SCOTUS Won’t Review “There are Only Two Genders” Middle School T-Shirt Free Speech Case – Updated
Liam Morrison lost his case after appeals court ruled it was up to school officials whether the t-shirt made some students feel unsafe and at at risk. Only Justices Thomas and Alito wanted SCOTUS to take the case.
You might recall that we covered the federal court proceedings of Liam Morrison, who was forced to spend a day at home after wearing a T-shirt that said “There are Only Two Genders” to the Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, and then forced to change his shirt when he came back wearing a T-shirt that said “There are Only CENSORED Genders.”
It was clear that the school didn’t like his point of view on gender issues, given that they regularly promoted “Pride Month” and encouraged students to wear clothing SUPPORTING the LGBTQ+ community, so Liam, with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), sued the school in federal court.
Unfortunately, Liam lost, as Professor Jacobson reported: School “There Are Only Two Genders” T-Shirt Ban Upheld By MA Federal Court:
The fiercest cultural battle is being fought by gender identity activists, and as a Massachusetts federal court decision that was just handed down shows, the courts—or at least that judge—are ready to sacrifice free speech in school for the comfort of the gender-identity cultural and political power…
This seems like it should be a slam dunk for the student. The First Amendment does not stop at the school door, though schools do have some leeway to prevent disruption of the educational process. That’s a loophole that a federal judge just drove a truck through to uphold the censorship of a completely common and traditional opinion unpopular with school officials and gender identity activists on the grounds that it made some students feel unsafe and at at risk…
Marina Medvin called it a “Bonkers ruling.” It’s worse than that, it’s extremely dangerous to our First Amendment free speech rights based on the same hocus pocus that results in safe spaces on campuses because “words are violence.”
Expression of a viewpoint that until a few years ago was the norm—there are two genders—is now banned. And you can’t even mock the ban by putting “Censored” over the censored words. That is banned, too. Hopefully this absurd ruling will be overturned on appeal.
Unfortunately, that was not be: First Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds School ‘There are Only Two Genders’ Shirt Ban:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld a middle school ban of the “There are Only Two Genders” t-shirt because words are violence!
The First Circuit is as leftist as the Ninth Circuit. It has all Obama and Biden nominees…
You…knew the case would go downhill because [U.S. Circuit Judge David] Barron then wrote (emphasis mine), “In the Spring of 2023, L.M. was a seventh grader at NMS. He held the belief that there are only two biological sexes (male and female), that the word ‘gender’ is synonymous with ‘sex[,]’ and that because there are only two biological sexes, there are only two genders.”
Well, guess what! The world has equated the two now so, yeah, Morrison is correct! (Even though I would have put sexes instead of gender on the t-shirt. Not like the school would have cared.)
Anyway!
* * * *
Overall, though, the First Circuit leaves speech issues to school administrators:
We close by emphasizing a point that may be obvious but should not be overlooked. The question here is not whether the t-shirts should have been barred. The question is who should decide whether to bar them — educators or federal judges. Based on Tinker, the cases applying it, and the specific record here, we cannot say that in this instance the Constitution assigns the sensitive (and potentially consequential) judgment about what would make “an environment conducive to learning” at NMS to us rather than to the educators closest to the scene.
Cowards. Instead of actually doing their jobs, the Court defers it back to the school.
Our Founding Fathers instilled the First Amendment to protect all speech. At the time of writing the Constitution, all of them could be jailed for saying anything negative against the monarchy. Questioning the monarchy? Oh, boy. That would turn heads and could be used against you.
The way the courts are going, someone will make “hate speech” a legal term, but keep it vague on purpose. That way, people can strike down anyone with dissenting or politically incorrect views.
I’d say we are pretty much already there.
Here is a good recap of the case:
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has now declined to review this disturbing ruling, despite strident dissents by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
From Fox News: Supreme Court declines to review free speech case involving student who wore ‘only two genders’ shirt:
The Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a Massachusetts student who was banned from school for wearing a shirt criticizing the transgender movement on Tuesday.
The student, Liam Morrison, brought the case through his father and stepmother, Christopher and Susan Morrison. The plaintiffs argue Nichols Middle School violated his free speech rights when it banned him from wearing two T-shirts to school with the words “There are only two genders” and “There are [censored] genders” on the front.
