The Schoolgirl and the Governor
The Story
Last week, an interesting little morality play developed in the heart of America. This is a story of a school girl, the Governor of the great state of Kansas; and involves interesting questions of etiquette, power, ethics, and the 1st Amendment.
First the facts of the story as best I can piece it together. Our first character in our play is Emma Sullivan. Emma is an 18 year old senior who attends Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village Kansas. Last Monday, November 21, our schoolgirl visited the state capital for a mock legislative assembly sponsored by the Youth in Government Program . During the assembly, our second character personas , Gov. Sam Brownback, spoke to the gathered students. In the back of the room, Emma posted a tweet that seems to have been heard around the world…
“just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”
Note, that Sullivan never actually spoke to Brownback, she just made the tweet suggesting she did. Also note that at the time, she had about 60 followers (as I write this, she now has 3200 followers) which generally would have been the limit of people who saw the posting.
Now, our story get’s interesting. Apparently, the governor has a communication team that monitors all mentions of the Brownback on the Internet. As a result, Sullivan’s tweet was spotted. Exactly what the conversation was in the governors office we do not know, or even if the governor was consulted, but shortly thereafter Niomi Burget, Brownback’s scheduling secretary, e-mailed a screen shot of the tweet to the Youth in Government sponsor at Shawnee Mission East, writing: “I don’t know if this was someone with your group, but thought if it was, you might want it brought to your attention.” Note that there needed to be a bit of research spent on the governors office to pinpoint the proper school.
Later, in defense of Burget’s actions, communication director Sherriene Jones-Sontag stated “That wasn’t respectful. In order to really have a constructive dialogue, there has to be mutual respect.” The message [Burget's] was forwarded, she went on, simply as a way to make Shawnee Mission East “aware what their students were saying in regards to the governor’s appearance.”
Finally enters our last character of note, school principal Karl Krawitz [Note, I believe I saw somewhere Krawitz had contributed to Brownback's campaign, can someone confirm or deny this?]. On Tuesday, Krawitz called Sullivan into his office and lectured her for an hour. According to Sullivan, Krawitz “laid into me about how this was unacceptable and an embarrassment. He said I had created this huge controversy and everyone was up in arms about it… and now he had to do damage control.” Krawitz then ordered Sullivan to write a letter of apology to Gov. Brownback, even suggesting talking points to cover.
So closed our first act. The second act I think is just opening today (Sunday, 27 Nov) . Sullivan has decided not to write the letter of apology. So the ball is now in the Governor’s court.
Note: I drew from a number of sources for the above, so there probably are errors. I tried to keep this part of my editorial factual, with opinion below, so I would appreciate any factual corrections.
Commentary
I would like to comment on each of the actors in our morality play. Emma Sullivan is the first in that she made the original tweet. I think we can safely say it was a rude tweet, typical of someone young. However, I will note that she was at a mock legislative session. We all know about Joe Wilson’s rude interruption of the President with “You Lie” and it is quite common both in state and national legislatures for those legislators to tweed denigrative post during sessions. So while I do not approve of Sullivan’s actions, I do not understand how that comes close to the rudeness of our professional politicians. Is a 18 year old high school student to be held to a higher standard than our professional politicians, and if so, what does it say about our country and culture?
The next actor is probably a combination of actors, i.e. the governors office. This includes directly Niomi Burget and Sherriene Jones-Sontag but could also include Brownback himself. Certainly, Burget and Jones-Sontag represent the Governor, and therefore he must take some of the responsibility. Many questions come up with regard to the Governor’s office actions. For example, it is probably a good thing that the governor keeps a watch on the nets with regard to his constituents viewpoints with respect to Kansas, but does it cross the line when they are monitoring views directed specifically at the governor? In addition, should the taxpayer money be spent on researching an insulting tweet directed at the governor, and not the state?
I am especially concerned about Jones-Sontag’s response when she justified the Governors actions by stating “That wasn’t respectful”. Are we living in a country that an individual must be respectful to government power, or be subject to retribution by that government power? It’s a scary thought.
Then, there is the question of power. Anything the governor’s office says will have a great deal of power and influence, and these representatives of Brownback should know it. In addition, it is my understanding that the educations system is under siege by the governor, so there is a feeling of fear running through the states education system which would cause pretty much everyone to respond “how high” every time the governor says “frog”. So what exactly did the governor’s office expect to happen when they forwarded Sullivan’s tweet. Were they not engaged in just thoughtless bullying of someone they thought was powerless to complain?
Probably the most aggrieves act, or at least the one that should have been thought out the most, was Karwitz. It’s pretty clear that as a government agent, Karwitz specifically violated Sullivan’s First Amendment rights. Now, it has been decided in courts that a student’s right to free speech is not unlimited, students are limited in speech when it is disruptive to the school’s learning environment. Given that clearly there was no disruption to the learning environment (it took the Governor’s office to discover the tweet), Karwitz had no basis to discipline Sullivan, and definitely should have know better. I would also question his specific punishment that Sullivan had to write an apology letter. Forcing an individual to write an apology letter, by the very definition, is forcing the individual to engage in a dishonest act. Dishonesty is not something we should be teaching in school. It appears that Karwitz’s motives were not so much punishment but political damage control, and perhaps saving the budget of his school. This definitely steps over the bounds of ethical behavior.
