Kansas teen won't apologize to governor's office for Twitter post

[wfgodot]

Exactly!!! This is what it boils down to......just because you have a RIGHT to do something does not make it the RIGHT THING TO DO.

I agree it wasn't the right thing to do. However, once done, and nevertheless, it is protected speech.

 

[mysteriew]

(above bbm)
Not necessarily. If you were out for an evening with your spouse or SO, and some young guy spoke to you in a demeaning way (with his choice of words), would your spouse or SO demand that he apologize, or ask for clarification?

You know I was just thinking of that comparison. How many bar fights and hood disagreements have started over the very same thing? Someone doesn't like something said, they make an issue out of it and it becomes a big blowup (sometimes fatal) instead of just blowing it off.

What if the governor had said "well consider the source. She is a high schooler and has a lot to learn." Or what if the governor had said "I would like to talk with the girl and her parents privately over her choice of wording." Or horrors of all horrors, what if the governor had said "she appears to have a bad opinion of me, and I do represent her as well as her parents. So maybe it is important to find out why she has a bad opinion of me and see if we can come to an understanding or compromise." Or maybe the governor should have just ignored it, just like the sober mature guy in a bar would do.

 

[wfgodot]

Good CNN article (which appeared before the school district rescinded the requirement to write the apology letter):

Kansas teen won't apologize to governor's office for Twitter post

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"I had no idea what it was about or why I was being called into the office," she said. "I had never been in trouble before."
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"My principal told me he needed to do damage control and was really upset," Sullivan said. "He said I was an embarrassment to the school and the school district and that I had been disrespectful."
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"I hope there won't be any consequences and that my principal and the governor's office can move on," she said. "The issue is relevant and, if anything, is a starting point of dialog with the governor about his policies and how our First Amendment rights can be taken away."
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more at link above

 

[gitana1]

I agree it wasn't the right thing to do. However, once done, and nevertheless, it is protected speech.

In this case, you are wrong. Public vulgarities are not protected speech in many contexts.

 

[Boytwnmom]

a politician which is much different than an employee insulting a customer. I can't think of many more firmly established rights in this country than the freeedom to criticize our government and politicians.

Her comment was not noteworthy and would not, in fact, have been noted at all had the thin skinned governor not had state employees trolling the "inernets" for any possible criticism of him. It is that use of government resources that I find much more upsetting than a girl saying the governor "sucks". This governor used state employees to track a high school girl, with 65 followers, tweets and report them back to her principal. I can only surmise Kansas is not troubled with the many serious issues the rest of the states are if government employees can be so deployed.

I agree with this ThinkProgress article:

Team Brownback justifies its heavy-handed response by claiming that Sullivan’s original tweet — which said that Brownback “sucked” and ended with the hashtag “#heblowsalot” — wasn’t respectful.” Perhaps it wasn’t, but the First Amendment cares very little whether a persons’ speech is respectful or not. One of the Supreme Court’s seminal First Amendment cases held that the words “**** the Draft” are protected speech. And, while a public school student’s First Amendment rights are somewhat reduced, schools typically cannot discipline students for speaking out unless their speech is likely to disrupt the school’s learning environment.

I don't see anything in the case law on this topic that would render her speech punishable. The Tinker case is one of the seminal S CT cases on this topic. As that court noted:

It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

That court also said that a fundamental right of freedom of expression cannot be squelched due to

a mere desire to avoid [the] discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompanies an unpopular viewpoint.

I can't make any serious judgment about this young girl based on her tweet which was intended for a few friends. Her statements since have seemed articulate and considered. She's 18 and he's an elected Governor. I hold him to a higher standard and I find his response and it's use of government resources much more troubling than her tweet.

No it's not. The constitution itself is clear about this. Context is important.

If you ran a hotel and had an employee who encountered a hotel guest wearing a cross, let's say, and your employee told the guest "You suck, your need to demonstrate your false religion offends me!", you would have every right to fire that employee and you should fire that employee.

