How can you not like someone who has effectively told Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) to step off? You have to feel good that as dysfunctional an educational climate as in (what's the matter with) Kansas you still have a young 18 year old who has not had her spirit totally crushed.
The high school senior made a twitter comment that disparaged Brownback:
"Last week, Sullivan was in the audience for a speech given by Brownback when she posted a tweet that would frustrate the governor’s office and land her in hot water"
"Among more pedestrian tweets about Justin Bieber, the Twilight movie series and pictures of her friends, she tweeted, “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”
Brownback’s office spotted her Twitter post as part of routine media monitoring and contacted the Youth in Government program that Sullivan was taking part in. As a result, Sullivan was
scolded by her principal and asked to submit an apology letter, something she has refused to do. In fact, she said she has no regrets about the post. “I would do it again,” she told
The Associated Press.
It turns out that young Ms. Sullivan has a lot more fans than the governor, judging by tweeter-which is democracy in action....
"The 18-year-old’s
Twitter following has exploded overnight — as of Monday afternoon she had more than 9,000 followers (@emmakate988), nearly triple the number of Brownback (@govsambrownback)."
The heat got pretty bad and many liberal blogs demanded that Brownback be the one to apologize, which he has now finally done:
On Monday,
Brownback issued an apology, saying in a statement that his staff “over-reacted” to Sullivan’s tweet. On the same day, Shawnee Mission School District announced that the student does not need to write an apology to Brownback and that she would not be reprimanded, saying in a statement that the district is protecting “a student’s right to freedom of speech.”
It's certainly pretty interesting that Brownback staff does "regular media monitoring" on twitter. Does everyone who says a negative word about him in the state of Kansas have to offer an apology. It's good that he ended up being the one to apologize.
Next apologize for teaching creationism next to evolution as just two equally legitimate "theories."
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