (Hand, J.) (distinguishing sharply between
“agitation, legitimate as such,” and “the direct advocacy” of
unlawful conduct). Even the school recognizes the para
mount need to hold the line between, on the one hand, non
disruptive speech that merely expresses a viewpoint that is
unpopular or contrary to the school’s preferred message, and
on the other hand, advocacy of an illegal or unsafe course of
1 I also seriously question whether such a ban could really be enforced.
Consider the difficulty of monitoring student conversations between
classes or in the cafeteria.

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conduct. The district’s prohibition of drug advocacy is a
gloss on a more general rule that is otherwise quite tolerant
of nondisruptive student speech:
“Students will not be disturbed in the exercise of their
constitutionally guaranteed rights to assemble peace
ably and to express ideas and opinions, privately or pub
licly, provided that their activities do not infringe on the
rights of others and do not interfere with the operation
of the educational program.
“The Board will not permit the conduct on school
premises of any willful activity . . . that interferes with
the orderly operation of the educational program or
offends the rights of others. The Board specifically
prohibits any assembly or public expression that . . .
advocates the use of substances that are illegal to
minors . . . .” App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a; see also ante,
at 398 (opinion of the Court) (quoting rule in part).
There is absolutely no evidence that Frederick’s banner’s ref
erence to drug paraphernalia “willful[ly]” infringed on any
one’s rights or interfered with any of the school’s educational
programs.2 On its face, then, the rule gave Frederick wide
berth “to express [his] ideas and opinions” so long as they
did not amount to “advoca[cy]” of drug use. App. to Pet. for
Cert. 53a. If the school’s rule is, by hypothesis, a valid one,
it is valid only insofar as it scrupulously preserves adequate
space for constitutionally protected speech. When First
Amendment rights are at stake, a rule that “sweep[s] in a
great variety of conduct under a general and indefinite char
acterization” may not leave “too wide a discretion in its
2 It is also relevant that the display did not take place “on school prem
ises,” as the rule contemplates. App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a. While a sepa
rate district rule does make the policy applicable to “social events and
class trips,” id., at 58a, Frederick might well have thought that the Olym
pic Torch Relay was neither a “social event” (for example, prom) nor a
“class trip.”

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application.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308
(1940). Therefore, just as we insisted in Tinker that the
school establish some likely connection between the arm
bands and their feared consequences, so too JDHS must
show that Frederick’s supposed advocacy stands a meaning
ful chance of making otherwise-abstemious students try
marijuana.
But instead of demanding that the school make such a
showing, the Court punts. Figuring out just how it punts
is tricky; “[t]he mode of analysis [it] employ[s] . . . is not
entirely clear,” see ante, at 404. On occasion, the Court sug
gests it is deferring to the principal’s “reasonable” judgment
that Frederick’s sign qualified as drug advocacy.3 At other
times, the Court seems to say that it thinks the banner’s
message constitutes express advocacy.4 Either way, its ap
proach is indefensible.
To the extent the Court defers to the principal’s ostensibly
reasonable judgment, it abdicates its constitutional responsi
bility. The beliefs of third parties, reasonable or otherwise,
have never dictated which messages amount to proscribable
advocacy. Indeed, it would be a strange constitutional doc
trine that would allow the prohibition of only the narrowest
category of speech advocating unlawful conduct, see Bran
3 See ante, at 396 (stating that the principal “reasonably regarded” Fred
erick’s banner as “promoting illegal drug use”); ante, at 401 (explaining
that “Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those
viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly
a reasonable one”); ante, at 403 (asking whether “a principal may . . .
restrict student speech . . . when that speech is reasonably viewed as
promoting illegal drug use”); ante, at 408 (holding that “schools [may] re
strict student expression that they reasonably regard as promoting illegal
drug use”); see also ante, at 422 (Alito, J., concurring) (“[A] public school
may restrict speech that a reasonable observer would interpret as advo
cating illegal drug use”).
4 See ante, at 402 (“We agree with Morse. At least two interpretations
of the words on the banner demonstrate that the sign advocated the use
of illegal drugs”); ante, at 409 (observing that “[w]e have explained our
view” that “Frederick’s banner constitutes promotion of illegal drug use”).

