The Supreme Court ruled against the Alaskan high school kid that held up a sign “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” as the Olympic torch passed near Juneau in 2002. The school district suspended him and thus began the court battle.

While your first impulse might be to lambast the court for yet another infringement on our rights, namely freedom of speech, not so fast. Many reporters fail to leave out a very important fact in this case… the student was taking part in an officially school-sanctioned event. In addition, the kid’s sign was advocating an illegal activity.

This is not a case of a school district being able to limit what students do in their free time. This does not mean that schools can sack a student for having a controversial MySpace or Facebook page. It just means that while taking part in a school activity, you have to obey the guidelines of conduct set forth by the school.

I’d be the first one to defend the prankster if the facts were different. This never was a free speech case… it was simply a case of not wanting to take your punishment when you break the rules.