The State - News from March 5, 1985

High school officials were wrong to punish a student for making a sexually suggestive speech during a school assembly, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. In a split decision, the San Francisco-based court found that school authorities in Spanaway, Wash., a Tacoma suburb, acted illegally in suspending Matthew Fraser, 17, and removing his name from the list of candidates for graduation speaker after he delivered a speech in which he referred to a candidate for student vice president in sexually suggestive terms. A U.S. district judge awarded Fraser $13,000 in damages for violation of his constitutional rights, and ordered the school to let him speak at commencement ceremonies. In upholding the ruling, the court called “Freedom to be different in our . . . manner of expression” a “core constitutional value.”