FACTBOX-Supreme court "Bong hits 4 Jesus" case

(Reuters) - A high school student suspended for unfurling a banner bearing the nonsensical phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" did not have his rights violated, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

Following are some facts about the case, the court's first major decision on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years.

* The case involves a Juneau, Alaska, high school student suspended for unfurling a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

* The incident occurred during school hours but on a public sidewalk across from the school.

* Student Joseph Frederick said the banner's language was meant to be meaningless and funny in an effort to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002.

* Principal Deborah Morse said the phrase "bong hits" referred to smoking marijuana. She suspended Frederick for 10 days because the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

* In arguments before the Supreme Court in March, Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor who investigated former President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, contended that Morse acted reasonably and in accord with the school's anti-drug mission.

* Frederick's lawyer, Douglas Mertz, argued that the court should not abandon its famous 1969 ruling that pupils do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate" -- which allowed students to wear black armbands in class to protest the Vietnam War.

* The high court's major rulings on the issue since 1969 went against students. The court ruled in 1986 that a student does not have a free-speech right to give a sexually suggestive speech at an assembly and in 1988 that school newspapers can be censored.