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denburg, 395 U. S., at 447–448, yet would permit a listener’s
perceptions to determine which speech deserved constitu
tional protection.5
Such a peculiar doctrine is alien to our case law. In
Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616 (1919), this Court
affirmed the conviction of a group of Russian “rebels, revolu
tionists, [and] anarchists,” id., at 617–618 (internal quotation
marks omitted), on the ground that the leaflets they distrib
uted were thought to “incite, provoke and encourage resist
ance to the United States,” id., at 617 (internal quotation
marks omitted). Yet Justice Holmes’ dissent—which has
emphatically carried the day—never inquired into the rea
sonableness of the United States’ judgment that the leaflets
would likely undermine the war effort. The dissent instead
ridiculed that judgment: “[N]obody can suppose that the sur
reptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man,
without more, would present any immediate danger that its
opinions would hinder the success of the government arms
or have any appreciable tendency to do so.” Id., at 628. In
Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516 (1945) (opinion for the Court
by Rutledge, J.), we overturned the conviction of a union
organizer who violated a restraining order prohibiting him
from exhorting workers. In so doing, we held that the dis
tinction between advocacy and incitement could not depend
on how one of those workers might have understood the or
ganizer’s speech. That would “pu[t] the speaker in these cir
cumstances wholly at the mercy of the varied understanding
of his hearers and consequently of whatever inference may
5 The reasonableness of the view that Frederick’s message was unpro
tected speech is relevant to ascertaining whether qualified immunity
should shield the principal from liability, not to whether her actions vio
lated Frederick’s constitutional rights. Cf. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194,
202 (2001) (“The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a
right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable
officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted”).

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Stevens, J., dissenting
be drawn as to his intent and meaning.” Id., at 535. In
Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 543 (1965), we vacated a
civil rights leader’s conviction for disturbing the peace, even
though a Baton Rouge sheriff had “deem[ed]” the leader’s
“appeal to . . . students to sit in at the lunch counters to be
‘inflammatory.’ ” We never asked if the sheriff ’s in-person,
on-the-spot judgment was “reasonable.” Even in Fraser,
we made no inquiry into whether the school administrators
reasonably thought the student’s speech was obscene or pro
fane; we rather satisfied ourselves that “[t]he pervasive sex
ual innuendo in Fraser’s speech was plainly offensive to both
teachers and students—indeed to any mature person.” 478
U. S., at 683. Cf. Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United
States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 499 (1984) (“[I]n cases raising First
Amendment issues we have repeatedly held that an appellate
court has an obligation to make an independent examination
of the whole record in order to make sure that the judgment
does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free
expression” (internal quotation marks omitted)).6
6 This same reasoning applies when the interpreter is not just a listener,
but a legislature. We have repeatedly held that “[d]eference to a legisla
tive finding” that certain types of speech are inherently harmful “cannot
limit judicial inquiry when First Amendment rights are at stake,” reason
ing that “the judicial function commands analysis of whether the specific
conduct charged falls within the reach of the statute and if so whether the
legislation is consonant with the Constitution.” Landmark Communica
tions, Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U. S. 829, 843, 844 (1978); see also Whitney v.
California, 274 U. S. 357, 378–379 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (“[A
legislative declaration] does not preclude enquiry into the question
whether, at the time and under the circumstances, the conditions existed
which are essential to validity under the Federal Constitution. . . . When
ever the fundamental rights of free speech and assembly are alleged to
have been invaded, it must remain open to a defendant to present the
issue whether there actually did exist at the time a clear danger; whether
the danger, if any, was imminent; and whether the evil apprehended was
one so substantial as to justify the stringent restriction interposed by
the legislature”). When legislatures are entitled to no deference as to

