I don't care whether you consider "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" to be political speech. Did the court? I don't recall hearing that Morse v Frederick only applied to non-political speech.
And other than the age restriction, the only thing you can come up with is that it was restricted to only apply to the government agency that citizens of that age are required to interact with for most of their daily life, and can be reasonably expected to have the most cause to be protesting? That sure as hell doesn't narrow it down much more than the age restriction alone.
That's a huge restriction. School is where children are socialized.[1] It's a unique environment in our historical tradition and a unique set of rules are applicable.
[1] You might call it brainwashing, but society has historically valued this function very highly and protected it. Certainly during the founders time.
" I don't recall hearing that Morse v Frederick only applied to non-political speech."
Farther up in the thread you mention that you are unfamiliar with the Morse decision. Has this changed now? If not I recommend scanning the wikipedia article:
"Roberts rejoined that “not even Frederick argues that the banner conveys any sort of political or religious message;” “this is plainly not a case about political debate over the criminalization of drug use or possession.”" [1]
I said I was unfamiliar with the details. I certainly remember the general circumstances that were at issue, but I never read the ruling or a detailed analysis of it, so I don't know just how restrictive the wording is, which is what I'm now asking about. Your quotes seem to be very nearly on-topic, but it's not clear to me whether they imply that the school's powers would have been different had the speech been a more traditional and recognizable form of political protest. If Morse v Frederick indeed does not apply to the more coherent forms of protest, then I would certainly consider that to be significantly narrowing.
I don't know why you are taking my word or anyone else's word for it on HN. If you want to read a quick discussion of the court's ruling just look at 2.1.1-2.1.3 on the wikipedia page:
You can stop pointing me at the Wikipedia article. I've read it, and it still doesn't answer the question. I'd give more weight to a HN comment that does answer the question than to the wiki article that doesn't, even if the comment is just secondhand recollections that somebody qualified clearly said the ruling doesn't affect the legal status of speech that is clearly political. Did Morse overturn Tinker with the help of anti-drug scaremongering, or was Morse actually a narrow ruling on something not covered by Tinker?
Edit: By searching SCOTUSBlog, it appears that the answer may be that the ruling itself is pretty unclear about how broad or narrow it is, though Kennedy and Alito's concurrence clearly states that it doesn't apply to political speech. I guess we can at least agree that Morse might be a pretty narrow ruling.
And other than the age restriction, the only thing you can come up with is that it was restricted to only apply to the government agency that citizens of that age are required to interact with for most of their daily life, and can be reasonably expected to have the most cause to be protesting? That sure as hell doesn't narrow it down much more than the age restriction alone.