by Judith Levine

About the author: Judith Levine is a journalist, essayist, and the coauthor of Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex. The following viewpoint is excerpted from Shooting the Messenger: Why Censorship Won’t Stop Violence, a report that Levine prepared for the Media Coalition, a free speech advocacy group.

In May 1999, shortly after the Littleton, Colorado, murders, a North Carolina high-school student typed the words “The end is near” on a computer screen as a joke about millennial madness. Another student saw the message, called it a threat, and the school agreed. The boy was expelled for a year, then arrested. After three nights in jail, he was found guilty in state court. His original 45-day jail sentence was suspended, but he was...