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444 MORSE v. FREDERICK
Stevens, J., dissenting
To the extent the Court independently finds that “BONG
HiTS 4 JESUS” objectively amounts to the advocacy of il
legal drug use—in other words, that it can most reasonably
be interpreted as such—that conclusion practically refutes
itself. This is a nonsense message, not advocacy. The
Court’s feeble effort to divine its hidden meaning is strong
evidence of that. Ante, at 402 (positing that the banner
might mean, alternatively, “ ‘[Take] bong hits,’ ” “ ‘bong hits
[are a good thing],’ ” or “ ‘[we take] bong hits’ ”). Frederick’s
credible and uncontradicted explanation for the message—
he just wanted to get on television—is also relevant because
a speaker who does not intend to persuade his audience can
hardly be said to be advocating anything.7 But most impor
tantly, it takes real imagination to read a “cryptic” message
(the Court’s characterization, not mine, see ante, at 401) with
a slanting drug reference as an incitement to drug use. Ad
mittedly, some high school students (including those who use
drugs) are dumb. Most students, however, do not shed their
brains at the schoolhouse gate, and most students know
dumb advocacy when they see it. The notion that the mes
sage on this banner would actually persuade either the aver
age student or even the dumbest one to change his or her
behavior is most implausible. That the Court believes such
a silly message can be proscribed as advocacy underscores
the novelty of its position, and suggests that the principle it
articulates has no stopping point.
Even if advocacy could somehow be wedged into Freder
ick’s obtuse reference to marijuana, that advocacy was at
best subtle and ambiguous. There is abundant precedent,
including another opinion The Chief Justice announces
whether particular speech amounts to a “clear and present danger,” id., at
379, it is hard to understand why the Court would so blithely defer to the
judgment of a single school principal.
7 In affirming Frederick’s suspension, the district superintendent ac
knowledged that Frederick displayed his message “for the benefit of tele
vision cameras covering the Torch Relay.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a.

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Stevens, J., dissenting
today, for the proposition that when the “First Amendment
is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker,” Federal Election
Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., post, at 474 (princi
pal opinion), and that “when it comes to defining what speech
qualifies as the functional equivalent of express advocacy . . .
we give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship,”
post, at 482. If this were a close case, the tie would have to
go to Frederick’s speech, not to the principal’s strained read
ing of his quixotic message.
Among other things, the Court’s ham-handed, categorical
approach is deaf to the constitutional imperative to permit
unfettered debate, even among high school students, about
the wisdom of the war on drugs or of legalizing marijuana
for medicinal use.8 See Tinker, 393 U. S., at 511 (“[Students]
may not be confined to the expression of those sentiments
that are officially approved”). If Frederick’s stupid refer
ence to marijuana can in the Court’s view justify censorship,
then high school students everywhere could be forgiven for
zipping their mouths about drugs at school lest some “rea
sonable” observer censor and then punish them for promot
8 The Court’s opinion ignores the fact that the legalization of marijuana
is an issue of considerable public concern in Alaska. The State Supreme
Court held in 1975 that Alaska’s Constitution protects the right of adults
to possess less than four ounces of marijuana for personal use. Ravin v.
State, 537 P. 2d 494. In 1990, the voters of Alaska attempted to undo
that decision by voting for a ballot initiative recriminalizing marijuana
possession. Initiative Proposal No. 2, §§ 1–2 (effective Mar. 3, 1991), 11
Alaska Stat., p. 872 (2006). At the time Frederick unfurled his banner,
the constitutionality of that referendum had yet to be tested. It was sub
sequently struck down as unconstitutional. See Noy v. State, 83 P. 3d 538
(App. 2003). In the meantime, Alaska voters had approved a ballot meas
ure decriminalizing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, 1998 Bal
lot Measure No. 8 (approved Nov. 3, 1998), 11 Alaska Stat., p. 883 (codified
at Alaska Stat. §§ 11.71.190, 17.37.010–17.37.080), and had rejected a much
broader measure that would have decriminalized marijuana possession
and granted amnesty to anyone convicted of marijuana-related crimes, see
2000 Ballot Measure No. 5 (failed Nov. 7, 2000), 11 Alaska Stat., p. 886.

