A North Carolina high school student is suing over alleged violations of her constitutional rights after her school painted over her Charlie Kirk tribute and accused her of vandalism.
In December 2025, Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that protects religious rights, filed a lawsuit against Ardrey Kell High School in Charlotte on behalf of student Gabby Stout. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
The lawsuit alleges the school violated Stout’s First, Fourth and Fifth amendments.
The Center Square reached out to Ardrey Kell High School, but its administration declined to comment on the litigation. The school is part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district. The Center Square reached out to the district, but did not hear back by press time.
Travis Barham, an ADF attorney representing Stout, told The Center Square that the history of the high school’s spirit rock is “notable because students had painted a variety of other ideological messages on the rock.”
The attorney noted the spirit rock had Black Lives Matter messaging on it in the past.
When Barham first got involved in the case, he said the “degree to which this violation was egregious and blatant immediately jumped out” to him.
“It shocked me that a school district would be so cavalier in the way it mistreated a student,” he noted.
Stout, who is a junior at the high school, painted a tribute for Kirk after the conservative leader and Scottsdale, Ariz., resident was assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025 at a rally at Utah Valley University in Orem.
Here’s the lawsuit’s timeline of events.
On Sept. 12, Stout called the school’s office and received approval for the tribute from a school official. According to the lawsuit, the official told her, “That would be very nice.”
At around 4 p.m. on Sept. 13, Stout, her parents and two friends went to the high school to paint the spirit rock, the lawsuit noted.
On one side of the rock, it said, “Live Like Kirk – John 11:25” and “Freedom 1776,” the lawsuit stated.
After painting the rock, Stout, a Christian, and her friends placed flowers at the base of the spirit rock to honor Kirk, the lawsuit said.
The students finished painting the spirit rock around 6 p.m., the lawsuit stated.
Two hours later, according to the lawsuit, Stout learned on social media that the message she had painted on the school rock was no longer visible. The lawsuit said gray paint was used to cover up her message.
Later that night, Stout returned to the school’s campus to see what had happened to the spirit rock, the lawsuit said, adding that she saw a high school student taking pictures of the rock.
The lawsuit said Stout asked the student if she had painted over her Kirk tribute, but the student told her that school officials had done it.
On Sept. 14, when Stout returned to the school’s campus, she saw someone painted over the grey paint with the message of “Be kind” and “You are enough,” the lawsuit stated.
According to the suit, Susan Nichols, the principal of Ardrey Kell High School, sent an email to all parents at the high school that said its spirit rock was “painted this weekend with a message that was not authorized or sponsored by the school or the district.”
“Acts like these are considered vandalism to school property and are in violation of the CMS Code of Student Conduct,” Nichols added in her email.
The principal also said in her email that law enforcement was contacted and that the school would be cooperating with the investigation, the lawsuit said.
According to the lawsuit, the high school’s code of conduct states if students are found guilty of violating its vandalism policy, they may be held financially responsible for the damages.
After reading the principal’s email, Stout sent an email to Nichols saying that she had painted the rock but had contacted the school and received approval to paint the spirit rock, the lawsuit said. Stout denied any act of vandalism.
Barham said the charge of vandalism “made no sense because the spirit rock was a place where students always painted messages.”
To accuse her of vandalism publicly and then to contact law enforcement to cooperate with a criminal investigation “took matters to a whole new absurd level,” the attorney told The Center Square.
On Sept. 15, Stout was called down to Student Services, where the offices of Nichols and other school officials are located, according to the lawsuit.
Deborah Hitt, one of the school’s assistant principals, directed Stout to a conference room, the lawsuit noted.
In the conference room, the lawsuit stated Hill told Stout that she needed to write down her account of what happened regarding the spirit rock on Sept. 13. Stout’s two friends had also been instructed to write similar statements about the events.
Barham said the school did not tell Stout about her constitutional rights to remain silent or to have an attorney present during a criminal investigation.
After Stout returned to class, Hitt came to her class to speak with Stout again, the lawsuit stated. The assistant principal retrieved Stout’s phone from the classroom and returned once again to Student Services to answer more questions, the lawsuit said.
This time, Stout sat in Assistant Principal Kelly Holden’s office along with Hitt, the lawsuit stated. The suit said Holden called Stout’s mom to see if she could ask her questions about her daughter’s role in painting the spirit rock.
Stout’s mom granted Holden’s request. However, the assistant principal asked Stout to open her cell phone to show them her call records, the lawsuit stated, adding that the school never asked permission to search Stout’s phone.
On Sept. 16, according to the lawsuit, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Administrative Services sent a message to all the high school students’ families announcing the “Revised Spirit Rock Speech Code,” which says, “Spirit rocks are not to be used for personal, political, or religious messages.”
The code adds, “All messages should reflect positive school spirit and uphold the inclusive values of our school community.”
According to Barham, the new policy gives school officials “a wide amount of discretion to decide what’s in good taste.”
The attorney called the new policy a violation of the First Amendment, noting the U.S. Supreme Court has been “very clear” that when government “targets political and religious messages for different levels of scrutiny, that’s viewpoint discrimination.”
“What we have here is a school district that has committed itself to targeting the speech of students and families of faith. That’s unconstitutional, and that should never be tolerated,” Barham said.
The same day, Stout’s father spoke by phone with Nichols, who told him that his daughter would not be punished and that the criminal investigation was being closed, the lawsuit noted. Nichols did not mention sending a statement exonerating Stout, according to the lawsuit.
On Sept. 17, Stout and her parents spoke with Nichols again by phone, during which they asked her to send a message clearing her daughter’s name, the lawsuit stated.
On social media, Stout saw messages that “urged school officials to prosecute her, insisted she should be imprisoned for years, and labeled [Stout] and her friends ‘racist Thugs,” the lawsuit said, adding that she also saw messages like “Die like Kirk.”
After this event, the lawsuit stated Stout’s best friends stopped “socializing with her,” and she was labeled by students as “the girl that painted the rock.”
The lawsuit noted the stress from the investigation, social media attacks and ostracization caused Stout’s Crohn’s Disease to exacerbate, causing “severe stomach issues for her.”
Stout’s parents repeatedly asked the school to clear their daughter’s name, but it never did, the lawsuit stated.
On Oct. 11, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Communications Division sent a message to all the families at the high school saying the display Stout and her friends made for Kirk was not “an act of vandalism” and did not violate the “student code of conduct,” the lawsuit added. It also said the school did not contact law enforcement to do an investigation.
According to the lawsuit, in November, school officials helped orchestrate a student-led protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including a message from Nichols promoting the event to the high school’s families.
“It’s absurd that [Stout’s] speech was targeted and that she was personally targeted and maligned in such a deeply personal way. No students should ever have to do that, and no schools should be in the business of picking winners and losers when it comes to who can express their views,” Barham noted.
The attorney told The Center Square that “high school students should be inspired, challenged, and encouraged to express their beliefs freely. That goes for all points of view, not just left-leaning points of view.”
Stout’s lawsuit asks a court to end the school’s new speech code and seeks compensatory damages.
