Rebel of the Week: Emma Sullivan

Last week two children got into a fuss over a disparaging tweet that necessitated the Principal’s intervening and demanding a written apology from the offensive tweeter. Just one catch. Neither of them were children.

High school senior Emma Sullivan is a full-fledged 18-year-old adult. Articles coving this story focus on her being a student, but I think it’s important to recognize we’re talking about an adult. If she wants she can vote, buy cigarettes and enlist in the military. What’s apparently controversial is if she bad mouths an elected official on Twitter. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback is also an adult… allegedly. Last week he spoke to a group of about 100 students as part of their Youth in Government Program. Students were bused to the State Capital in Topeka so they could be inculcated with the worship and adoration of government. Emma got the message loud and clear. Government sucks. During Brownback’s presentation she tweeted, “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

BLASPHEMY!

It appears that she never actually made those comments to his face, but Brownback still got the message. Apparently the Governor’s office has someone on staff monitoring social media. It shouldn’t surprise you that politicians are obsessed with what people say about them. They are narcissists. But it’s at least worth objecting that someone is paid to surf Facebook and Twitter with tax dollars. So, how’d he respond? Surely he’s got skin thick enough to hear he sucks from a teenager, right? Come on, he’s a Governor. He must have experienced far worse mudslinging during his campaign. Alas no. Brownback took his hurt feelings and went tattling to the Principals office where he conspired with Principal Karl Krawitz to try to bully a written apology out of the girl. Apparently they didn’t learn, as the rest of us did as children, that when you coerce an apology out of someone it isn’t real.

Emma refused. On Sunday she said that she was not sorry and an apology letter would be insincere. And she tweeted, “I’ve decided not to write the letter but I hope this opens the door for average citizens to voice their opinion & to be heard! #goingstrong” The Principal and Governor backed down. What’s interesting about that is that almost every article on the retraction contains some version of the line, “backed down after receiving national attention.” The reason that’s interesting is it exposes the insincerity of everything the Governor said after that point.

The story blew up. Emma’s twitter followers went from 60 to over 10,000. And suddenly, like cockroaches scurry when the lights come on, the bureaucrats all changed their tune. Before the spot light was on them some staff person read the tweet, thought it was important enough to show the Governor, the Governor was offended, took the initiative to contact the Principal, they decided coercing an apology was in order, the Principal called Emma into his office, and there’s no telling how many other useless bureaucrats were consulted in between. But nowhere in that chain did anyone think to point out that an adult tweeting about an elected official is so clearly within the realm of first amendment protected speech that retaliating against her was a stupid idea.

After the lights came on, when it started to look like there might be consequences for that stupid idea, it was Brownback who issued a written apology to Emma… which we know was total BS. He begins, “My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize,” which tells us instantly that the purpose of this apology is to deflect responsibility. There is no way that his staff did this without including him. He continues, “Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.” We treasure it… we just don’t actually recognize it when we see it. He goes on with the cliché propaganda that students “are our future,” and concludes near the end, “I also want to thank the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties.”

At least there he is correct. Every day, without fail, educators and bureaucrats are reminding us of our treasured liberties… by violating them.

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