Bridget Sullivan didn’t ask for any of this.
She didn’t ask to leave her dream job at Wake Forest or for an unplanned, unwanted vacation. She did not request the hateful email, maxed-out voice mailbox, or being bullied by a member of Congress.
She didn’t plan to face serious questions about her future.
None of it.
And yet the 29-year-old has been consigned to all of that and more over the past two weeks after a troll with too much free time and an X (nee Twitter) account dug out an Instagram post from Sullivan’s personal account about the shooting death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and kicked off a chain of events that cost her a livelihood.
“People keep telling me to stay off the Internet and not to read what’s been said,” Sullivan said Monday afternoon. “But people are saying my name, and they’re not saying the right thing. It’s hard not to look.”
So after a few days away following a rushed (and mutual) parting of the ways with Wake Forest University, Sullivan returned to town determined not to let any of it break her.
“I felt like I was running away,” she said of a brief trip to the coast. “I needed to come back to deal with it head-on.”
A familiar story
At this point, a lot of the script is familiar. Or at least it ought to be, as similar stories are playing out across the nation as cowards and ratfinks rush to out people for speaking (or posting) what’s on their minds.
Depending on where one gets their news, Kirk was either a hateful white nationalist eager to turn a buck by bashing Blacks, women and gay people or a youthful paragon of Christian values eager to debate what he believed.
The answer obviously lies somewhere between the two poles.
Naturally, his shooting death on Sept. 10 provoked strong reactions. And that’s where Sullivan tripped up.
She posted on Instagram lyrics from the musical Chicago that read, “He had it coming,” and wrote, “This audio is all I have to say about that.”
And that’s it.
“It doesn’t mention (Kirk’s) name at all,” she said. “It was vague for a reason.”
Sure, the post was ill-advised, but Sullivan is not stupid — far from it. Like most 20-somethings, she was active on social media.
She said she kept her personal and work lives separate, which extended to social media. There was no mention of her job as an athletic trainer with the Wake Forest women’s soccer team, no team photos, no nothing on her personal accounts. “That was very important to me,” she said.
But after her Instagram post, someone – almost certainly one of her followers – took a screenshot, scoured the Wake Forest directory and posted to X a “side by side” showing her original post and “extra stuff with my picture and contact information.”
A match had been lit, and U.S. Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-10th, rushed in with accelerant.
Apology not accepted
Per his social media, Harrigan wrote that the post “crosses every line of decency and professionalism.”
Fair enough.
But then he went further and sniffed that he’d contacted Wake Forest. School officials, no doubt aware of the trouble a U.S. congressman could cause with vital federal educational and research funding, surely listened.
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It didn’t take long for the phone lines to light up. An athletics department official, Sullivan said, called to say “that they’d gotten a ton of phone calls and that I had done nothing wrong.”
Something changed over the weekend of Sept. 13 and 14, however. Sullivan wrote a letter of apology addressed to Athletic Director John Currie.
“I realize the post was insensitive and offensive to many, and I sincerely apologize to them,” she wrote. She described what had transpired since her original post and apologized to the university, her coworkers, coaches and the players.
“I know I cannot undo what has occurred, but going forward I will do everything in my power to demonstrate my commitment to a peaceful and positive community fabric based on love and not hate,” she wrote. “As a consequence of all that has happened, I intend to offer my resignation to the University and am heartbroken. I love Wake Forest University.”
Once virtues, such as owning a mistake, apologizing and asking forgiveness, fell short. A decision (a business decision) to part ways, including a generous severance, was reached.
And rather than forgiveness or exercising, say, Christian values, Rep. Harrigan chose to gloat.
“UPDATE: I’m happy to report that after I contacted @WakeForest, Bridget (Sullivan) has been FIRED for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
Security concerns
Without doubt, Wake Forest found itself in a tough position.
The current political climate doesn’t allow for grace, not in an age when a president could say “I hate my opponents” at a memorial service. So, Sullivan, in a word, was screwed.
“It was not going to stop until my name was no longer associated with the university,” Sullivan said.
In addition to avoiding a political tempest, Wake Forest had another factor to consider: the safety of players, coaches and Sullivan herself.
The soccer team had a home game on Sunday, Sept. 14, and if officials had not considered the possibility of retaliation, they would have been negligent or possibly even liable.
“God forbid someone got hurt and had to (sit there) listen to people yelling awful things,” Sullivan said.
(Messages directed to the school officials on Monday were not returned by this morning. To date, Wake has only confirmed that Sullivan was no longer with the university and reiterated that it “does not comment on personnel or employment matters.”)
To the university’s credit, Sullivan said, school officials had a crisis-response team, and the university police reached out to her about her security. The Winston-Salem Police Department also has eyes on her residence, too.
Still, everything that’s transpired since she exercised a constitutional right to free speech has been tumultuous.
The Internet hate, Sullivan said, can be dealt with. “I’ve gotten so much support from the community. I’m not that worried,” she said.
Finances, at least in the short term, aren’t an issue. Still, given all that’s transpired, Sullivan has found herself wary, which contradicts her nature.
While away at the beach, she met other young people who asked the usual questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do?
“I had to think about it,” she said.
Sullivan added, “I will say since this is my first time back (in town), my head is on swivel.”
As to the future, decisions about her next job, whether to stay in her chosen field or even whether to relocate, are a ways away.
“Why should she have to move?” Walter Holton, the attorney helping her navigate a new reality, asked.
Cyberbullies and cancel-culture trolls have extracted their pound of flesh. But how much is enough?
An eye for an eye, the code of Hammurabi, that’s vindictiveness — not virtue. We’d all do well to keep that in mind.
Scott Sexton has been a bemused observer of daily life — and occasional thorn in the side of elected officials — in Winston-Salem since 2005. ssexton@wsjournal.com
336-727-7481 @scottsextonwsj
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