The lawyer representing a local student who was not permitted to wear an “only two genders” shirt to school argued for the middle schooler’s First Amendment rights on Thursday, telling a federal appeals court that the school system suppressed and “silenced” the student. Middleboro boy Liam Morrison, who is currently in eighth grade, was barred from wearing a shirt to school last year that said, “There are only two genders.” The 7th student then wore a shirt that read, “There are censored genders,” and was again forced to remove it.
On Thursday, his lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom filed his federal free speech action with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. Every year, the Middleboro school system celebrates Pride Month by displaying Pride flags and conveying the idea that there are “an unlimited number of genders,” according to ADF Senior Counsel and VP of U.S. Litigation David Cortman before the appeals court. In response to the school’s concerns, Liam wore the contentious shirt to Nichols Middle School last year. “His T-shirt did not target any individual,” Cortman explained. “It merely addressed the same subject matter the school had already raised, but a different point of view.”
“This isn’t just about a shirt. It’s about free speech.”
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. “In this case, the situation should have been a teaching moment,” Cortman said. “This should have been a moment… that we teach the students how to debate on controversial topics of the day, and yet that did not happen.” “They decided to censor him,” the lawyer added. “But what the school cannot do, even though they can share their views, is decide that only students who agree with those views can speak, but anyone who disagrees should be silenced. And that’s exactly what they did here. The school failed to carry its burden to prove that the speech was not protected.”
Outside the federal courthouse on Thursday, Liam told reporters that he was singled out last year for “expressing my opinion.” “This isn’t just about a shirt. It’s about free speech,” Liam said. “All students have a constitutional right to express their free speech without fear of being punished by school officials.”
A United States District Judge earlier ruled in favour of Middleboro school officials
A United States District Judge earlier ruled in favour of Middleboro school officials. When the Middleboro principal called Liam out of class last year and told him he needed to remove his clothing, he said that they had received complaints about the phrases on his shirt and that the words might make certain students feel unsafe. “Characterizing the statement ‘there are only two genders’ as being merely offensive trivializes the significant harm that could occur to nonbinary students who are captive in this classroom looking at it,” Deborah Ecker, the Middleboro school district’s lawyer, told the appeals court on Thursday.
“… Looking at what the school officials knew about their school, the age of the kids, the LGBTQ community in that school, and the real mental health concerns, their decision to have the plaintiff remove the T-shirt was reasonable,” Ecker later added. “They reasonably could forecast that the message, if he was allowed to wear it in the school and a classroom, would reasonably cause a disruption to the school work and invade the rights of other students.” The federal appeals court judges took the matter under advisement.
