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The story began Jan. 24, 2002, while the Olympic Torch Relay toured the snowy streets of the state capital through streets lined with onlookers. Frederick, standing with friends across the street from the school, held up his banner as television cameras rolled nearby.

Morse confiscated the banner, had a talk with Frederick and eventually levied a 10-day suspension from school.

Frederick sued, and the case began moving up through the court system. Now it has gone as high as it can go.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on an issue that has garnered national attention from free speech advocates, prominent school organizations and major media outlets.

As things stand, the onus is on the educators.

In March 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned an Alaska court ruling and decided in favor of Frederick. The appellate panel found Morse personally liable for violating his First Amendment rights. Morse and the Juneau School board petitioned and got a Supreme Court hearing.

In commenting on Morse v. Frederick, many legal experts cite the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. In that 1969 decision, the justices ruled in favor of students who were expelled for wearing symbolic black armbands to protest the Vietnam War.

Students "do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gate," the majority opinion read.

"It's a rather major opinion," Collins said. "Since then, when that case was argued, the Supreme Court in a couple of other cases cut back on the rights for student expression."

Vulgar, lewd and offensive speech may be prohibited during school, according to a 1986 ruling in Bethel School District v. Fraser. That case went against a student who was suspended after delivering an explicit speech making sexual references to fellow students.

Bruce Hunter, associate executive director of public policy for the American Association of School Administrators, likens the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case to the Bethel decision, citing its disruption of a school-sanctioned event, even though the event wasn't on school grounds, and students were only a fraction of those taking part.

"This speech was not off-color, but it promoted drug use and made fun of the central figure in the Christian religion, which is also offensive, like demeaning a central figure in any religion," he wrote in an e-mail.

Hunter contends that the students were still "in school" during the morning of the torch relay and that the administrators would have been responsible if, for example, one of them happened to be injured during the event.

Collins said student speech rights took another hit in the 1988 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier case, involving a principal who confiscated two pages of a student newspaper, claiming inappropriate references to sexual activity. The court again ruled in favor of the administrator.

"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," the majority decision said.

"Bottom line, the precedent set on Tinker ... has been undermined since 1969," Collins said. "The question is what will this case do to a precedent that is already in jeopardy."

That's why a lot is at stake now, he said. That may be the one area where both sides agree.

"It may be that this latest case that the court could drive another stake in the heart of student expression," Collins said.

Tom Hutton, staff attorney with the National School Board Association, also noted the potential for a significant impact. In general, student free speech and administrators' rights have become murky since the Supreme Court's last significant ruling, he said.

"The lower courts have kind of made a mash of things," Hutton said. "The courts need to provide more clarity in this area of law because there are a lot of lawsuits, and every dime that is spent on these costs comes out of some child's education."

The issue is tough enough for lawyers who can debate for hours, let alone for a principal trying to act quickly and decisively, Hutton said.

"We argue that judges need to give school officials a little more benefit of the doubt in these borderline cases," Hutton said.

Attorney Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, an alliance of 50 nonprofit organizations founded in 1974, said it is difficult to know why the justices decide to hear specific cases. People can't be sure if they took Morse v. Frederick to address the free speech issue, the liability issue, or some combination.

"It's a little bit of crystal-ball gazing, since we don't know where the justices will end up," Bertin said.

It's not even clear if the court with decide to decide. The justices could still decline to hear the case for any number of reasons. If they do take up some or all of the issues, a quick decision would be practically unheard of. No opinion could be expected for weeks at least.

"It's really going to be hard to avoid the clear facts here," Bertin said. "Nobody denied where Joseph Fredrick was when he did what he did, they just drew different conclusions from it."

The NSBA and others on Morse's side want to argue for greater clarity of school administrators' roles, and have no desire to stifle free speech, Hutton said.

"That's not what happened in Fraser, and that's not what happened in Hazelwood," he said. "We're hopeful that they'll provide more clarity, but we'll just have to see how they approach it."

School should be a place where teachers and administrators educate students on the importance on the First Amendment and the role of freedom of speech in American society, Collins said. If the court rules against Frederick, it could have the opposite effect, he said.

"One would hope that they wouldn't throw the student out with the bathwater," Collins said. "One would hope that one would realize that there is a place for the First Amendment properly used by students in the school atmosphere."

• Eric Morrison can be reached at eric.morrison@juneauempire.com.