Yes, the worker has the right to say what he or she wants and the employer has a right to fire the employee for his or her exercise of that free speech right. That's a consequence and it is not unconstitutional.

We can say what we want. We cannot be jailed for it unless we are inciting a riot, etc. But there are certain consequences for non-jailable speech and in certain contexts, those consequences are in keeping with the constitution.

Emma, with her inability to coherently express herself in tweets or verbally, and with her childish and rude immaturity, is not a young person I would hire or want involved in any political movement I agree with, in any kind of representational or leadership role. :twocents:

Even though I agree that the governor "sucks".

 

[wfgodot]

In this case, you are wrong. Public vulgarities are not protected speech in many contexts.

But, sorry, they are in this context. Otherwise, one could sue those who state opinions other than their own based wholly on the usage of the language chosen to express that opinion in a written form.

 

[oh_gal]

You know I was just thinking of that comparison. How many bar fights and hood disagreements have started over the very same thing? Someone doesn't like something said, they make an issue out of it and it becomes a big blowup (sometimes fatal) instead of just blowing it off.

What if the governor had said "well consider the source. She is a high schooler and has a lot to learn." Or what if the governor had said "I would like to talk with the girl and her parents privately over her choice of wording." Or horrors of all horrors, what if the governor had said "she appears to have a bad opinion of me, and I do represent her as well as her parents. So maybe it is important to find out why she has a bad opinion of me and see if we can come to an understanding or compromise." Or maybe the governor should have just ignored it, just like the sober mature guy in a bar would do.

You're right. He could have handled it differently. I was just highlighting the fact that I think he was upset with the terminology.

 

[raeann]

I agree it wasn't the right thing to do. However, once done, and nevertheless, it is protected speech.

I agree....BUT...

The reason she was asked to apologize was NOT for having an opinion or even for expressing her opinion. It was requested because of when, how and in what circumstance she did so. She was on a trip, representing her school, taking advantage of a privilege afforded to her by the efforts and money provided by others. The school has every right and even a responsibility to define what is appropriate speech and behavior for their students in such a situation. The governor did NOT ask for an apology.....neither did his staff.....they simply contacted the principal and let him know about one of his student's behavior while on a school sponsored trip. IMO....she SHOULD apologize to her school, her teacher, and her principal....not for having an opinion, but for her rude, inappropriate, and vulgar manner of expressing that opinion. It is to her own benefit that SOMEONE in her life have the guts to define appropriate behavior for her, as her own parents apparently have made no effort to do so. Refusing to apologize for HOW she used her freedom of speech shows a complete lack of character on her part. Such a simple thing to do quietly and respectfully, in appreciation of her school and the faculty and other students. Anyone too self absorbed to do that should be greatly ashamed. IMO of course.

 

[gitana1]

I'm not applauding Emma, I'm applauding the Constitution, which protects even silly, scarcely articulate - judging by that tweet! - high school seniors. And I do applaud the exercise of free speech, as it does tend to jar the power structure and (going French now!) épater le bourgeoisie. This is a healthy thing, to be welcomed, not condemned, in a democracy.

When I think about my maternal grandparents fighting the Nazi regime in their country of Holland, at risk of death, or of my paternal grandfather being persecuted for speaking out against the Franco dictatorship's murder of his dad and thousands of other leftists in Spain, also at risk of death, that is free speech that I welcome and applaud. A kid inferring that a governor she dislikes performs oral sex on other men, using a vulgarity to describe him and his policies, sorry, that is not behavior I welcome or applaud and I hardly think it's healthy.

It is a symptom of a nation that has lost its ability to act with dignity when confronting and challenging the powers that be. It is reflective of a generation that has lost its vocabulary and for whom rudeness has taken the place of intellectual thought.

I wonder how far the civil rights activists would have gotten if they told the governor of Alabama that he "sucked" or "blowed". This kind of inanity does not tend to jar the power structure, it tends to make people think the position expressed is an uneducated one.

 

[Chewy]

There should be no consequences for stating the opinion she did while using social media.

