Abstract
The Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick signaled that public school authority over student expression extends beyond the schoolhouse gate. This authority may extend to any activity in which a student participates that the school has officially sanctioned. The author argues that this decision is unsupported by precedent, and could encourage schools to sanction more events in the future. Because the Court failed to limit or define the power of a school to sanction an activity, the decision could have a chilling effect on even protected student expression. The author commends the Court for taking up this issue after a long silence, but concludes that the messy facts in the case chosen made the case a poor vehicle for the Court to address the underlying school-speech issues.
Repository Citation
Sonja R. West,
Sanctionable Conduct: How the Supreme Court Stealthily Opened the Schoolhouse Gate
(2008),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/784