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Rich Penkoski
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Rich Penkoski
USA News

School pays settlement after girl sent home for wearing 'homosexuality is a sin' t-shirt

by Premier Journalist

A daughter of a street preacher has received a pay settlement from her school district, three years after she was sent home for wearing a T-shirt that read "homosexuality is a sin".

Overton County Board of Education in Tennessee agreed to pay $101 to Brielle Penkoski, from when she was sent home from the Livingston Academy public high school for wearing the shirt.

The school board will also pay legal costs.

Penkoski is the daughter of street preacher Rich Penkoski, who leads an online ministry named 'Warriors for Christ'.

The settlement comes "without acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of any party or the agents or employees of any party, which wrongdoing is expressly denied".

In a statement to The Christian Post, Rich Penkoski says the family did feel vindicated, and that he was unsurprised the school did not admit wrong.

"A lot of people don't understand this, but when it comes to civil rights lawsuits…there's this perception that somehow we get paid lots of money for these things. Well, it's not true. Most of the time, it's a dollar."

"But Brielle got $100, which is way, way more than we thought she was going to get anyway out of this."

The principal reportedly justified the school's action on the ground's that the shirt contained a "sexual connotation."

The fact that one of Brielle's teachers had an LGBT pride sticker on display in his classroom, led Penkoski to accuse the head of having double-standards.

Overton County Schools did not respond to a request for comment.

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