Limiting freedom of speech will not make us any less rude, arrogant, or nasty.

It will, however, put a damper on the rights to state our own opinions, whether others agree with us or not.

Formulating consequences for matters protected by the Constitution is unconstitutional.

I taught high school for several years. I do know the issues here.

I attended high school for several years. I do know the stultifying effect of being governed by those with narrow minds.

What fresh nonsense is this? The right to freedom of speech does not guarantee you "No Consequences." Nor should it.

If you agree with what she said you might say "no consequences' but then I suppose you also would agree that the West Boro Baptist Church or the KKK should have "No Consequences" as well.

She can say whatever she wants, I doubt very much anyone would have a problem with her criticizing the Governor. We live in a political climate where this happens every day.

The problem is that she chose to behave in a rude and childish manner in the middle of an event that was a combination of school and government.

She was rude and obnoxious and by her own admission said it to his face and thought it was COOL. Then she got hit with backlash. Welcome to reality baby.

Suck it up buttercup.

 

[oh_gal]

When I think about my maternal grandparents fighting the Nazi regime in their country of Holland, at risk of death, or of my paternal grandfather being persecuted for speaking out against the Franco dictatorship's murder of his dad and thousands of other leftists in Spain, also at risk of death, that is free speech that I welcome and applaud. A kid inferring that a governor she dislikes performs oral sex on other men, using a vulgarity to describe him and his policies, sorry, that is not behavior I welcome or applaud and I hardly think it's healthy.

It is a symptom of a nation that has lost its ability to act with dignity when confronting and challenging the powers that be. It is reflective of a generation that has lost its vocabulary and for whom rudeness has taken the place of intellectual thought.

I wonder how far the civil rights activists would have gotten if they told the governor of Alabama that he "sucked" or "blowed". This kind of inanity does not tend to jar the power structure, it tends to make people think the position expressed is an uneducated one.

Well said.

 

[gitana1]

a politician which is much different than an employee insulting a customer. I can't think of many more firmly established rights in this country than the freeedom to criticize our government and politicians.

Her comment was not noteworthy and would not, in fact, have been noted at all had the thin skinned governor not had state employees trolling the "inernets" for any possible criticism of him. It is that use of government resources that I find much more upsetting than a girl saying the governor "sucks". This governor used state employees to track a high school girl, with 65 followers, tweets and report them back to her principal. I can only surmise Kansas is not troubled with the many serious issues the rest of the states are if government employees can be so deployed.

I agree with this ThinkProgress article:



I don't see anything in the case law on this topic that would render her speech punishable. The Tinker case is one of the seminal S CT cases on this topic. As that court noted:



That court also said that a fundamental right of freedom of expression cannot be squelched due to

I can't make any serious judgment about this young girl based on her tweet which was intended for a few friends. Her statements since have seemed articulate and considered. She's 18 and he's an elected Governor. I hold him to a higher standard and I find his response and it's use of government resources much more troubling than her tweet.

You are misunderstanding the law. Cohen v. California is the case that applies to the "F the Draft" expression. It does not apply to the conduct of kids in school. That's Rosenberger v. Rector.

And Tinker does not protect profanity, if it disrupts the school environment or school discipline. You (or the article's authors) omitted that last part.

But yes, I do have a huge problem with a governor expending resources to track down people who oppose his view. Reminds me of the Turkish trackers who track whenever anything is mentioned publicly anywhere about the Armenian genocide. And yes, I think the governor wants to squelch any negativity about him, which is not the spirit of our political system.

But I was addressing Emma's conduct mostly, not his. Emma is not a college kid being arrested for using a shocking vulgarity against a policy or a dictator to jar people out of complacency, which is what Cohen v. California was about. She is a high school student who publicly insulted a government official as a representative of her school. And it wasn't even well done!

As I said, the school probably doesn't have the right to force an apology, but they may have the right to suspend her and they certainly have the right to bar her from such activities in the future. Time, manner and place restrictions allow high school campuses to do that even when a state lacks the right to arrest a person for the same activity. That's what those cases state, when taken in context and together.

