WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a Massachusetts middle school student who challenged his school’s decision to prohibit him from wearing a T-shirt that read, “There are only two genders.”
The student, Liam Morrison, was a seventh grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough when the incident occurred in March 2023. According to ABC News, Morrison wore the T-shirt to school and was asked to remove it. Later, he wore another shirt that read, “There are [censored] genders,” NBC News reported.
Morrison’s attorneys are from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group. They argue that students are being “bombarded” with messages claiming that “‘sex and gender are self-defined, limitless, and unmoored from biology,’” according to NBC News.
Morrison contends that such messaging is harmful. Although he was sent home after refusing to remove the shirts, he was not otherwise disciplined, NBC News reported.
“We’re disappointed the Supreme Court chose not to hear this critical free speech case,” Morrison’s attorney, David Cortman, said in a statement. He added, “Just because students enter a school building doesn’t mean they lose their free speech rights. Schools can’t suppress students’ views simply because they disagree with them.”
Justice Samuel Alito, in a statement accompanying the Court’s decision not to take the case, wrote: “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.”
The case centers on the extent of First Amendment protections for students in public schools. In the landmark 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines decision, the Supreme Court upheld students’ rights to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War, affirming that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
In defending its actions, Nichols Middle School cited its dress code, which prohibits hate speech and clothing that could disrupt the learning environment.
A federal district court and the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the school. The appeals court noted that under Tinker, schools may prohibit student expression that is passively conveyed if it could reasonably be deemed demeaning—even if it does not target a specific individual.
The Supreme Court is also weighing a related case in Maryland, where parents are seeking the right to opt their children out of reading LGBTQ-themed books in elementary school classrooms. The parents, from a demographically diverse community that includes Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Christians, argue that their First Amendment rights to exercise their religious beliefs are being violated, according to NBC News.
They are not challenging the curriculum itself, but rather the absence of an opt-out provision. However, both a federal judge and the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the school board.
In court filings, attorneys for the parents wrote, “Parents essentially surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools—contradicting centuries of our history and traditions,” NBC News reported.
Here’s a novel idea, how about the schools teach the basics and leave all of the gender crap out of the schools?
No Pride flags, no “There are only 2 genders” t-shirts or any other messaging along these lines no matter how one thinks.
We know the LGTBQ+ crowd will never accept this because they have an agenda.
Ah, yes. The “agenda” of having LGBTQ+ humans fully integrated into society and treated just like everyone else.
That terrible, terrible “agenda.” /s
” how about the schools teach the basics ”
The “basics” include social studies, current events, civics, history, and other course offerings which deal with social issues.
I would add to Don’s response: “Just teach the basics” sounds neutral, but it ignores that students bring their identities and questions to school. Schools aren’t just academic spaces — they’re where kids learn to live alongside people who are different from them. Banning all identity-related messages doesn’t create neutrality because it ignores all sorts of real problems – it erases students’ lived experiences and needs. If the goal is learning, then creating spaces where students can feel safe and seen is part of the basics.
Okay, then how about the students who only believe there are two genders? How about their lived experiences, how about their feelings and their needs to feel safe? You can’t push one side of the issue and leave the other side out just because you back or believe in one side.
“Parents essentially surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools—contradicting centuries of our history and traditions”
How about these children and their parents?
A shirt that says “there are only two genders” isn’t just expressing an opinion—it can be a rejection (or seen as a rejection) of someone’s identity in a space where all students are supposed to belong. Schools must balance free expression with their responsibility to maintain a learning environment that is inclusive, not harmful.
They can learn their religion at home and in the churches, like they have for the last 50 years. They don’t get to bring their religion into a secular, public school and tell the REST of the students and families how things are going to be.
Naw. They don’t get to do that. They can practice their hatred and exclusion at home and in their morally bankrupt churches.
” to prohibit him from wearing a T-shirt that read, “There are only two genders.” . . . Middle School cited its dress code, which prohibits hate speech ”
If they had worn a shirt that said, “There are only two sexes”, would that have been considered hate speech?
Or perhaps to be precise it could say, “There are only two sexes, sans the .05% of the population that is definitively intersex.”. Would that have been considered hate speech?