Interesting Article About Student Newspaper Freedom of Speech

This is in Fallon, Nevada. I wonder if the same thing would have happened had it been an administrator who was the target of the article:

A Nevada school newspaper has been allowed to run an article critical of a teacher, even though a teachers’ union sought to block its publication.

The article by senior Lauren MacLean at Churchill County High School in Fallon is scheduled to run Friday in the school’s paper, “The Flash.”

Her story focuses on parents who contend that music teacher Kathy Archey withheld some student audition tapes for a prestigious state competition for aspiring student musicians.

Some parents said their children were devastated to learn their tapes had not been submitted to program organizers.

Here is the article in question, which will be published tomorrow.

And this is an update regarding the controversy:

The Lahontan Valley News has learned the Churchill County Edcuation Association filed a second grievance today against Churchill County School Superintendent Carolyn Ross for a news article that will appear Friday in the high school student newspaper.

Ross confirmed today the CCEA filed a new grievance against her for releasing information about an original grievance the teachers' union filed to suppress a student article in the “Greenwave Flash.”

The Lahontan Valley News and the Las Vegas Review Journal first reported on attempts from the teachers' association trying to quash the publication of a news article. Student Lauren Mac Lean, 17, wrote an article about parent advocates demanding the district investigate Honor Choir audition practices after parents discovered evidence that the music teacher failed to submit an unknown number of student audition tapes to the region head of the Nevada Music Educators Association Honor/All State Choir program.

The CCEA cited an article of the teacher protection policy stating: “No teacher shall be disciplined, suspended, reduced in rank or compensation, adversely evaluated in a manner which could affect the teacher's employment or lead to dismissal or nonrenewal, transferred, dismissed, not-renewed, terminate or otherwise deprived of any professional advantage without just cause.”

The more I read about this, the more I agree with the union. The administrators had NO right to allow this paper to print the article. Reputations are fragile things, and, in this case, there is NO misconduct on the part of the teacher to warrant any kind of investigation. This NOT a First Amendment matter; this is the right of a teacher to continue with her career without having her reputation slandered.

This is advice that Associated Press and the Reno Gazette-Journal should take to heart. They printed MY name and the name of a school counselor in a bogus lawsuit while the parent who filed it is allowed protection from publicity, even though her name is on the lawsuit. They didn't care whether the suit had any merit; WE professionals were "guilty" of "negligence," regardless of the fact very, very few of these lawsuits ever have any merit whatsoever. There should be a state law against any paper being allowed to print the names of teachers who are defendants in a civil action because of the ease to which their reputations can be destroyed.