Eighteen-year-old Emma Sullivan is a high school student, blond hair and blue eyes, who loves Twitter, the Twilight movies, and Justin Bieber.
She also happens to be a major threat to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.
After Sullivan tweeted about the governor, officials came to her school to demand an apology. The Daily Dot has covered schools’ attempts to gag students and teachers before, but never like this.
The Shawnee Mission East High School senior went on a field trip to the Capitol on Monday to hear the governor speak. Sullivan didn’t like what she heard. She tweeted about what she’d like to do about it:
“Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot,” she tweeted.
Though the wording implies action, Sullivan stressed that the tweet refers only to what she would have liked to have done.
The governor’s feelings were clearly hurt regardless. Sullivan ended up in the principal’s office the next day.
“[The principal] explained to me that someone from Brownback’s office got a hold of it and sent it to someone in charge of the district,” Sullivan told NBC.
The principal wanted Sullivan to write an apology, but so far she hasn’t. Instead, she’s encouraging the media to contact her on Twitter, @emmakate988. On Tuesday, Sullivan had 60 followers. Today, she has 890. After being featured on Boing Boing and NBC, her story is quickly garnering support.
“Eighteen year old? As in, eligible to vote? No right to express her opinion about elected officials? Why? Because she’s in school?” wrote one Boing Boing commenter.
“Shouldn’t the governor’s office tweeted her back and asked to have her speak with the Governor or a staff member to discuss what policies and procedures she specifically did not like? The governor could have reached out to a potential voter instead of trying to shut down the student’s first amendment rights,” wrote another.
Sullivan seems to be taking the incident in stride. Her tweets, previously about Twilight and Justin Bieber, now focus on headlines and free speech.
“I knew this day would come, but I didnt know itd be today #makingheadlines,” she tweeted.
Photo by @emmakate988