A high school student and her parents are suing the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, alleging the district, which is in North Carolina, violated her First Amendment rights by removing her “Live Like Charlie Kirk” tribute from the school’s spirit rock and wrongly labeling it as vandalism. The message was painted on the rock two days after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10.
According to the lawsuit, Ardrey Kell High School has a long-standing tradition allowing students, with permission, to paint the “spirit rock” to share messages. The student, a junior at the school, says she had seen a wide range of previous designs, ranging from Black Lives Matter statements to cheering on sports teams.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) states in a Dec. 9 press release that the student received verbal approval in a phone call from school staff beforehand. With the help of her parents and two friends, she painted the boulder, writing “Live Like Charlie Kirk; John 11:25” on one side, a heart and American flag on another, and “Freedom 1776” along the edge.
The next day, the school community received an email from school officials that described the tribute as “vandalism” and announced that police were investigating.
When officials ultimately concluded that the student, her parents, and her friends had not committed vandalism, they quietly closed the investigation, according to ADF. They then issued a public statement claiming they had never accused — or investigated — the student at all, according to the release.
School officials then introduced a new Spirit Rock Speech Code that permitted only “positive school spirit” messages and those that “uphold the inclusive values of our school community,” effectively giving administrators broad discretion to decide what qualifies as “positive.” The policy explicitly bans students from expressing religious messages on the rock.
The family filed a suit on Dec. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, seeking to overturn the district’s new speech code and obtain damages.
“[School officials] have unconstitutionally censored [the student]’s speech that the First Amendment protects, retaliated against her for exercising her First Amendment rights, adopted new policies that violate her First Amendment rights, violated the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, ignored her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, and have deprived her of due process and equal protection of the laws,” the lawsuit, cited by ADF, says.
The family is asking the court to declare the new policy unconstitutional, order its permanent removal, and award damages for emotional distress caused by the false vandalism accusation and resulting harassment.
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