Students told to keep quiet on sex case

      Bishop Gorman High School officials threatened this week to expel any student who speaks to the media about a recent teacher-student sex scandal.
      The move, announced in a Jan. 6 letter, enraged several parents and students who acknowledge the private school's right to institute policy but who nonetheless called it an infringement on free-speech rights.
      "They shouldn't tell us what to do," said 18-year-old Gorman senior Marcus Williams. "They're trying to hide it and say everything's cool."
      Yet the Rev. Patrick Leary, vicar general for the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas, said the school fully intends to enforce its new rule and noted, "If they find it that oppressive here, they don't have to go to Bishop Gorman High School."
      The revision to the parent-student handbook comes after a month of publicity surrounding the arrest of Jack David Patton, 28, on 13 counts of sexual misconduct. Patton, a religion teacher for more than two years at Las Vegas' only Catholic high school, resigned from the school Dec. 7 after being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by Diocese officials. Two female students told the school and police they had sex with Patton in his Henderson home.
      The former educator is being charged under a new state law effective in October that made it a felony for teachers to have sex with students under age 18. A conviction on one count could carry one to five years of prison time.
      Another Gorman teacher, Michael Kotek, also resigned amid the investigation, but does not face any criminal charges. Henderson police said Kotek kissed a student but stopped before the interaction progressed further.
      The new directive stated: "No student enrolled at Bishop Gorman High School is authorized or allowed to speak or provide information to the media ... concerning Messrs Patton and Kotek and the alleged events surrounding their resignation. Violations ... will result in immediate dismissal."
      Leary said the policy was adopted in part because of word that a story on the Patton controversy is in the works for Hard Copy, a national daily tabloid television news show. He said he also believes the policy bans students from discussing the letter as well, though the letter does not state that.
      "We just really felt that the school is not best served by students speaking to the media without any serious reflection," Leary said. "Frankly, a 17-year-old student's opinion does not carry the same weight as that of a school administrator."
      Hard Copy managing editor Debra Weeks confirmed the show planned a Gorman story to air in the next two weeks.
      The letter may have reignited rather than calmed the controversy. The first thing several parents did when they received it in the mail was call or write the media.
      "This flies in the face of freedom of speech, freedom of press," said the father of a 10th-grade girl who asked for anonymity because of the school's threat of retaliation. "How can they give a directive like this? The damage is done, and some scrutiny (of Gorman's hiring practices) may correct the screening process or lack thereof that caused this problem to begin with. This is crazy. I can't imagine they actually signed this."
      Local free-speech attorneys said they were alarmed, but recognized that Gorman may have the right to expel students at will.
      "This is really quite extreme, rather silly and really unworkable," attorney Allen Lichtenstein said. "If people want to talk to the media, they'll talk to the media and say 'Don't use my name.' It's going to backfire, because it's going to cause more grief than anything else."
      Attorney Jonell Thomas agreed.
      "You can envision all kinds of horrors that could flow from this," Thomas said. "The inability (to speak out) is disturbing. I'm just not sure if it's unconstitutional."
      Clark County School District spokesman Ray Willis said the public school system would never consider such a policy.
      "We encourage openness to the fullest extent possible, unlike Bishop Gorman," Willis said. "They are free to make a decision like that, but we are not."
      Leary made no apologies for the rule, insisting families that don't like it can find another school to attend. He also scolded critics who complained to the media anonymously.
      "If they didn't have the courtesy to come forward and talk to us about their objections, frankly I don't know if we want them at Bishop Gorman," Leary said. "We have no barbed wire around school to keep students in."