Official photo
Emma Sullivan of Prairie Village, Kansas, will not be apologizing to Governor Sam Brownback for tweeting on a school trip to the capital that he's not her kind of guy. Instead, Governor Sam Brownback has said he's sorry for his staff's overreaction to the high school senior's tweet. "I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum," Governor Brownback said, in a statement.
The prize for clarity goes to Jezebel for getting why a high school kid in Kansas might object to having Sam Brownback in charge:
Sullivan points to his veto of the Kansas Arts Commission's entire budget, which makes Kansas the only state in the country to eliminate arts funding and Brownback the living embodiment of Sue Sylvester. Plus, he believes homosexuality is immoral and has consistently voted against gay rights, and signed into law a number of insane anti-abortion measures in the state, including a "fetal pain" ban on abortion after 21 weeks and the attempt to make Kansas the first state with no abortion providers due to inadequately sized janitor's closets. To be fair, we've never met the Governor, so we can't confirm that "in person #heblowsalot." However, we're willing to take Sullivan's word for it.
Think of it as Emma Sullivan's second draft. For those not in Kansas, the thing about the Arts Commission might seem obscure. Producer Rebekah Dryden, a Kansas native, points out that in many parts of her state, the Arts Commission is the only cultural anything around.
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I've been waiting to see this story here. It is odd to say the least. I'm sure it will be spun into political hay but I don't think it is much. Here are my thoughts and questions.
1. I'm not sure what exactly what she said but it did not seem that bad except for the slang word "suck."
2. I would like to know what school administrators would have done had she verbalized this instead of tweeting.
3. I don't see it as a free speech issue. You can't say anything you want in a school environment, setting, or sponsored event. The rules that apply in these conditions should also apply to tweeting.
she didn't say it in school. she said it online, to a private collection of 64ish friends. She also didn't say anything that resembled hate speech, or slander or libel, especially seeing as though it was an opinion, and expressed to the 60 some odd people following her.
What would you do in a school setting if someone was sitting with 60 people she knew at a lunchroom table and said "the governor sucks"? Would you make them write an apology with spelled out talking points?
Might want to look into your #3 point. Students are given quite a bit of latitude with what they can say. My guess is that you THINK this is what applies and not what you KNOW applies.
Now think about this. It was a school sponsored event she was at.
No one caught her tweeting this message. She was caught because Brownback's staff was looking at social media sites. (Why were THEY doing that?) Then. Rather than ignore it, Brownback uses the power of his office to go after this girl. I have a REAL problem with this part of this story.
I work as a recruiter. I tell all candidates about Facebook, Twitter, etc. and applying for a job. Don't want a potential employer finding the picture of you drunk and naked at a party. That's one thing. For a GOVERNMENTAL official to use the power of their office against someone, is entirely a different situation. If that isn't what the first amendment is about, I don't know what it covers.
"3. I don't see it as a free speech issue. You can't say anything you want in a school environment, setting, or sponsored event. The rules that apply in these conditions should also apply to tweeting."
You are incorrect. Your First Amendment rights do not stop at the school doors and that is a ruling from the SCOTUS. Schools do not have free rein to control all speech, particularly when it occurs outside of the school. These rulings came during the Vietnam era.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does apply to students, albeit in a more limited manner. Sullivan was well within her First Amendment rights to post what she did.
This young lady is obviously intelligent enough to have her own opinion and to state it, good for her. She is most certainly old enough to fight and possibly die in the phony war we have been fighting for the last decade, of course she has first amendments rights. You go girl and stick to your convictions.
This is such a non-story it makes my brain hurt. The only thing relevant here is that Brownback's staff threw a tissy fit about nothing. The only reason why this student got in trouble was because Brownback's office called her school and demanded she apologize for the Tweet. Her principal, then, told her she had to apologize and the student (understandably pissed off at how stupid this whole situation was) went and told the media outlets who then stupidly decided it was worth regurgitating forward to the rest of the nation.
