Massachusetts middle schooler tries to bring 'only two genders' shirt case to Supreme Court

BOSTON — The Massachusetts student who was banned from wearing an “only two genders” shirt to middle school is asking the Supreme Court to hear his high-profile First Amendment case.

The lawyers for Middleboro student Liam Morrison have filed a petition with the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court in Boston ruled against him a few months ago.

Liam last year was banned by school officials from wearing a shirt to school that read, “There are only two genders.” The 7th grader then wore a shirt that stated, “There are censored genders,” and again, he was ordered to take off the shirt.

A U.S. district judge previously ruled in favor of the Middleboro school officials, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit then affirmed the district court’s ruling.

Now, Liam’s attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom are formally asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.

“Students don’t lose their free speech rights the moment they walk into a school building,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman said in a statement. “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.

“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,” the attorney added. “Our legal system is built on the truth that the government cannot silence any speaker just because it disapproves of what they say.”

The Middleboro school district each year celebrates Pride month, hanging Pride flags and sending the message that there are “an unlimited number of genders,” one of Liam’s lawyers had argued in front of the appeals court.

In response to the school’s view, Liam wore the controversial shirt to Nichols Middle School last year.

School officials in response to the shirt told Liam to either take off the shirt or leave school for the day. Liam chose to miss the rest of his classes that day.

When the Middleboro principal pulled Liam out of class and told him he had to take off his shirt, the principal said they had received complaints about the words on his shirt — and that the words might make some students feel unsafe.

“Middleborough was enforcing a dress code, so it was making a forecast regarding the disruptive impact of a particular means of expression and not of, say, a stray remark on a playground, a point made during discussion or debate, or a classroom inquiry,” the appeals court wrote in its ruling a few months ago. “The forecast concerned the predicted impact of a message that would confront any student proximate to it throughout the school day.”

School officials “knew the serious nature of the struggles, including suicidal ideation, that some of those students had experienced related to their treatment based on their gender identities by other students, and the effect those struggles could have on those students’ ability to learn,” the appeals court wrote.

“We think it was reasonable for Middleborough to forecast that a message displayed throughout the school day denying the existence of the gender identities of transgender and gender non-conforming students would have a serious negative impact on those students’ ability to concentrate on their classroom work,” the court added.

The petition to the Supreme Court from Liam’s attorneys focuses on the “Tinker” court case.

“L.M. sought to participate in his school’s marketplace of ideas and address sociopolitical matters in a passive, silent, and untargeted way,” reads the petition to the Supreme Court. “This Court’s review is urgently needed to reaffirm that Tinker protects ‘unpopular ideas,’ public schools can’t establish what is ‘orthodox in… matters of opinion,’ and students aren’t ‘confined to the expression of… sentiments that are officially approved.’ ”

The petition adds, “The lower court’s ruling is irreconcilable with this Court’s decisions and students’ First Amendment right ‘to freedom of expression of their views… on controversial subjects like’ gender identity.”