 

[Chewy]

I'm not applauding Emma, I'm applauding the Constitution, which protects even silly, scarcely articulate - judging by that tweet! - high school seniors. And I do applaud the exercise of free speech, as it does tend to jar the power structure and (going French now!) épater le bourgeoisie. This is a healthy thing, to be welcomed, not condemned, in a democracy.

This is not about freedom of speech.

If she had posted "Saw Governor Brownback today and he gave a self serving speech that I totally disagree with!"

I doubt anyone would care.

Seems to me she thought she was standing up like a little rebel and was a smartass to his face in front of everyone and then tweeted it to be cool.

Then she got hit with reality. If you are rude people will call you on it.

So how in the world does the Constitution come into it? She wasn't suspended or penalized, they asked her to apologize and she refused, she wasn't punished so what's the problem?

 

[Nova]

In this case, you are wrong. Public vulgarities are not protected speech in many contexts.

gitana, I don't like the expression in question precisely because it was originally associated with women and gay men only. But at this point, I don't think those who use it are even aware of any sexual connotation.

At what point does the law recognize that an expression has entered the public vernacular and discarded its original, vulgar meaning?

 

[gitana1]

But, sorry, they are in this context. Otherwise, one could sue those who state opinions other than their own based wholly on the usage of the language chosen to express that opinion in a written form.

No, they are not. Tinker and Rosenberger show that schools have the right to censure conduct or language (both considered speech for purposes of the constitution) if that language is profane or vulgar on campus and which tends to disrupt school discipline whether on or off.

And yes, people can be sued for stating opinions that conflict with others' opinions, depending on the language used. It happens all the time. Again, our free speech rights are governed by time, place and manner restrictions. One can be sued for defamation, for inciting a riot, for intentional infliction of emotional distress, like the cases where people are sending messages to the parents of missing kids, stating their loved one is in hell, crying for them, etc.

In this case, the time, manner and place restriction would apply to conduct of student while acting as a student. The kid tweeted that she told the governor to his face that he blows and sucks, at a school-sponsored event. Whether true or not, she can be disciplined by the school for such conduct, due precisely to the language she used, but not for her opinion. That is the difference.

 

[Chewy]

No, they are not. Tinker and Rosenberger show that schools have the right to censure conduct or language (both considered speech for purposes of the constitution) if that language is profane or vulgar on campus and which tends to disrupt school discipline whether on or off.

And yes, people can be sued for stating opinions that conflict with others' opinions, depending on the language used. It happens all the time. Again, our free speech rights are governed by time, place and manner restrictions. One can be sued for defamation, for inciting a riot, for intentional infliction of emotional distress, like the cases where people are sending messages to the parents of missing kids, stating their loved one is in hell, crying for them, etc.

In this case, the time, manner and place restriction would apply to conduct of student while acting as a student. The kid tweeted that she told the governor to his face that he blows and sucks, at a school-sponsored event. Whether true or not, she can be disciplined by the school for such conduct, due precisely to the language she used, but not for her opinion. That is the difference.

Let's change the paradigm a bit. Say she went to an event where Colin Powell was the guest speaker and she said "I told him he was a monkey jerk"

I doubt people would give it a pass. People would be disgusted by her actions and words.

Are they protected by free speech, you bet. But people would still think she was a person of low character.

This is the same thing that is happening here. Freedom of speech is just her way of justifying bad manners.

 

[gitana1]

gitana, I don't like the expression in question precisely because it was originally associated with women and gay men only. But at this point, I don't think those who use it are even aware of any sexual connotation.

At what point does the law recognize that an expression has entered the public vernacular and discarded its original, vulgar meaning?

I don't know. That's a question white people have been asking about the "N" word for a long time. They claim that it has lost its original meaning. Most black people don't think so.

