Student wins battle over protecting immigration editorial
By GENE POLICINSKI
First Amendment Center
Friday, February 22, 2008 11:33 PM EST

News happens, on occasion, even when something doesn’t happen - as in a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to consider an appeal involving a California high school student’s editorial writings on immigration.

The decision not to decide leaves intact a California court holding on basic principles about free speech, and particularly speech that some, many or even most of us would prefer not to hear.
Andrew Smith was a senior at Novato High School, in northern California, when he wrote a newspaper editorial published in 2001 that, in part, said immigrants who could not work legally might earn money through “drug dealing, robbery or even welfare. Others prefer to work with manual labor while being paid under the table tax free.â€