Liam was sent home both times after he refused to change shirts. The school argued the shirts made his classmates feel unsafe, and a federal court agreed, saying the message was demeaning for transgender students…
The decision comes nearly a year after the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Liam and his parents in June 2024, finding that the school was justified in asking him to remove the shirt and sending him home when he refused.
Morrison, who was in seventh grade at the time, was sent home with his father in May 2023 after he refused to take off the shirt, according to court documents. He later wore the same shirt with the words “only two” covered with a piece of tape on which “censored” was written. The school also told him to take this shirt off.
In a 2023 interview with Fox News Digital, Liam stressed that his T-shirt was not directed toward anyone, specifically people who are “lesbian or gay or transgender or anything like that.”
“I’m just voicing my opinion about a statement that I believe to be true,” he said at the time. “And I feel like some people may think that I’m imposing hate speech, even though it’s not directed towards anyone.”
The Morrison family was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute.
ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman had the following to say:
We’re disappointed the Supreme Court chose not to hear this critical free speech case. As Justice Alito recognized: ‘The case presents an issue of great importance for our Nation’s youth.’ 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. 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. Alliance Defending Freedom will continue to defend the rights of students to speak freely on important issues of the day without government censorship.
The denial by SCOTUS is revealing, for two reasons, those being the dissents by Justices Thomas and Alito.
First, Justice Thomas notes that years ago the Court ruled that some restrictions on speech by students are allowable, but that Justice Thomas totally disagrees with that idea:
In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969), this Court held that public school officials may not restrict a student’s freedom of speech unless his behavior “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” Id., at 513. I have previously explained why Tinker’s holding is “without basis in the Constitution” and should be “dispense[d] with . . . altogether.” [emphasis added]
Rather than allowing speech for students unless it would cause “material disruption” to the school, Justice Thomas, based on historical analysis and the doctrine of in loco parentis, would overrule Tinker and give schools more leeway in disciplining students for speech the school found improper. [Note: this is an update to the original post, which incorrectly stated that Justice Thomas would support more, not less, student free speech in school. Thanks to loyal reader Milhouse for setting me straight].
Anyway, since Tinker is the law of the land, Justice Thomas then joins Justice Alito, who explains why he would have reviewed the case:
The First Circuit held that the school did not violate L. M.’s free-speech rights. It held that the general prohibition against viewpoint-based censorship does not apply to public schools. And it employed a vague, permissive, and jargon-laden rule that departed from the standard this Court adopted in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969).
The First Circuit’s decision calls out for our review.
I would grant the petition for two reasons.
First, we should reaffirm the bedrock principle that a school may not engage in viewpoint discrimination when it regulates student speech. Tinker itself made that clear. See 393 U. S., at 511 (“Clearly, the prohibition of expression of one particular opinion . . . is not constitutionally permissible”). Curiously, however, the First Circuit declined to follow Tinker in this regard, instead cherry-picking which First Amendment principles it thought worthy of allowing through the schoolhouse gates. By limiting the application of our viewpoint-discrimination cases, the decision below robs a great many students of that core First Amendment protection.
Second, we should also grant review to determine whether the First Circuit properly understood the rule adopted in Tinker regarding the suppression of student speech on the ground that it presents a risk of material disruption. We have described this standard as “demanding.” Mahanoy Area School Dist. v. B. L., 594 U. S. 180, 193 (2021). But the First Circuit fashioned a rule that is anything but. The lower courts are divided on how to apply Tinker’s “material disruption” standard in a context like this one, and the decision below underscores the pressing need for clarification.
Justice Alito then explains free speech, which the First Circuit seems to have forgotten:
“[A]bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95 (1972). Otherwise, the government could purge entire topics from the public discourse.
Sounds like that is already happening.
Anyway, Justice Alito continues:
And as our cases recognize, these freedom-of-speech harms become “all the more blatant” when the government “targets not subject matter, but particular views taken by speakers on a subject.” Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 829 (1995).
Nor is there a carveout from this principle for controversial, offensive, or disfavored views. For example, we recently held unconstitutional a statute prohibiting the registration of “immoral or scandalous” trademarks, explaining that “a law disfavoring ‘ideas that offend’” is “the ‘essence of viewpoint discrimination.’”