From The LA Times:
That's all she Tweeted. Brownback's staffers apparently monitor websites like Twitter and Facebook for mentions of Gov. Brownback and when they saw the Tweet (and subsequently the event she was attending) they became outraged. Brownback himself apparently wants no association w/ his staff's reaction so either a. Brownback got his feelings hurt and then realized he was acting more immature than a friggin 18 year old girl OR b. someone on his staff thought he/she'd be able to score points for this one and it ended up blowing up in his/her face. In either case it's just beyond obnoxiously stupid.
For the record I don't know how her school would've reacted had it been said outloud. More than likely her school wouldn't have given a damn unless it brought whining to the principals office. Politics at it's best, le sighs.
As far as the 3rd I would tentatively disagree. What a student says via Twitter or Facebook shouldn't be monitored by the school. It's irrelevant whether or not the student was at something the school sponsored or attending classes; Twitter is a privately owned business that doesn't directly affect anything the school (or taxpayers) do NOR does what a student say on Twitter represent anything relevant (either to the school or the students themselves). What is next? Will we suddenly demand a 16 year old girl who Tweets she's pregnant during gym class tell her parents? What if a student lies and says he aces a test that he really failed? Should we demand that he make a public apology for "misleading" his friends? I mean sorry, but people need to grow the blank up when it comes to this stuff. News flash adults: not everything you see, hear, or read on the Internet is real!
I do think on a side note that this whole event re-iterates a point made by Steve Jobs about social media, privacy, and name changes....very interesting.
On another note: It was the Student Government program which was being hosted at the Capital building.
One point of agreement, one point of disagreement.
1. I agree that this was really a non-issue and who ever contacted the event sponsor or school really did a dumb thing, allowing it to get traction and become a negative news story for the governor.
2. I don't believe a student's twitter post during school or at a school sponsored event is totally free speech or a private endeavor. For instance, they couldn't bully another student via twitter. Or, they couldn't not write profanity on a piece of paper and pass it around to 64ish friends and once brought to administrator's attention, claim "freedom of speech."
Granted, the mild almost innocuous content of this girl's post does not rise in my opinion to a level warranting ANY intervention by the school.
This (2.), to me, is the more interesting aspect of the story. Teachers are definitely catching negative attention from recent tweets from bad mouthing the students in general to much more salacious comments. No right or wrong/black or white, just an interesting aspect of really what should be a "non-story."
Mouser:
Ditto.
Governor Sam Brownback is trying to use gestapo tactics to make people like him.
I don't really know how I feel about the school getting involved w/ cyber-bullying. I do not think that teachers should be fired or otherwise punished because they say something over Twitter or Facebook, just like I don't think students should be. I might be inclined to make an exception for bullying if it can be demonstrated that the bully was using the anonymity of the Internet as a tool in order to inflict pain on the victim. In which case it's a repeated, habitual behavior done specifically to avoid detection and I would consider that reasonable proof of intended harm (which is a punishable offense by law enforcement officials). However I do not know how one would administer something like that: the only way you could would be either to outright ban what people say or to hope that someone will tell you if they are experiencing cyber-bullying. In the latter case that's going to be based solely on how comfortable a person feels w/ you and how genuinely willing a person otherwise would be about coming forward about something like that. And that would probably end up leaving as many people open to bullying as there are now. So in the end I think you'd end up where you started.
To me the interestingness of this whole situation has to do w/ the connection of our individual selves and the Internet. The anonymous factor seems to be evaporating ever quickly. On the one hand all that aforementioned stuff about bullying would be a lot easier if there was no longer anonymous Internet, but on the other hand there is a lot of ambiguity as to how such events would harm someone w/ jobs, privacy, etc.
""in person #heblowsalot." However, we're willing to take Sullivan's word for it."
I applaud this young lady - and her "teachers" whomever they are for letting her know that even though she's young she has a right to "free speech" just like everyone else!
