Attorneys for a middle school student who was forbidden by his school from wearing a “There are only two genders” T-shirt will be making oral arguments in Boston on Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough.
Liam Morrison, a student at Nichols Middle School, wore a shirt with the words “There are only two genders” in 2023. While at school, he was told by school officials to remove it or be sent home. A lawsuit ensued in May 2023 by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute on behalf of Morrison, claiming that his right to freedom of speech was being violated.
ADF attorneys are asking the court to rule that the student’s First Amendment was violated and wants the court to stop the school from enforcing an unconstitutional dress code policy that discriminates against students based on their viewpoint.
“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.
He added, “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 other students to wear T-shirts expressing messages about gender. At the end of last school year, another student wore a shirt that said, ‘He she they, it’s all okay.’ That was allowed, even though just a few weeks before they punished L.M. for his ‘There are only two genders’ shirt simply because it did not align with their preferred beliefs.”
When school officials attempted to censor Morrison’s shirt, the student chose to wear an altered shirt that read “There are [censored] genders” in protest, but when he arrived at school again, he was sent straight to the principal’s office.
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In June 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston denied Morrison’s attorneys’ request for a temporary injunction, or restraining order, which would have suspended the school’s ability to prohibit Morrison from expressing his views about gender. ADF later filed a notice of appeal in August after a court ruled against the student’s freedom of speech.
“We are urging the court to rule that free speech belongs to all, not some,” Cortman said.