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ing drugs. See also ante, at 426 (Breyer, J., concurring in
judgment in part and dissenting in part).
Consider, too, that the school district’s rule draws no dis
tinction between alcohol and marijuana, but applies even
handedly to all “substances that are illegal to minors.” App.
to Pet. for Cert. 53a; see also App. 83 (expressly defining
“ ‘drugs’ ” to include “all alcoholic beverages”). Given the
tragic consequences of teenage alcohol consumption—drink
ing causes far more fatal accidents than the misuse of mari
juana—the school district’s interest in deterring teenage al
cohol use is at least comparable to its interest in preventing
marijuana use. Under the Court’s reasoning, must the First
Amendment give way whenever a school seeks to punish a
student for any speech mentioning beer, or indeed anything
else that might be deemed risky to teenagers? While I find
it hard to believe the Court would support punishing Freder
ick for flying a “WINE SiPS 4 JESUS” banner—which could
quite reasonably be construed either as a protected religious
message or as a pro-alcohol message—the breathtaking
sweep of its opinion suggests it would.
III
Although this case began with a silly, nonsensical banner,
it ends with the Court inventing out of whole cloth a special
First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any stu
dent speech that mentions drugs, at least so long as someone
could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug mes
sage. Our First Amendment jurisprudence has identified
some categories of expression that are less deserving of
protection than others—fighting words, obscenity, and com
mercial speech, to name a few. Rather than reviewing our
opinions discussing such categories, I mention two personal
recollections that have no doubt influenced my conclusion
that it would be profoundly unwise to create special rules for
speech about drug and alcohol use.

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Stevens, J., dissenting
The Vietnam War is remembered today as an unpopular
war. During its early stages, however, “the dominant opin
ion” that Justice Harlan mentioned in his Tinker dissent re
garded opposition to the war as unpatriotic, if not treason.
393 U. S., at 526. That dominant opinion strongly supported
the prosecution of several of those who demonstrated in
Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chi
cago, see United States v. Dellinger, 472 F. 2d 340 (CA7
1972), and the vilification of vocal opponents of the war like
Julian Bond, cf. Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116 (1966). In 1965,
when the Des Moines students wore their armbands, the
school district’s fear that they might “start an argument or
cause a disturbance” was well founded. Tinker, 393 U. S., at
508. Given that context, there is special force to the Court’s
insistence that “our Constitution says we must take th[at]
risk; and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous
freedom—this kind of openness—that is the basis of our na
tional strength and of the independence and vigor of Ameri
cans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often
disputatious, society.” Id., at 508–509 (citation omitted).
As we now know, the then-dominant opinion about the Viet
nam War was not etched in stone.
Reaching back still further, the current dominant opinion
supporting the war on drugs in general, and our antimari
juana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that
supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when
I was a student. While alcoholic beverages are now re
garded as ordinary articles of commerce, their use was then
condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports
the war on drugs. The ensuing change in public opinion oc
curred much more slowly than the relatively rapid shift in
Americans’ views on the Vietnam War, and progressed on a
state-by-state basis over a period of many years. But just
as prohibition in the 1920’s and early 1930’s was secretly
questioned by thousands of otherwise law-abiding patrons of

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448 MORSE v. FREDERICK
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bootleggers and speakeasies, today the actions of literally
millions of otherwise law-abiding users of marijuana,9 and of
the majority of voters in each of the several States that toler
ate medicinal uses of the product,10 lead me to wonder
whether the fear of disapproval by those in the majority is
silencing opponents of the war on drugs. Surely our na
tional experience with alcohol should make us wary of damp
ening speech suggesting—however inarticulately—that it
would be better to tax and regulate marijuana than to perse
vere in a futile effort to ban its use entirely.
Even in high school, a rule that permits only one point of
view to be expressed is less likely to produce correct answers
than the open discussion of countervailing views. Whitney,
274 U. S., at 377 (Brandeis, J., concurring); Abrams, 250 U. S.,
at 630 (Holmes, J., dissenting); Tinker, 393 U. S., at 512. In
the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression
of the minority’s viewpoint that most demands the protection
of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may
be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the
attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than
suppression of speech because it is unpopular.
I respectfully dissent.
9 See Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. 1, 21, n. 31 (2005) (citing a Government
estimate “that in 2000 American users spent $10.5 billion on the purchase
of marijuana”).
10 Id., at 5 (noting that “at least nine States . . . authorize the use of
marijuana for medicinal purposes”).