Washington ? The Supreme Court stepped into a dispute over free speech Friday involving a suspended high school student and his banner that proclaimed “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

The justices agreed to hear the appeal by the Juneau, Alaska, school board and Principal Deborah Morse of a lower court ruling that allowed the student’s civil rights lawsuit to proceed. The school board hired former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to argue its case to the high court.

Morse suspended Joseph Frederick after he displayed the banner, with its reference to marijuana use, when the Olympic torch passed through Juneau in 2002 on its way to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Frederick, then a senior, was off school property when he hoisted the banner but was suspended for violating the school’s policy of promoting illegal substances at a school-sanctioned event.

It also will consider a request from the Bush administration to kill a lawsuit challenging the White House’s promotion of federal financing for faith-based charities.

The court also agreed to hear an appeal from federal Bureau of Land Management officials who are trying to stop a lawsuit by Wyoming ranch owner Harvey Frank Robbins. Robbins accuses federal officials of persecuting him in an effort to get him to give the government access to roads that cut across his land.

In the banner case, the school board upheld the suspension, and a federal judge initially dismissed Frederick’s lawsuit. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the banner was vague and nonsensical and Frederick’s civil rights had been violated.

The appeals court said that even if the banner could be construed as a positive message about marijuana use, the school could not punish or censor a student’s speech because it promotes a social message contrary to one the school favors.

Frederick said his motivation for unfurling the banner, at least 14 feet long, was simple: He wanted it seen on television because the torch relay event was being covered by local stations. When Morse saw it, she crossed the street from the school, grabbed the banner and crumpled it. She later suspended Frederick for 10 days.