A Tennessee Christian school agreed to pay Morgan Armstrong $10,000 to settle a lawsuit she filed after the school suspended her and barred her from her own graduation — all because she came out as gay on social media.
A final judgment entered Monday resolved the case. Armstrong had been a graduating senior at the school when administrators moved against her following her social media post. She didn’t walk at graduation. She sued.
The $10,000 figure is the full settlement amount under the judgment. Whether Armstrong pursued additional damages beyond that sum isn’t clear from the court record.
The case cuts at a tension that’s landed in courts before — a private religious school’s authority to enforce conduct codes rooted in its faith, set against a student’s claim that the punishment crossed a legal line. Armstrong’s lawsuit argued the school went too far when it pulled her from graduation after she disclosed her sexual orientation publicly.
Private religious schools in Tennessee generally have broad discretion to set and enforce student conduct policies, including those grounded in religious doctrine. That’s made cases like Armstrong’s difficult to win outright — which may explain why the dispute ended in a settlement rather than a verdict.
The school hasn’t been identified by name in the available case details.