And I don't think it is relevant to "you suck" or "you blow" yet. But kids completely know what it means, even if they use it in an offhand way. I have teen brother in laws and live across from a high school. I hear what the kids affix to "you suck". They know its meaning.

Here's the thing. I actually have a pretty bad mouth. I have a high pressure job and I am a serious tomboy. But I don't use that language at protests, or when I am expressing myself at a city hall meeting or in court or to my clients. I don't use that language in public, especially not in a public, political context, because it is more than ineffective. It reveals ignorance, lack of education and a small vocabulary. It is a turn off. And we should be teaching our kids that so they can have actual, intelligent discourse and debate and understand context.

Yes, it is free speech, but not in this context.

 

[Chewy]

I don't think suck or blow are used by teens to mean blow jobs or anything like that.

You suck means you suck, you are crap, you aren't good, you are a loser etc.

You blow is just another version of that.


If I said that a nun sucked I'd be considered rude. It's childish.


One time years ago I was a smartass teen and I worked in a Hardees where this woman was a total monster to everyone around her. She was older in her 50s and I couldn't stand her and she couldn't stand me.

One time in the middle of opening a new store, she started in on me and when her back was turned I gave her the middle finger.

One of my friends was so shocked he lit into me and said that I shouldn't have done that because she was older and it was disrespectful and he was ashamed of me.

So I apologized. I certainly didn't mean it at the level that he took it, it was just a throwaway gesture, but he said it showed I had no respect for my elders and was low class.

I apologized because even though I didn't mean it that way, I realized I had crossed a line more than I intended.

This girl has no class if she didn't just dash off a note that said, I didn't mean it that badly and I apologize.

I think although the parents are good to support their child at this point, it does make the girl look like a classless piece of work and I do think it will very much effect her ability to get a job in the near future.

 

[gitana1]

You know, the bottom line is, is this such a big deal in the grand scheme of things? Some kid saying you suck to a governor? It really isn't. But the conversation was about consequences and whether some of those are consequences are protected by the constitution. The answer is, some are.

And that is what this is about. The governor acted like a martinet. But Emma is now famous for the language she used. As a teen who is just becoming interested in politics, that is important and the consequences when college admissions boards, internship application committees and employers discover this, are going to hurt.

Those consequences are legal. That's what we should be teaching kids like Emma. That it is great and should be applauded when a person has the courage to speak out against a powerful political figure. But that decorum should be followed. Speaking publicly in a vulgar manner defeats the purpose of sending a powerful message.

 

[mysteriew]

When I think about my maternal grandparents fighting the Nazi regime in their country of Holland, at risk of death, or of my paternal grandfather being persecuted for speaking out against the Franco dictatorship's murder of his dad and thousands of other leftists in Spain, also at risk of death, that is free speech that I welcome and applaud. A kid inferring that a governor she dislikes performs oral sex on other men, using a vulgarity to describe him and his policies, sorry, that is not behavior I welcome or applaud and I hardly think it's healthy.

It is a symptom of a nation that has lost its ability to act with dignity when confronting and challenging the powers that be. It is reflective of a generation that has lost its vocabulary and for whom rudeness has taken the place of intellectual thought.

I wonder how far the civil rights activists would have gotten if they told the governor of Alabama that he "sucked" or "blowed". This kind of inanity does not tend to jar the power structure, it tends to make people think the position expressed is an uneducated one.

BBM

This is in response to the bolded part. I do respectfully disagree with this. In no way did she infer, accuse or imply to the governor in a sexual relation in any way. Yes the terms expressed by persons of an older generation might refer to that. But in respect to a younger person it means something entirely different. And seeing that the words were used by a younger person and were not written in such a way that appears to either infer or imply that the governor had sexual relations with anyone else, it could only lead me to believe that she used the wording in the context of youthful language not sexual language.

If she had said that the governor "sucked" someone, or "blew" someone yes, I can see the criticism. But that is not the context she used. She used it in the context of a more youthful language where school sucks, and parents blow (BTW parents "blow" chunks, it is a reference to puking sometimes.)