The California Supreme Court this week let stand an appeals court ruling that high schools can’t censor their students in student media. Even if those students are stunningly, ridiculously stupid.

Former Novato High School student journalist Andrew Smith filed a suit against the Novato Unified School District for publicly condemning two columns he wrote for The Buzz, the school paper. The district also tried to confiscate all copies of the piece, which he wrote in 2001.

In the most controversial of his columns, Smith said the key to solving the country’s illegal immigration situation is to have the police roundup anyone who doesn’t speak English:

“It can’t be hard to find and detain the people who can’t speak English. If a person looks suspicious than just stop them and ask a few questions, and if they answer ‘que?,’ detain them and see if they are legal.”

Smith was reprimanded, and his case became a cause celeb for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a politically conservative-oriented group, and the ACLU, which probably made for awkward pillow talk.

For those of you wondering, “Smith now lives in Petaluma, attends Santa Rosa Junior College and is in the Marine Corps reserves,” according to CBS.