Art teacher fired for telling students Charlie Kirk was shot files lawsuit

A former art teacher at a private school in Kansas City has filed a lawsuit after she was purportedly fired for telling her students that far-right political activist Charlie Kirk was shot.

Amanda Lea taught at The Barstow School, a K-12 school with an annual tuition of $29,500, beginning in 2021 until September 19, more than a week after Kirk’s death, according to court documents obtained by Urgent Matter.

At the time of Kirk’s shooting death, Lea was teaching art to students. News of the shooting quickly spread around the school. When classes let out for the day two hours later, Lea went to the school driveway for dismissal duty.

Lea returned to her classroom at 3:45 p.m. when a student informed her that Kirk had died from his injuries. She then left her classroom to find her child, who is also a student and was participating in an after-school theater event, to tell her that Kirk had died.

“Other students were present and thought Mr. Kirk had only been shot and some asked who he was,” her lawyers said.

Lea responded then went to her classroom to get her laptop to show the students the news headline.

“[She] did not celebrate or make any derogatory statements regarding Mr. Kirk’s death,” her lawyers said.

Her lawyers said surveillance video shows Lea walking down the hallway, laptop in hand, and “basically expressionless.”

School administrators later told Lea that her interaction made two of the students feel “unsafe.” She was initially suspended for five days without pay and told to take a class on emotional intelligence before she was later fired.

Lea was a “very popular art teacher and award-winning robotics coach,” her lawyers said, and had “received excellent evaluations and had no history of discipline.”

“Ms. Lea was summarily terminated in what can only be described as a reactionary, arbitrary and capricious manner by [the school] for showing a few students a headline on her computer showing that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had died from a gunshot wound he had received on September 10, 2025,” her lawyers said.

Lea is accusing The Barstow School of breaching her employment contract and wrongful discharge and is seeking damages in excess of $25,000 for each count.

Her lawyers asserted in court documents that her last faculty employment agreement was for the 2025-2026 school year and that it stipulated she could only be fired “for cause” unless giving 180-day notice.

In an answer to her lawsuit, The Barstow School denied that it acted unlawfully in terminating her employment.

Lawyers for the school said in legal documents that Lea had been showing students news about Kirk’s death “as if she were celebrating it.”

“I guess you could say I was celebrating his death,” Lea is purported to have admitted to her supervisors in discussing the incident.

After Kirk’s death, conservative activists and media figures launched coordinated campaigns targeting teachers and professors accused of reacting insensitively.

Names circulated on social media, and school administrators faced calls to investigate or terminate employees. Some educators were suspended or received threats after their comments were clipped and reposted online.