After all, wasn't that the pretext for going into war - "they hated our freedoms!"
I don't know Gov. Brownback either, but from what I've seen of him - he does suck!
Zora, I use to live in Kansas. He does suck!
I used to live in KS too and I agree with you 100% on that!
http://www.brownback.com/
This is what's going on at Brownback's website today.
lol. Redesigning website. More like filtering whatever content was on there due to all the media attention... but they left the "Give me money" button.
From someone in high school that has a clue.
Gotta love it.
Would be even better if the governor and one of these people could be interviewed on the show.
Hope the next generation produces more like this.
I'm actually excited for the future of Kansas. Between this girl and the open letter to the Kansas school board that resulted in The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it's only a matter of time before these kinds of citizens call BS and turn the state around.
I still live in Kansas, and he both sucks AND blows. As much as I was ashamed to be an American during the eight years of the Cheney/Rove/Bush presidency, I am even more ashamed to live in a state that elected Brownback as its governor. He is as despicable as any "public servant" I've ever been aware of.
@bilglas Come to Wisconsin and meet our Governor, I think he can top yours! UGH! Hope our recall on him works, so far, so good! Go young people and take no crap from the so called powerful!
Must read about Brownback's 1st Amendment suppression for the grown women at his Town Halls on Childhood Poverty. 2 arrested and abused by police, only one charged. He needs to apologize to them too!
http://www.kansasfreepress.com/2011/11/freedom-of-speech-is-relative-in-wichita.html
I agree he should apologize to these petite women too. The men at the meeting were not harassed, only the petite women. They were not saying anything about Brownback, just passing out fliers supporting options other than heterosexual marriage that will fight childhood poverty. Brownback and his staff have issues with people that have different views, especially women that have different views.
Everybody seems to be pronouncing the man's name wrong. It's Brownshirt. Say it with me, people: Brownshirt.
I admit that was seriously uncalled for. I blame my staff (aka, the voices that tell me what to do).
Brownshirtonhisback.
I can't crack a smile about any of this - not that it's really meant to bring smiles to our faces. I am filled with sadness that I live in a State that would support a politician like Sam Brownback. He has impoverished us and I feel diminished by his "leadership!" He is ignorant (or is he?) of the monumental problems confronting women, children and poverty in the State of Kansas. He returned federal funds to the government that would have gone to improving health care for poor women and children; his response to the problem???? He accepted federal money for the purpose of creating counseling services that would "counsel" women (and men? I don't know!) on the importance of being married!!! Can you believe the idiocy of that?? It shows a BLATANT lack of understanding of the issues involved! I would like to leave Kansas but my partner won't move with me! Where would I go? I don't know, just far far away from the Land that Brownback made.
Please stay here and help get Brownback and others like him (they are legion) out of office! We need all of the help that we can get.
I don't understand how he got in Office in the first place. A good example of "Entrances are Wide, but Exits are Narrow", (an old Hebraic saying).
It's too bad that psychological evaluations of politicians can't be made prior to their running for office. It would give voters some indication of the way the candidate is leaning.
Part of this goes to the reasons the Libertarian side of me dislikes both "flagging" and "moderators". It is cliche to say, "In a perfect world neither would exist or be considered at all necessarry," but it is true.
If you travel about just a bit in cyberspace you will notice fairly quickly there are places where speech is freerer than others and places where items are "flagged" for what amounts to no good reason and are pulled by moderators for equally questionable ones -- like, for example, disagreeing with someone or whatever the accepted party line of the site is. And this is true whether you are talking about politics or Apricot Preserves.
I do not think btw Ms. Sullivan would have yelled out "you suck!" to the Gov. because I am assuming she has the manners -- and it is a case of having manners in that situation -- not to. But were she to have a moment with the Gov. -- just him and her -- she well might have. That being how manners work.