* * * *
Unsurprisingly, the viewpoint-neutrality rule also applies to student speech. Students do not relinquish their First Amendment rights at school, see Tinker, 393 U. S., at 506, and by extension, a school cannot censor a student’s speech merely because it is controversial…
The court below erred, and badly so: the rule that view point-based restrictions on speech are almost never allowed is not a new principle proclaimed only in “recent decisions” like Matal or Iancu. 103 F. 4th, at 883, n. 9. To the contrary, viewpoint neutrality has long been seen as going to “the very heart of the First Amendment.” [citations omitted]
* * * *
The First Circuit was wrong to expel this bedrock constitutional safeguard from our schools…
One final point deserves comment. The First Circuit repeatedly emphasized that L. M.’s speech occurred in a middle school where children ranged in age from 10 to 14 years old—a point respondents echo in their brief in opposition. That should not make a difference…If
a school sees fit to instruct students of a certain age on a social issue like 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.“The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is no where more vital than in the community of American schools.” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 487 (1960). 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. That alone is worth this Court’s attention. The problem, however, runs deeper: as this case makes clear, some lower courts are confused on how to manage the tension between students’ rights and schools’ obligations. Our Nation’s students, teachers, and administrators deserve clarity on this critically important question. Because the Court has instead decided to let the confusion linger, I respectfully dissent.
[emphasis added]
All I can say is…God bless Justice Alito. Hopefully somehow this injustice will one day be rectified.
In closing, I attach one X post that makes some great points (see below for a summary):
I’m disappointed to learn that the Supreme Court has declined to hear Liam Morrison’s case.
Liam’s story is clear evidence that it’s too early to declare victory in the fight against gender ideology. As long as there are schools in America where students are encouraged to… pic.twitter.com/qozVBsgWMt
— Kristen Waggoner (@KristenWaggoner) May 27, 2025
Liam’s story is clear evidence that it’s too early to declare victory in the fight against gender ideology. As long as there are schools in America where students are encouraged to express one view of this topic—“gender is a spectrum”—but forbidden from expressing a different view—“There Are Only Two Genders”—we haven’t won yet…
Remember: because gender ideology is based on a lie, it relies on censorship to survive. That means its advocates won’t give up this territory easily. Our basic right to tell the truth is at stake, and we can’t be complacent in defending it.
But it also means the truth is on our side—and that’s good news. Because truth has a way of triumphing over lies in the long run. We just have to keep speaking it.
And that’s why Liam’s stand at school wasn’t ultimately a loss. At just 12 years old, he showed us what the courage of truth-telling looks like. This is the way forward to protect free speech for everyone. This is how we win.
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Comments
Wearing a tee shirt that affirms what he should be learning in biology class is against the law.
Got it.
Public schools are an existential threat to our republic and cannot disappear fast enough.
And for those justices who affirm that schools are a constitution-free zone? Well…
“Sex” is the term for biology class. Two sexex.
“Gender” belongs in the Language Arts classes. There are three.
Sex and gender have always been used interchangeably—and therefore synonymously—when discussing human beings. The context of his shirt’s message was clear, as evidenced by the school’s reaction.
Once again, the cowards are the ones that Trump appointed to the Supreme Court. The dissenters — Alito and Thomas — were appointed by those terrible RINO, GOPe, Neocon, globalists — the President Bushes. SHAME ON THEM!! God save us from any more Trump Supreme Court nominees.
Diarrhetic flatulence.
You mean Thomas, who is the only justice who holds that?
That’s right, Thomas, who states that people –even kids– don’t lose their constitutional rights when entering a school according to Milhouse holds that schools are constitution free zones.
Behold the idiocy of the left.
No, you liar. Thomas is the only justice who says that students at government schools lose all their free speech rights. He says Tinker was wrongly decided, and we should go back to before 1969, when kids had no rights.
More have been hurt, even killed, by the false assertion that anyone can be born in “the wrong body” than have ever been hurt by a t-shirt.
“Liam Morrison lost his case after appeals court ruled it was up to school officials whether the t-shirt made some students feel unsafe and at at risk.”
So now Liam Morrison feels unsafe and at risk… but that’s acceptable.
Good job, assholes.
