The US Supreme Court on Tuesday denied the appeal of a Massachusetts student ordered by his woke middle school to stop wearing a shirt saying, ‘There are only two genders.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The United States Supreme Court has chosen to allow a middle school’s banning of a student t-shirt stating “There are only two genders" to go unchallenged by the high court.
At issue was a June 2024 ruling by Obama- and Biden-appointed federal court judges that said school administrators have leeway under the First Amendment to regulate content that might allegedly be “demeaning.”
Justice Clarence Thomas joined Justice Samuel Alito in dissenting from the majority opinion.
Liam Morrison, who in 2023 was then a seventh grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, was pulled out of his first period gym class by the school principal who ordered him to remove his shirt.
The principal’s action came in response to a teacher who had expressed concern for the “physical safety” of the student body and claimed that “multiple members of the [so-called] LGBTQ+ population at NMS ... would be impacted by the t-shirt message” and could “potentially disrupt classes,” according to Justice Alito’s recounting of the case.
After Liam politely declined, school officials said that he must remove the shirt or he could not return to class. As a result, Liam left school and missed the rest of his classes that day.
Days later, frustrated that he was not allowed to express his views on an issue of personal and national concern – especially when other students and school officials routinely espouse the opposite position during school hours – Morrison wore a redacted version of the shirt in protest. It read: “There Are CENSORED Genders.”
“This case presents an issue of great importance for our Nation’s youth: whether public schools may suppress student speech either because it expresses a viewpoint that the school disfavors or because of vague concerns about the likely effect of the speech on the school atmosphere or on students who find the speech offensive,” wrote Alito in his dissent.
Alito said that the court should have welcomed Morrison’s case to be heard because the court “should reaffirm the bedrock principle that a school may not engage in viewpoint discrimination when it regulates student speech.”
“The court below erred, and badly so […] So long as the First Circuit’s opinion is on the books, thousands of students will attend school without the full panoply of First Amendment rights,” asserted Alito.
He concluded:
If a school sees fit to instruct students of a certain age on a social issue like [so-called] LGBTQ+ rights or gender identity, then the school must tolerate dissenting student speech on those issues. If anything, viewpoint discrimination in the lower grades is more objectionable because young children are more impressionable and thus more susceptible to indoctrination.
“We’re disappointed the Supreme Court chose not to hear this critical free speech case,” said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman. ADF represented Morrison in the case.
“Students don’t lose their free speech rights the moment they walk into a school building. Schools can’t suppress students’ views they disagree with,” wrote Cortman in a statement. “Here, 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,” continued Cortman. “Alliance Defending Freedom will continue to defend the rights of students to speak freely on important issues of the day without government censorship.”
“While this is the end of the road for Liam’s court case, it’s certainly not the end of this story,” predicted Sam Whiting, general counsel at the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center, which first represented Morrison in federal district and appeals courts.
“Liam’s courageous stand has inspired many others to speak out for their belief in biological truth. And the more people that are willing to swim against the cultural tide of gender ideology like Liam, the weaker that destructive movement will become,” said Whiting.
“Indeed, we are already seeing extremely encouraging signs of this, with President Trump even echoing Liam’s words in his inaugural address: ‘As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,’” noted Whiting. “It is no overstatement to say that without the advocacy of Liam and others, a statement like this from a U.S. President may not have been politically possible.”
