Candidate Op Ed: Hennesy and Schultz Facebook Accounts Reported as Imposters

By Meghan Hennesy and Colleen Schultz

The following piece was submitted by Meghan Hennesy and Colleen Schultz, candidates for the Mahomet-Seymour School Board.

The following opinions and statements are not those of the Mahomet Daily or it’s parent company Sangamon Currents, LLC. Sangamon Currents welcomes submissions from candidates as long as they are factual (cited-we do not go in and fact check) and are not slanderous towards other candidates. The publication  also welcome letters of support that follow the same guidelines.

It’s interesting when in life you bump into clichés and sayings in a way that clarifies their meaning.  Over spring break, the cliché “actions speak louder than words” found new resonance for two of us.  Colleen Schultz and I are running for School Board in the Mahomet-Seymour school district.  We both set up Facebook pages that were campaign focused and we were utilizing them to get our ideas and messages out.  Last Thursday I received a message from Facebook that one of “my friends” had reported the page as a “fraudulent impersonation of Meghan Hennesy” and as a result the page had been taken down. 

Less than 24 hours later, Colleen received the same message about her page, with the same outcome; her page has also been taken down.  As it turns out, pages are pretty easy to take down (one simple click to report it to FB), and pretty hard to reinstate.  You must send various forms of ID to prove your identity and it can take 24 hours – 1 year for a page to be reinstated by Facebook. 

There were things we were prepared for when entering this campaign.  We knew that we would be running against people who had different ideas and priorities.  We knew that getting our messages out and talking with people was important.  We expected to put in long hours and lots of energy to reach the community and earn the right to represent them as a School Board Member.  However, it never occurred to us that we would run into people who would actively try to silence us and our message. 

For us, this job we are asking voters to give us is about the kids.  Making sure that our kids have the very best environment and tools to facilitate their education and growth.  Making sure that the policies and decisions that the school board puts in place all fulfill the requirement of improving learning for our kids.  We believe that a diversity of background, ideas and opinions increases our ability to enact policies and procedures that fulfill that requirement.  Maybe that is why this attempt to silence our voices was so shocking.  The job is all about hearing as many ideas and opinions as you can so that we can make well rounded decisions for the kids. 

Silencing our voices is only part of the problem.  Our pages also had comments and ideas and videos of community members who had something to say about the campaign or their thoughts on the vote.  When our pages were taken down, it silenced all those other community voices as well.

Our pages were not the only place where ideas and comments have been removed.  We have been contacted by several people who have made comments or raised concerns on pages that are promoting other candidates only to learn that their comments have been removed and they have been blocked from further interaction with those pages. 

So, what do these actions say?  While we’ve heard a lot of “we are interested in community engagement”, it seems the actions of silencing community voices say otherwise.  We’ve heard “we are focusing on getting the input of the whole community”, yet, removing comments you don’t like and blocking people from commenting is in direct contrast to what you are saying.  

Over the last 2 ½ years, Colleen and I have been attending school board meetings, watching votes, asking questions, making suggestions and have felt that it has fallen on deaf ears.  What we are seeing in the actions and policies the board has enacted seem to us to contradict their words.  We don’t think this is right.  We don’t believe this fulfills the role of the school board member as the voice of the community and as a result, we both decided to run for board positions to change the pattern of behavior.  We commit to you that if elected, our actions will speak so loudly that our words won’t be necessary. 

Each person needs to decide what these actions say to them.  For me, I am struck by the idea that when a person can’t compete with someone’s thoughts and actions, when their ideas leave you without a response and nothing different to say, your only option is to erase them.  But strong people and ideas cannot be erased, they will find a way.  To be scared enough to erase someone else says more about your character and weakness than anything else.  Those who fight for what is right cannot be silenced or bullied…be careful what your actions say about who you are as a person.