N0 he doesn’t feel unsafe or at risk. He’s perfectly safe, and he knows it. He just knows that his constitutional rights don’t stretch as far as he thought they did — but a lot farther than Thomas thinks they should.
He’s perfectly safe?
If his class is given an essay assignment on Pride issues, and he doesn’t write what the teacher wants to see, is he safe from being given a bad grade?
If he declines to participate in a Pride event, is he safe from social ignominy and potential bullying?
When he needs faculty recommendations to apply to colleges, is he safe from partisan retribution?
He’s only marginally more safe than a Columbia Jew.
Yes, he is perfectly safe. There is no indication whatsoever of any of these things. He’s even safe to express his opinions when the topic is discussed. The only thing the school has not allowed him to do is force trans kids to look all day at a message that they don’t exist.
The rainbow crowd can get violent whenever they see something they don’t like. I wouldn’t say he’s safe.
I think you’re being pretty naive to believe that an assigned paper on the subject, in which he logically makes the case of two genders, will be graded fairly.
Years ago, when my son was at Exeter, he had a teacher who had recently graduated from Brown U. She was the very model of a modern so-called “progressive.” He was a day student so I got to hear about what was going on.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was her commentary on an in-class assignment: write your idea of Utopia. Pretty subjective, right? Who would know better than he what his ideas of a perfect world would be? None of the criticisms were about how he executed the task, just that she could only find many faults with his idea of Utopia.
I had had it by then and demanded a meeting with the head of the English department. Fixed that problem PDQ. But most kids don’t have parents like me. And that’s a problem.
I’m so glad my public school has a uniform!
Ah, but it would celebrate a boy wearing the school skirt
There would be cake.
Not pie and punch?
The pie is a lie.
A uniform is a symbol of neutrality, but it is a false symbol. All providers of education have ideological commitments. Education is impossible without ideological commitments. That is why the One Best System which our government bureaucratic monopoly schools provide is guaranteed to offend the deepest held beliefs of a significant fraction of those parents who chose it to educate and raise their children.
This 12 year old has more backbone than many adults.
also more intelligence
Certainly more than his parents.
I am of a divided opinion on this issue. Children’s rights are rightly limited to begin with because children are not fully capable of appreciating the consequences of their actions. And I would assume that if this school had a dress code no one would bat an eye at that.
I know that this student is being singled out, but do these rules apply both ways? Are pro-tranny children also barred from wearing clothing that promotes their position? I’m guessing not based on what I have read in this article.
No, they aren’t, but that’s not the issue. Despite what you’ll read here and elsewhere in the right-wing press, the first circuit’s decision was not based on the fact that the shirt promotes a position, but on the impact that seeing the shirt all day would have on students who identify as trans or nonbinary, and the disruption to their schoolwork.
The question is, suppose the Des Moines school board had raised this argument against the Tinkers, would that have changed the outcome? Suppose the board had said that students who had fathers or older brothers fighting in Vietnam would be so upset at seeing the Tinkers’ armbands that their schoolwork would suffer, would the supreme court have found for the district and against the schools?
Which, I think, is balderdash. Hurt feelings should never be a litmus test for free speech. But I would argue that unequal application of the rules, such as allowing pro-tranny kids to wear shirts that promote their position, is a violation of Liam’s rights. Either the rules apply to everyone, or they don’t apply to anyone.
It’s not about hurt feelings. It’s about the effect the school thinks seeing this message all day, that they don’t exist, will have on the trans kids’ ability to concentrate on their school work.
As I said, perhaps if the Des Moines school district had argued that the Tinkers’ armbands would make it difficult for students whose fathers and brothers were in Vietnam to concentrate on their schoolwork, they might have won their case. I don’t think so, but it’s at least possible. And it’s not so outrageous as to justify SCOTUS granting cert without a circuit split.
I.e., hurt feelings.
No, not hurt feelings. You keep saying this, but you are lying. Feelings have nothing to do with it. It’s ability to study that’s the issue here.
If “trans” kids (which are in reality mentally ill kids) are unable to “concentrate” because they’re triggered by someone else’s t-shirt, seems to me the real issue is their mental illness, not an article of clothing.
It would have close to zero impact. Anyone feeling unsafe is mentally ill. The claim of unsafe is being made to impose a specific opinion, their opinion in everyone around them, and to shut down all discussion of the matter, It is completely passive aggressive.