What appalls me is the incredible touchy-touchy-touchiness of Brownback's staff. Whomever it was who alerted the principal and made any sort of demands for Ms. Sullivan to be "counselled" or "reprimanded" or whatever is the REAL JAG OFF and simply needs to grow up. Because (now speaking directly to that person who no doubt will be reading these respoinses) you do not make any points for your Boss by kicking a kid. It is Gnat with a sledgehammer stuff. Makes your Boss look weak and you look like a bully. Trust me. I know thses things.
Best news of the day. Big Brother-bullying tactics are un-American. So proud that Emma is standing her ground -- tough to do at her age with pressure from authority figures. Teenagers everywhere should take notice of her interest in politics and her embrace of her liberties; administrators and government officials everywhere should take note of how much pettiness will backfire.
Those damn uppity kids challenging authority and not blindly accepting everything that our institutions spew. Next thing you know they start thinking for themselves. Chaos, I tell ya'.
Next is the Thought Police? Or are they already here....
I was hoping you would see this! But think about the implications..they are monitoring everything we do in the state...it's worse than just"big brother", more like communisum...monitoring everything.....it's very scary here in Kansas!
6 minutes ago
It's not communism, which has been a very dirty word because the government has always told us so. It's fascism, pure and simple.
Philosophically, communism can be ideal... add people, and it's as corruptable as any other system... the same can be said for democracy, with or without capitalism.
Fascism in Kansas is corporation/state entanglement, along with an very large & very unhealthy dose of theoracy... no separation of church/state under Brownback!
It is indeed scary here in Kansas. So many of Brownback's policies are so anti woman, anti education and generally repressive that many of us have started calling our State "Brownbackistan." Finding out that the state government is monitoring social media in order to track down and punish those who disagree with the Governor's policies has only validated my already low opinion of the man and his policies.
Perhaps this is the first chapter in a new Thomas Frank book, "What's No Longer the Matter With Kansas?"
Seems that it would be a good lesson for every politician not to get into a nasty feud with a teenager over completely harmless and innocuous comments on Twitter. What was Governor Brownback and his idiotic staff thinking? Has Kansas become Soviet Russia, where anything perceived as even mild criticism is taken as a crime against the imperial majesty of their esteemed Tea Bagger governor? Brownback ought to resign. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
For an eloquent statement on some of these issues, see this blog post by the most famous native of Prairie Village, Kansas, opera star Joyce DiDonato.
http://www.joycedidonato.com/2011/06/08/thinking-out-loud/
Your producers should get Joyce on the show. She's an engaging, articulate interviewee. You'll find her rehearsing at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC at the moment, and can contact her via email at press@joycedidonato.com.
I'm a big fan of Joyce's from Canada.
All we hear in politics is economics. It is all about the money. How to tax it and how we spend it. We need a broader conversation.
Bobby Kennedt 1967:
I am currently trapped in Kansas, right along the line between eastern Kansas and rural Kansas and your producer is right on the money with the KAC cut. West of where I am, literally the only culture in many places came from the Kansas Arts Commission. There was a HUGE debate at the time of the funding (which the House and Senate restored to budget funding at 100%, but the Governor then used the line-item veto to remove it), with a lot of people stating their belief that it was paying artists to "sit around and craft useless stuff". But that's not the case at all.
Many after school daycare programs, both regular nonprofits and programs run through the schools, received funding for things like paper, crayons, glue and other supplies so that their students could do art projects while they waited for their parents to pick them up. Many museums got funding to run programs focusing on art for exhibits. Many more local community theater companies saw most of their operating budget come from the KAC to be able to present shows. Programs even got KAC funding so that developmentally disabled adults could do things like pottery-making and other hands-on projects to help with their learning and self esteem.
At the time the cuts were being talked about, advocates told the government that the National Endowment for the Arts and the Mid American Arts Alliance would not give funding in the form of matching grants to a private foundation...they clearly required funds to be provided to a state department. Brownback blew it off...and of course the NEA and MAAA cut their funds. Cutting around $270,000 from the state budget cost the state upwards of 1 Million in matching funds, not to mention all of the cancelled children's programs, community theater closings and loss of culture.
