No right to criticize a teacher?

Last summer we hung a colorful two-story-tall banner in the atrium of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Sewn into the tapestry are the 45 pithy words of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Our goal was to likewise engrave the words on the minds of future journalists.

I love the banner, but I'm thinking about taking it down and driving it out to the Churchill County Education Association, which seems to know less about the First Amendment than our students do. The association tried -- unsuccessfully -- to block publication of an article in The Flash, the student newspaper at Churchill County High School in Fallon. The carefully written article reported that some parents are upset because, in their view, a music teacher unfairly dealt with some audition tapes for a state choral competition.

In a unique twist in the history of attempts to silence student papers, the Churchill County Education Association, the teachers' union, filed a grievance trying to prevent publication of the article by claiming it might make the music teacher look bad, which would violate the union's contract. Even the besieged singers in Fox's hit TV show, "Glee," couldn't make up a story line saying that boilerplate in a union contract trumps the Constitution.

I tried to ask the association why teachers instead wouldn't treat this as a teachable moment, explaining to students that the First Amendment encourages freedom of the press rather than "abridging" it, to use the words of the Constitution. No one called me back, and I can see why.

"Of all people, a teachers' union should really appreciate the benefit of an uncensored student publication because student publications are often the last line of defense for the employees," said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "Public employees have almost no First Amendment right to blow the whistle on conditions in their own workplace, so if students aren't revealing what's going on in schools" it doesn't get revealed. (Full disclosure: I'm on the center's board.)

Fortunately, Churchill High School's principal and the county school superintendent realize that experience, not censorship, is the best way for students to learn about the Constitution and about journalism.

"The process is the students have a right to express themselves," Superintendent Carolyn Ross told me. She, as well as the school's principal, read the article before it was published. "It's informative," Ross said. (The education association, by the way, has filed a second grievance -- because Ross discussed the case with the press. On second thought, maybe they need two banners over in Fallon.)

That right to expression leads directly to learning. "It's well accepted in the journalism-education community that students learn best in a lightly supervised environment where the ultimate judgment calls are theirs," LoMonte said. "They take pride in the product and they take ownership in the decision-making. That's how leaders are born."

So what has Lauren Mac Lean, the 17-year-old who wrote the story and edits The Flash, learned?

Well, it goes back to that banner. Even professional journalists forget about their First Amendment rights sometimes, Lauren said. Those rights "should be on everyone's mind. ... They certainly will be on my mind every time I write an article."

Jerry Ceppos is dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno and former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News.