Tasering the first amendment?

As Stevenson students debate whether the first amendment protects their senior t-shirts, a different free speech battle has erupted in Colorado.

On Friday, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper for Colorado State University, ran a four-word editorial that read: "Taser this . . . F--- Bush."

The profane editorial was a response to last week's Tasering of a University of Florida student who disrupted a forum with Sen. John Kerry.

Asked by CNN if the editorial could be characterized as vulgar or sophomoric, student editor David McSwane said he "wouldn't entirely disagree."

"We wanted people to understand that free speech is something we should talk about," he told CNN. "We felt that this campus, for one reason or another, has been really apathetic. Too quiet. We felt that the best way to spark that dialogue was to exercise it ourselves."

College Republicans at Colorado State University collected more than 300 signatures calling on CSU's Board of Student Communications to fire McSwane.

Patriot of ’76 can’t help to think of the Hazelwood decision in 1988. The Rehnquist Court ruled that public school student newspapers are not forums for student expression, and are therefore not fully protected by the first amendment.

This, however, was on a college campus. Should the rules be more relaxed?

PO ’76 is reminded of another case, this one involving the use of profanity. In 1973, the Court set up a test to see when speech is obscene (not protected) or expression (is protected). The Miller Test goes as follows.

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

Does the editorial pass the Miller Test? Is it protected expression, or obscene speech?

The beauty of our constitution is its brevity. It’s short, and can be interpreted in many different ways. What’s your interpretation?