A Massachusetts 8th grader is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect his First Amendment right to free speech after he was allegedly forced to leave school for wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “There are only two genders.”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit legal group, represents 13-year-old Liam Morrison.
The ADF – along with multiple education experts, free speech advocates, and 18 states – has filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to take Liam’s case.
As CBN News reported, the ADF argued before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel earlier this year claiming school officials at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment by censoring Morrison when he expressed his viewpoint last year on a t-shirt.
In March 2023, Morrison wore that shirt to school. The principal, along with a school counselor, pulled Morrison out of class and ordered him to remove his shirt.
After Morrison politely declined, school officials said he had to remove his shirt or he could not return to class.
As a result, Morrison left school and missed the rest of his classes that day.
Then, on May 5, he was asked again to change his t-shirt when he wore another one adorned with the message, “There are censored genders.”
“I have been told that my shirt was targeting a protected class,” he said. “Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights? I don’t complain when I see Pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do. Even I, at 12 years old, have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions.”
“Even at school,” Morrison continued. “This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
Morrison and his family filed a lawsuit against the school claiming it engaged in unconstitutional behavior when it barred the then-seventh grader’s free speech while advocating for gender ideology.
However, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed the school’s decision to force him to remove his shirt or leave the school.
Now attorneys with the ADF are seeking the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention.
“Students don’t lose their free speech rights the moment they walk into a school building,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman. “This case isn’t about T-shirts; it’s about a public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn’t allowed to express a view that differs from their own.”
He continued, “The school actively promotes its view about gender through posters and ‘Pride’ events, and it encourages students to wear clothing with messages on the same topic—so long as that clothing expresses the school’s preferred views on the subject.”
“Our legal system is built on the truth that the government cannot silence any speaker just because it disapproves of what they say. We appreciate the many states and organizations that have joined us in urging the Supreme Court to take this critical free speech case.”
The appeals court previously sided with the school saying their actions were justified because they were ensuring a “safe educational environment for nonbinary students” and to “deter disruptions the shirt would prompt,” according to NBC News.
The court applied “novel legal standard and analysis” to a case known as Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, according to ADF’s petition to the high court.
The Tinker case was a landmark decision made by former Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1969 that recognized the First Amendment rights of students in public schools.
“If the First Circuit’s broad expansion of Tinker’s ‘invasion of the rights of others’ exception is allowed to stand, school administrators nationwide will wield it to censor unpopular or dissenting viewpoints—miseducating students about their expressive rights in our pluralist society,” reads the petition.
