Sample Student Speech Exam Question (Suggested time:
1 hour) (50 points)
Paul Park is a 16 year-old junior at the High School for Social
Justice (HSSJ), a public high school. HSSJ has a specialized
curriculum that includes a variety of social justice issues.
Students like Paul Park who join the Social Justice Club, one of
the school’s major extracurricular clubs, are encouraged by the
club’s advisor, a government teacher at the high school named Nat
Fraser, to create a social justice project in which they develop a
plan to advocate for a social justice issue they select and work
to implement their social justice plan. The work on the social
justice project is not a required part of the curriculum, is not
part of a course for credit, is not graded, and is not supervised
by Mr. Fraser unless a student seeks his assistance. Mr. Fraser
does, however, display information about the various social
justice projects created by members of the Social Justice Club on
a bulletin board in his classroom.
Paul Park, who joined the Social Justice Club when he was a
sophomore, decided to develop a social justice plan to advocate
for changes in the alcohol beverage control laws to allow some
teenage purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages. To
accomplish this goal, he created an organization called Support
Legalization of Alcohol for Minors (SLAM). Paul believes that the
current alcohol beverage laws that prevent people under the age of
21 from purchasing or being served alcohol are unfair as well as
foolish and do not encourage responsible drinking.
In implementing his social justice plan, Paul Park created a
variety of social media pages to publicize and gain public support
for his SLAM organization. He created all of the social media
pages using his home computer. The social media pages, in addition
to containing the SLAM name and logo (a wine glass with the number
16 and an up arrow on the glass), provide information about the
laws in other countries that allow underage drinking, the lower
rates of drunk driving and other alcohol-related problems in those
countries, a proposed law that would legalize the sale and
consumption of alcoholic beverages with low alcohol content to
persons 16 and older, and the opportunity to purchase SLAM
t-shirts. His t-shirts include the SLAM name and logo and various
slogans including “You’re old enough. Support Legalization of
Alcohol for Minors” and “Sweet 16 and ready to drink. Support
Legalization of Alcohol for Minors.”
In addition to the social media pages and the SLAM t-shirts, Paul
prepared a flyer that contained information about SLAM, links to
its social media presence, and advertisements for the t-shirts
that could be purchased. He brought copies of the flyer to school
and handed them out to students in the hallways between classes
and in the cafeteria. As a result of the flyers, 20 students asked
Paul Park if they could purchase SLAM t-shirts. He told them that
they could order them on any of SLAM’s social media pages and that
he would bring them to school after they placed an order. As a
result, over a several week period Paul delivered t-shirts to 20
of his classmates who began to wear the shirts to school.
When they were worn to school, the shirts caused comments in the
hallways and discussions in the cafeteria and during recess about
SLAM and whether Paul’s proposed law was a good idea or not. In
addition, the parents of 8 students who bought the shirts and wore
them to school called Sylvia Sanchez, the high school principal,
to complain that their children, some as young as 14, were wearing
the SLAM shirts promoting underage drinking. They were upset that
the school would allow a student to promote something as dangerous
as drinking alcohol.
After receiving the phone calls from upset parents, and
anticipating that other parents would complain as well, the
principal called Paul Park into her office. She told him that his
conduct in promoting SLAM to students at the school by
distributing flyers and t-shirts to HSSJ students violated the
student conduct code because it qualified as disruptive conduct.
Ms. Sanchez asked Paul to cease promoting SLAM at school or he
would be disciplined for violating the student conduct code. In
response, Paul told Ms. Sanchez that he believed he had a First
Amendment right to continue to promote SLAM. Since Paul Park
refused to cease promoting SLAM at school, Ms. Sanchez told him
that she had no choice, but to suspend him for 5 days.
After unsuccessfully appealing his suspension to the School Board,
Paul Park’s parents brought a lawsuit on his behalf against the
High School for Social Justice and Principal Sanchez claiming that
his First Amendment rights were violated by suspending him for
distributing SLAM flyers and t-shirts at school.
You are a law clerk to the judge assigned to the case. The judge
asks you to write a memorandum detailing the First Amendment
arguments available to Paul Park to challenge his suspension as
well as the First Amendment arguments available to the High School
for Social Justice and Principal Sanchez to defend the decision to
suspend Paul Park.