High School Girl.. and a Governor

Weird title right? Well I am sure it is all too familiar for high school senior Emma Sullivan. The 18-year-old from the Kansas City suburb of Fairway was taking part in a Youth in Government program in Topeka, Kansas. The group she was with was listening to Republican Governor Sam Brownback. She tweeted from her cell phone: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, contacted the youth program. Sullivan said she was called to the principal's office for the first time ever and told to apologize in writing to the governor, after she said she was just joking with friends. 

Governor Brownback was forced last month to admit that his staff overreacted last month when they contacted the youth program. "My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize," Brownback said, "Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms." Brownback's office declined to discuss its social media monitoring in detail, but politicians and governmental offices across the county are increasingly keeping an eye on the Internet for mentions of their campaigns or policies. Many officials even maintain their own Facebook and Twitter accounts to inform constituents of events or policy announcements. Anyways, Sullivan's tweet caused her Twitter followers to rise to more than 21,000 people, from a mere 61. Many of these people voiced their support for her and came to her defense about not writing the apology letter. 


This post has a lot of similarities to the post from October, Rashard Mendenhall. In both tweets, the issue of freedom of speech was present. Was it alright for Sullivan to tweet that? It sure was. Just as Justin Hall did, she tweeted controversial things that some people could look at as derogatory. But, this country is modeled around freedom of speech, so I support people like Emma Sullivan, Rashard Mendenhall, and Justin Hall. These are the people that raise the true issues because they aren't scared to be reprimanded for what they say. Sullivan, I applaud you for making the headlines for something so simple, #tweeting.