A photo of a sticker that got a Chamblee high school student suspended.

A Chamblee high school student’s suspension for displaying a sticker calling for the firing of the school principal will be expunged from his record in a settlement of his free speech lawsuit against the DeKalb County School District.

The school district also agreed to reimburse Chamblee Charter High School student Keegan Brooks and his father, Russell Brooks, who sued the school district on his son’s behalf, $45,500 to cover legal fees, expenses and award Keegan Brooks $500 in damages, according to court records and Brooks’ attorney, Gerald Weber.

As part of the July 23 agreement, a student conduct rule used as the basis of Keegan Brooks’ suspension will be amended, and the district’s principals will undergo additional training.

In addition to expunging Brooks’ one-day suspension, Brooks will be allowed to affirmatively state that he was not suspended last year, according to the agreement.

“We were so pleased that our client was vindicated, that his records were cleared, and that the district agreed to policy changes and training that will help protect students’ rights to speak their minds,” Weber said. “Kids learn more when schools are places that welcome speech.”

Weber’s co-counsel is Atlanta attorney Craig Goodmark.

Weber said the school district entered into settlement negotiations after U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen ruled in April that Brooks, then a freshman, appeared to have been unconstitutionally punished by school administrators because of a viewpoint he expressed.

The sticker, which Brooks designed, depicted an American flag with then-high school principal Rebecca Braaten’s school photo superimposed on top with the slogan “Fire Braaten.”

Braaten’s brief tenure at Chamblee Charter High School was marred by controversy, according to court papers and Cohen’s order. Braaten was the subject of a petition calling for her to be fired, and community members complained during several school board meetings about her leadership style and personnel decisions. Braaten was transferred in November 2018 before completing a second year as principal.

Keegan Brooks, whose family signed the petition calling for Braaten to be removed, designed and distributed stickers calling for the principal’s firing about a month before her transfer, Cohen’s order said. Brooks distributed less than three dozen stickers to students, who in turn displayed them on their backpacks, lunch boxes and cellphone cases.

Brooks was suspended after a teacher confiscated one of the stickers. Assistant Principal Clifton Spears, also a defendant in the case, warned Brooks that the sticker was disrespectful and created a disturbance, both violations of school conduct rules, according to court papers. Spears said that if Brooks didn’t remove the sticker from his cellphone, he would be suspended a second time, court documents said.

In court papers, the school district insisted that the sticker was not constitutionally protected speech because it was a “disparaging joke about his school’s principal” that was “blatantly hostile toward school leadership and designed to humiliate … Braaten and undermine her authority.”

Cohen disagreed, finding that case law on student speech handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta put school administrators on notice “that on-campus pure student expression that has, or is likely to have no or only a negligible disruptive effect on classroom order or the educational process is protected by the First Amendment.”

A school district spokesman declined to comment on the settlement other than to say the district has provided “updated training to school leadership” on the district conduct code.

Attorneys Brandon Moulard and Laurance Warco of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Atlanta, who defended the school district, couldn’t be reached for comment.