Christian school to pay $10,000 to gay student banned from graduation after coming out
A student was banned from graduation after coming out as gay (Getty Images, stock)
A Tennessee Christian school has agreed to pay $10,000 to a student it banned from graduation after she came out as gay.
Morgan Armstrong sued Tennessee Christian Preparatory School in Cleveland after it banned her from the ceremony and withheld her diploma.
Under the settlement she received the payout and her diploma, and the school is barred from making disparaging comments about her to colleges.
Armstrong, a star basketball player, had come out on social media, posting photos with her girlfriend captioned “cat’s out of the bag.”
She then privately messaged friends asking them to like the post, writing: “Go and comment on my post, I have some ruthless Trump supporting ‘Jesus’ mfs on there.”
The school then summoned her family and presented a letter accusing her of “a disparaging remark, reflecting the people at Tennessee Christian”, barring her from graduation and threatening to forward her posts to colleges, as per WSMV4.
Her attorney, Daniel Horwitz, said Armstrong had never posted anything about the school, and that it had ignored its own policy, under which a first social media violation should bring just a one-day suspension.
On the day she was due to graduate, Armstrong and her family protested across the street.
“It was difficult having to stand across the street knowing that the people I’ve grown up with for the last four years were able to walk across the stage and I wasn’t allowed to,” she said.
At the time of the lawsuit, Head of School Jared Tilley said the school “firmly rejects the misleading allegations” and remained committed to delivering Armstrong’s diploma.
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