As far as violating school rules, sure. I'm guessing it gets said and tweeted many, many thousands of times a day by high school kids. If someone tweets "I think Ashton Kutcher sucks!", do you think the school will discipline them?
Consequences happen. Does not the campaign have the FREEDOM OF SPEECH to tell someone they did not like the tweet? Or should that freedom be only to this girl. did the Administration say . .. take her out to the park and shoot her? Did they say never let her go on a trip again? From what I read . . . they told the organizers . .. . we didn't like it The organizers then did what they wanted to do. [which is probably protecting their ability to have another event. Is it ok that this girl may have jeopardized other student's ability to have this type of thing? If the Admin said. . .you know what. . not going to let you have this even again . . .. . You can complain about the Admin but . .. . the girl started it] Is it all extreme . . . . maybe but so is firing a Miller Company Employee for getting cause drinking a BUD on his off time during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. BUT IT HAPPENED For better or worse . .. . those trips are privileges not rights. QUESTION: IS the girl wrong to tweet her opinion? NO Is the Admin wrong to not like it? No Is the admin wrong to tell the Organizers they did not like it? No Is the Org wrong to tell the principal they did not like it? No Is the principal wrong for chewing the girl out? Debatable People are protecting their interests. The admin is trying to win elections and whatever The Org is trying to protect the ability to have this event again for other students The principal is protecting his schools ability to be a part of it Rocket River A butterfly flaps his wing . . . .
If Ashton Kutcher was slated to speak at that school tomorrow He saw the tweet. . . .then withdrew Now the other students are penalized for 1 someone . .. and their freedom or speech. Is that fair? If the school had media setup and parents coming and maybe some fundraising to happen behind this even . .. now all that is cancelled the money that was going to be raised to get the Band instruments is lost etc etc etc Do you think the School should just say . . oh well. Thousands of dollars lost, publicity lost, and other students being helped lost but hey . . . 1 student has freedom of speech and it is all good. Consequences. . . they happen. They are real. The student learned [hopefully] and moved on I don't think the student has suffered more than a 'GOOD TALKING TOO' I mean ., . d*mn you can't even TALK to students anymore???? Rocket River
ONE MORE THING . . . IF the Admin complained about some kid Saggin All in front of the cameras by the Gov . . . . Would you still be defending that student's Freedom of Expression? how are kids to learn socially appropriate behavior . .. if no one ever talks to them about it. or . . is the stance that . .well all behavior is appropriate and we should not stifle their freedoms/ expression/behavior/speech/etc? Rocket River
1. Nobody says it would be appropriate for her to just scream "You suck!!!" to the governor but that's not what happened. She didn't say anything to him, just tweeted a private joke meant for her friends. 2. To the extent that the tweet is not appropriate, the reaction of the governor's office is even less appropriate. The appropriate and smart thing to do would be to actually have the Governor reach out to the Miss Sullivan herself and discuss why she thinks he sucks and how one might better express criticisms of government officials. If you care about educating the students about participating in a democratic government, this is what you do rather than b**** about it to event organizers. The Governor would have gotten some good publicity out of it, rather than looking petty and creepy. 3. Nobody was bringing any negative attention to anything until the Governor's office decided to be petty about it. A girl made a tweet in her personally twitter account. It was clearly her personal opinion rather than the official position of the school. It would have remained a private joke to her and her friends until Gov. Brownback's big brother monitors decided somebody should do something to Miss Sullivan.
1. What's "Saggin"? 2. If the Governor wants to teach her appropriate behavior, why doesn't he meet with her and teach her about it? You know, government officials are allowed to invite private citizens over to discuss their disagreements:
How about taking some responsibility instead of trying educate the girl from behind? Who better to educate students about democracy and civics than the governor? Isn't it why they held the event attended by the governor and the students in the first ****ing place? Missed opportunity and tone-deaf reaction. The girl behaved liked a teen girl. So did those working in the governor's office.
Sure - they can do that. They did do it. People are saying it's stupid. The fact that a governor's office is spending their time on things like this is insane.
Sure - if Ashton Kutcher is that much of a weenie that he can't speak to a group if one person doesn't like him, the school was probably pretty stupid to schedule him. Yes. They should say Ashton Kutcher was a childish idiot and so unfortunately he's no longer speaking at our school. I love her response - she's not backing down at all. Her latest tweet: Looking forward to interviews with the Buzz and other stations. So excited to be on CNN this morning too! Wonder what my school thinks #lol Good for her. I have a feeling the negative effects on the governor and principal are going to much higher than on her at the end of the day. If the school district comments on it, I think they'll be taking her side as well. It's a total overreaction on the part of both the governor's office and the school.
She was a delegate at a student mock government and chose to tweet an asshat comment about the speaker with the hashtag heblowsalot while effectively identifying herself as a participant of the conference. And got called on it. Her discipline was to write a couple of letters. And we know she likes to write. And that her writing could use improvement. She also got to be the martyr of the day in the battle against the big evil oppressors. I don't see the big deal. If I was an organizer of this event, and I wanted it to be taken seriously by the participants and public, and continue to attract notable guests, I'd want to address this issue. The whole social media thing. What sorts of policies or guidelines should they have? I'd probably want to somehow discourage flippant, disrespectful comments by the participants as the conference is underway--especially if they're untrue! While the good governor was checking out the teenage girls, his staff noticed the tweet and reported it to the organizers. Unless they demanded immediate action against the girl, I really don't see a problem with that. I'd criticize them more if they contacted her or the school directly. There's no evidence they wanted to make such a big deal of this. She should be free to write scathing blog posts about the governor's record, suckitude or hairline before or after the conference. But during the conference, as a delegate, I think this was offside. Not criminally so....but possible worthy of a slight reprimand offset by star billing in the battle of the interdorks.
Lol @ the people who did not even read the article that clearly states the girl did not say "you suck" to his face, and that it was a joke with her friends. It's understandable that his administration is monitoring twitter comments about him for PR, but to go complain to the event organizers about what a teenage girl tweeted about him? And then for the school to eventually punish the girl for tweeting her opinion about the governor? Pathetic.
This is all going wonderfully for the governor's office, which is now the butt of all sorts of jokes. http://twitter.com/#!/search/#heblowsalot
some of those tweets are pretty awesome: and Carl Herrera: Clinton would definitely have reached out to discuss the sucking....though he may have tried to educate her from behind too. I'm just not sure that would be entirely appropriate here.
good point. on the plus side....this is probably the most attention anyone's ever paid to Kansas since the great tornado of 1939.
"This girl was acting stupidly" If only Brownback were a clenched-fisted minority professor who was being kept down by the white man, perhaps the great one would step in as mediator/lecturer and call for another beer-summit, or in this case, a soda-summit.