For more information, see the Kansas Citizens For The Arts website (http://kansasarts.org/) which is fighting to keep the arts alive in Kansas after this cut, and still lobbying with related groups (Kansas Humanities Council, Kansas Museums Association) to have funding restored.
It appears a woman's uterus isn't the only place Sam Brownback and his personal gestapo are monitoring, I guess those dangerous high school radicals need watching, they might actually believe what they are being taught about democracy. Small government conservatives at work on the taxpayers behalf making sure your children are polite and respectful to the adults who are stealing their futures.
If the governor's staff were bright enough they could have used this as an opportunity to talk the teenager and find out why she felt the way she did. This really could have been used to his advantage but they missed it. Instead they look stupid. He could have looked like a governor who cares about the next generation and what they think. Oh well.
Yes, IMO it is absolutely that bad here in Kansas with brownback as governor and YES #hesucksalot. He is a cancer on our state. Besides being a homophobe and misogynist, he has cut funding for education, the arts, and health care for impoverished women and children (I'm certain that last part is because he's such a caring "Christian"). His woman-hating reign is right in line with buddy Phill Kline who tried to use his office to lead a witch hunt by delving through women's medical records, as neither man believes a woman has a right to medical privacy in Kansas, nor do they have a right to health care if it involves contraception, std treatment, prenatal care or anything in the neighborhood of abortion (which is legal in the land of oz). Brownback doesn't try to hide his actions on behalf of special interest groups that have him in their back pocket. Was his office's attack on Emma Sullivan a surprise? Not really. She does have a uterus and it's great fun for brownback to use the power of the highest office in the state to strong-arm a young woman into submission. It was an irrational, unprofessional, and immature response by the governor's office -- tattling to her principal -- and I'm sure worse has been said about him during his dumbing down, disabling and destruction of the heartland.
Yes, IMO it is absolutely that bad here in Kansas with brownback as governor and YES #hesucksalot. He is a cancer on our state. Besides being a homophobe and misogynist, he has cut funding for education, the arts, and health care for impoverished women and children (I'm certain that last part is because he's such a caring "Christian"). His woman-hating reign is right in line with buddy Phill Kline who tried to use his office to lead a witch hunt by delving through women's medical records, as neither man believes a woman has a right to medical privacy in Kansas, nor do they have a right to health care if it involves contraception, std treatment, prenatal care or anything in the neighborhood of abortion (which is legal in the land of oz). Brownback doesn't try to hide his actions on behalf of special interest groups that have him in their back pocket. Was his office's attack on Emma Sullivan a surprise? Not really. She does have a uterus and it's great fun for brownback to use the power of the highest office in the state to strong-arm a young woman into submission. It was an irrational, unprofessional, and immature response by the governor's office -- tattling to her principal -- and I'm sure worse has been said about him during his dumbing down, disabling and destruction of the heartland.
As a native Kansan I can say the present Governor is a disgrace to the Great Sunflower State and the men and women that made it great over the years !
Is it really true that Kansas is the only state without any arts budget? I did talk to a friend who is a teacher in Kansas and said something about running something by their drama dept and she said, "We don't have one here anymore." I thought it was just at THAT school!
They still have football but no drama department. Sad.
I don't know Governor Brownback, but I agree, he seems to suck pretty bad.
She did not say it at school and she dose not have to apologize to insain demons of koch brothers industries, noticed he said staff over reacted. kinda of a half hearted apology after 1000's of people flood his page with what told him off and exposed him for who he is.
If it hadn't been for the stupidity of Sam Brownback or his staff, I would not have had this opportunity to find out how despicable he is. He must be a Republican!
Exactly what DavidBain said. It's frightening that someone so ignorant and bigoted and concerned with trampling on other people's rights should be in power.
Exactly what DavidBain said. It's frightening that someone so ignorant and bigoted and concerned with trampling on other people's rights should be in power.