In a concurrence to the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” decision announced this morning, Justice Clarence Thomas announced that he believes public school students have no First Amendment free speech rights at all. Nobody else on the Court agreed with him, but it’s a fascinating window into his mind.

Although colonial schools were exclusively private, public education proliferated in the early 1800’s. By the time the States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, public schools had become relatively common…. If students in public schools were originally understood as having free-speech rights, one would have expected 19th-century public schools to have respected those rights and courts to have enforced them. They did not.

But I thought originalists were interested in the original understanding of the Constitution’s framers or in the original meaning of the Constitution’s language. The practices of people in the early 1800s, even if those people were closer in time to the Constitution than we are, do not hold the same precedential value. This is a stretch.

Thomas also writes, and appears to endorse, the following (citations deleted):

Like their private counterparts, early public schools were not places for freewheeling debates or exploration of competing ideas. Rather, teachers instilled “a core of common values” in students and taught them self-control. Schools punished students for behavior the school considered disrespectful or wrong. Rules of etiquette were enforced, and courteous behavior was demanded. To meet their educational objectives, schools required absolute obedience.

In short, in the earliest public schools, teachers taught, and students listened. Teachers commanded, and students obeyed. Teachers did not rely solely on the power of ideas to persuade; they relied on discipline to maintain order.

He later writes, “To be sure, our educational system faces administrative and pedagogical challenges different from those faced by 19th-century schools. And the idea of treating children as though it were still the 19th century would find little support today.” Yet it doesn’t seem to change his mind.

But this is what really riles me:

But I see no constitutional imperative requiring public schools to allow all student speech. Parents decide whether to send their children to public schools [citation deleted]. If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move. Whatever rules apply to student speech in public schools, those rules can be challenged by parents in the political process.

The idea that Thomas believes everyone is rich enough to send their kids to public schools, or rich enough to have one parent stay at home and home school the kids, or rich enough to move elsewhere, pisses me off.

Actually… the more I read his concurrence, the more I realize that the general thrust makes sense: school should be a place of discipline. But the idea that a school board should have unbridled power to prohibit students from saying anything at all about anything? Including engaging in debate on the issues of the day? Come on.

It’s just nutty.