No Freedom Of Speech Until After High School

It's a question that rivals the eternally debated question "when does life begin?" and is about as impossible to answer.

The question is, "when does Freedom of Speech begin?"

If you look to the U.S. Constitution, the document which outlines that freedom in the Bill of Rights, you'll notice there is no age requirement or expiration date listed.

However, a recent action by a Kansas high school principal would seem to indicate that the right doesn't apply until after a student leaves the public school system.

The question revolves around a startling incident last week in which 18-year-old Emma Sullivan tweeted to friends after listening to a speech by Kansas governor Sam Brownback that the governor "sucked."  She was there as part of a school project in government.

Brownback's staff, which is constantly scanning the internet for instances of the governor's name, came across the posting.  The staffers contacted the young woman's school over the remark.

When she went back to school, the student was called into the principal's office, chastised, and ordered to write a letter of apology.

First, it's chilling in an Orwellian way that government officials are monitoring the Twitter conversations of teenagers.  The statements aren't private, but you wouldn't expect government henchmen to be listening in on loud street corner conversations, which is essentially the essence of Twitter.

Second, it's not like someone made a dire threat or a libelous statement about the governor.  A lot of people would even agree with the opinion.  But that's what it was, an opinion made by an American who even happens to be of voting age.

So why would members of one government agency (the governor's staff) contact a member of another government agency (the school principal) to single out and punish a citizen for expressing an opinion?

And how dare the principal use his power to order someone to apologize for that opinion.

To her credit, Sullivan said no, and was prepared to face the consequences.

Then, the story made it into the newspapers, and everyone started reversing engines.

The governor himself issued an apology, claiming his staff "over-reacted" to the Tweet. 

The principal backed down on his demand for an apology letter from the girl.

Of course, if the media hadn't caught wind of this, it's pretty unlikely that either government official would have backed down.

So while the student is no longer in Dutch, the deeper questions remain.

To keep order in school, rules must be enforced which limit or even prohibit Freedom of Speech.  (The "no talking or you'll have to put your heads on your desks" rule is probably the perfect example).

But where is the line?  Can a school enforce such rules even when the action takes place off school grounds?  Also, this wasn't an issue of disruption, it was a matter of content.  If the girl had tweeted "Governor Brownback looks hot in those corduroys," nothing would have been said.  But because she expressed a negative comment, she is accused of being "disrespectful" and subject to school punishment.

It's all made even more ironic by the fact the girl was attending the speech as part of a class in government.  What lesson do you think she and her classmates will take away from the attempted imposition of punishment for expressing an opinion about an elected official?  Is this really the lesson we want our children to learn about our American way of life?

It sounds as if the governor's staff and the principal could use a refresher course themselves on American government. 

Obviously, they were absent the day the First Amendment was taught during their own high school days.

Now, my only hope is that the governor's staff doesn't catch wind of this op-ed piece while trolling the internet.  I'm a little old to be staying after school, clapping erasers, and writing "I will not say bad things about government leaders" 1,000 times on the blackboard.