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AN UNREASONABLE ARGUMENT AGAINST STUDENT FREE SPEECH
Author(s) -
Blacker David
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
educational theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1741-5446
pISSN - 0013-2004
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2009.00310.x
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , supreme court , context (archaeology) , epistemology , law , morse code , free speech , philosophy , sociology , political science , history , computer science , telecommunications , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology
A bstract The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Morse v. Frederick (2007), perhaps better known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, contains a widely reported concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas. Challenging well‐established precedent, Thomas argues that students should have no constitutional rights in school. In this essay David Blacker argues that, while philosophically interesting, Thomas’s argument is unreasonable on legal hermeneutic grounds and should therefore be rejected, even by those who may be sympathetic to its conclusions. Toward his own argument, Blacker provides, first, an account of what is reasonable and unreasonable in the juridical context of the students’ rights debate and, second, an explanation of how Thomas’s argument fits into the “unreasonable” category. Still further toward these ends, Blacker analyzes the Morse case in light of the current constitutional framework for student free‐speech rights (with a heuristic). He concludes with speculation about the role nostalgia plays in Thomas’s line of reasoning.