Massachusetts high school students’ T-shirts are getting support from 18 states, free speech groups

The local student who wasn’t allowed to wear a “two genders only” shirt in high school is drawing support from 18 states and free speech groups, who are calling on the Supreme Court to hear his case.

Lawyers for Middleboro student Liam Morrison recently filed a petition with the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court in Boston ruled against him earlier this year. Now, 18 states and free speech advocates have filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court, asking it to hear the case.

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

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

This prompted Liam’s attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to ask the Supreme Court to review the case and rule that Nichols Middle School violated the First Amendment when it prevented the student from wearing his shirts to school.

“Our justice system is built on the truth that the government cannot silence any speaker just because it disagrees with what they say,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of US Litigation David Cortman said in a statement.

“We appreciate the many states and organizations that have joined us in urging the Supreme Court to take up this crucial free speech case,” the lawyer added.

The 18 states supporting Liam’s cause are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

The multi-state letter was led by the states of South Carolina and West Virginia.

“…the First Circuit’s decision undermines one of the most important goals of public education: the formation of civic virtues through the pursuit of the truth – even when doing so is uncomfortable,” reads the letter from multiple states. “The Court should grant the request to restore that function.

“In silencing LM, the First Circuit has created an anti-speech standard that—unlike (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District)—allows schools to use even quiet, passive expressions of speech that do not cause actual disruption , to limit,” the states state. added. “It split from other circuits over issues such as what facts a school must show to justify restricting student speech. And it effectively punished viewpoint discrimination in public schools. If the decision below stands, public schools could become an incomplete forum of ideas, more concerned with avoiding offense than developing character.”

The Middleboro school district celebrates Pride month every year, hanging Pride flags and sending the message that there are “any number of genders,” one of Liam’s attorneys had argued before the appeals court.

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

School officials in response told Liam to take off the shirt or go to 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 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 enforced a dress code, so it was making a prediction about the disruptive impact of a particular means of expression and not about, say, a stray comment on a playground, a point made during a discussion or debate, or an investigation in the classroom. writes the court of appeal in its ruling. “The prediction was the predicted impact of a message that would be encountered by every student who came near it throughout the school day.”

School officials “were aware of the serious nature of the struggles, including suicidal ideation, that some of those students had experienced related to their treatment on the basis of their gender identity by other students, and the effect that those struggles could have on those students’ ability to learn. ‘, the court of appeal writes.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is among the free speech groups supporting Liam’s cause.

“Rather than teach students how to discuss controversial topics, the school here censored petitioner’s passive, non-disruptive expressions out of subjective fear of possible future psychological harm to other students,” FIRE wrote in its letter. “To ensure that our public K-12 schools educate the next generation of Americans about the First Amendment in both word and deed, FIRE files this letter in support of petitioner.”

“If the First Circuit’s broad expansion of Tinker’s ‘invasion of the rights of others’ exception is granted, school administrators across the country will use it to censor unpopular or dissenting viewpoints – thereby misinforming students about their expressive rights in our pluralistic society,” FIRE added. . “This Court should grant certiorari to reverse the First Circuit and reaffirm Tinker’s restrictions on schools’ ability to censor non-disruptive student speech.”