A fourteen foot banner with the words, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" is the subject of a case now before the SCOTUS.  The extent of schools’ control over student speech is the issue, and whether the school administrator who removed the banner will be liable for monetary damages.  The district court ruled in favor of the School Board and administrator Deborah Morse. Frederick v. Morse, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27270 (D. Alaska 2003). The Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court and granted the case to Frederick. Read about it here. Despite deciding that the incident took place during a school event, the court held that Frederick’s student speech rights were violated. The unanimous panel decision was written by Judge Andrew Kleinfeld.  The school board asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision. The docket number is 06-278.

The influence of law reviews may be in sharp decline, according to Adam Liptak, legal correspondent for The New York Times in his Sidebar column today.  The column takes a provocative look at this venerable bastion of legal scholarship, which is also discussed in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Law Reviews Are Increasingly Irrelevant, Judges Say."