A North Carolina school board has reached a settlement with a student after a concerted effort against her for daring to show support for Charlie Kirk.
Fox News reported that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education has agreed to pay Ardrey Kell High School student Gabby Stout $95,000 for her legal expenses, issue a statement regretting how she was treated, and usher in a new free speech policy.
Just two days after Kirk’s murder on Sept. 10, 2025, Stout got permission to paint a message commemorating him on the school’s spirit rock. The message read, “Freedom 1776” and, “Live Like Kirk—John 11:25.”
Images of the spirit rock were later posted to social media platform X.
A North Carolina teen just won a $95,000 settlement from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District after they accused her of “vandalism” for painting the school’s spirit rock to honor Charlie Kirk pic.twitter.com/8FeDXHW4CW
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 16, 2026
Two days later, on Sept. 14, Ardrey Kell Principal Susan Nichols issued a statement calling the display “vandalism” that violated the student code of conduct. She also claimed a police investigation was underway.
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Stout came forward, telling the school she was responsible. She was removed from class, told to issue a statement admitting wrongdoing, and instructed to turn over her personal cell phone for the school to look at her call history.
The next day, the school clarified that messages on the rock should be “inclusive” and in “good taste” with a “positive school spirit.”
In October, they completely reversed course, saying no code of conduct violation took place, Stout did not commit vandalism, and the police were not contacted.
In other words, they lied to intimidate her. But the school would not apologize, and Stout was left dealing with the backlash.
Stout found aid from the Alliance for Defending Freedom, who filed a federal complaint, saying her constitutional rights were violated under the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
ADF Senior Counsel Travis Barham commented, “Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools should be ashamed at how it treated Gabby. She did everything right, and they did everything wrong. She got permission, and she painted an uplifting message of faith. They censored her speech, publicly denounced her, and then punished her for expressing her views.”
“In this country, no student should ever be threatened, investigated, or publicly smeared for expressing her faith. Schools cannot pick and choose which viewpoints can be expressed on campus, and this settlement makes that crystal clear.”
Stout spoke about her ordeal, saying, “I hope they learn that students don’t leave their faith or their free speech rights when they walk into school.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, as they now admit. I was sharing a message I believe in, a message that inspired me, and a message that honored Charlie Kirk by pointing people to the hope for salvation through Jesus Christ. And they made me feel like a criminal for doing this.”
Notably, the school board allowed a radical Black Lives Matter message amidst riots and violence in 2020. Students were allowed to write “No Justice No Peace” and “I Can’t Breathe,” even allowing the rock to be repainted when someone painted over it to mask the statements.
Principal at Ardrey Kell High School, NC says the spirit rock is “under investigation” after it was painted with a tribute to Charlie Kirk.
In 2020 it was painted for George Floyd and was celebrated.
Cannot make this up
.@ArdreyKellHS you should be ashamed of yourselves. pic.twitter.com/zvhwsYhXv3
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 15, 2025
This seems to be a problem in North Carolina. The University of North Carolina Wilmington’s spirit boulder was painted to memorialize Kirk, only for leftist activists to deface it, according to the New York Post‘s reporting from a week after his death.
Here we have a shining example of the miserable state of public education.
These “woefully unpaid” teachers are nothing more than ideologues who bully, intimidate, and lie when their message isn’t front and center.
Let the Stout story be a reminder. These people don’t care about molding your children into critical thinkers. They just want more ideologues, and you’re paying for it.
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