More information on Supreme Court student speech decision

School administrators are pleased with the decision handed down by the U. S. Supreme Court Monday limiting students' First Amendment rights, but the decision did not go as far as some of the administrators and the Bush Administration would have liked, according to an article in today's Washington Post:

Still, the court did not accept the broadest claims of Juneau school officials and some of their supporters, including the Bush administration, who had urged the justices to empower schools to restrict messages contrary to their "educational mission."

Two members of the majority, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy, made it clear that they gave Roberts the fourth and fifth votes he needed on the understanding that yesterday's ruling applied only to advocacy of illegal drug use.

In a concurring opinion joined by Kennedy, Alito wrote that yesterday's ruling "provides no support for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue," including student opposition to the drug laws themselves.