Again, it’s not about feeling “unsafe”. No one is alleging that the trans students are afraid this kid is going to beat them up or anything. But the district is concerned that having this message shoved in their face all day will disrupt their ability to perform their schoolwork, which is the purpose of having a school in the first place. Even under Tinker a school can censor student speech to prevent disruption of the classroom.
I disagree with the decision, but it’s not so obviously wrong that cert should be automatically granted. And of course Thomas doesn’t even believe in Tinker in the first place, so as far as he’s concerned this kid should have no case at all and should have just done as he was told.
Wrong Milhouse.
“The school argued the shirts made his classmates feel unsafe, and a federal court agreed, saying the message was demeaning for transgender students…”
Usually you do a better job of reading. Not this time though.
Your words:
“this message shoved in their face all day”
Wearing a shirt does not shove the message in anyone’s face. Hyperbole! The school is failing at it’s job to prepare its charges for adulthood. They are teaching kids their complaints will get them what they want. Will it in real life? Well maybe at Columbia,
I think Millhouse is very disingenuous when he says that there is a difference between hurt feelings and distraction from studying. It is clearly a case of just trying to use different terminology saying it’s not hurt feelings it’s distraction. If milhouse wants to make the case that that is what he’s doing it’s just showing the difference in terminology then say that plainly, but it is a synonymous concept and so Disingenuous.
The “speech” was “harmful” because it told the truth. Was there any threat implied? No. You need to brush up on your Orwell.
No one suggested that there was any threat implied, or that it was harmful in any sense but that having the message that you don’t exist shoved in your face all day long might make it difficult for you to perform in school. You are dismissing a straw man of your own making, and refusing to address what the first circuit actually found.
Milhouse,
The problem with the School raising ‘disruption’ as the basis of a speech ban is BS b/c as Justice Alito pointed out the School can’t claim one side of a debate over a topic (and by implication the debate/discussion/controversy of the topic) is disruptive when the School itself introduces the topic. The introduction of controversial topics such as the trans ideology v biological reality is itself ‘disruptive”. If the school doesn’t want ‘disruptive topics/debate and discussion’ they should refrain from introducing them. At minimum they must be neutral to the counter arguments.
Claims that a student(s) wearing t-shirts with logo/messaging supported by the vast majority the public is disruptive are unreasonable. Wouldn’t the same argument about the disruptive impact on those who view the T-SHIRT also hold true for those who saw a faculty/student with ‘rainbow’ hair dye? This is viewpoint discrimination period.
Sure it can. It isn’t stopping anyone from voicing an opinion when the topic is being discussed. All it wants to do is stop someone from shoving a message in certain students’ faces, all day, that they don’t matter. These are not hypothetical students, they are actual students, whose actual schoolwork might be affected by this.
Not at all. Why on earth would it have such an effect? How could a student’s schoolwork possibly be affected simply by seeing such hair? The hair isn’t attacking any student. It isn’t telling any student that they don’t exist, that they don’t matter, that they are worthless and beneath notice. It’s just saying “not everyone is like you”.
It’s exactly like the difference between one the one hand a black student existing at school, with his black skin on display for all to see, which might bother any student who thinks the school should be for whites only, and on the other hand a white student wearing a shirt all day saying “segregation forever”. The former can’t possibly be disruptive; the latter can be.
“Can be” doesn’t mean “is”. I think the school was wrong, and I think the first circuit was wrong. I hope one day SCOTUS officially says that such minimal disruption is not enough to trigger the exception to Tinker. I even wish SCOTUS had granted cert. But it’s not so outrageous that it had to grant it, and that any outrage is justified at its decision not to.
Milhouse,
Either the messaging and discussion about X issue must/can be confined to a classroom debate/discussion or it doesn’t. That obviously must include symbols representing the various sides in the debate. As an example a Confederate Flag T-shirt is one such symbol…but so is hair dye in :rainbow colors’, tattoo, body piercings, wigs/toupee, long fingernails, non natural nail polish.
Lots of things people choose to adorn themselves with convey a message sometimes the impression conveyed is accurate and sometimes not but conveying a message is disruptive.
The notion that a school may suppress as disruptive some markers of messaging and isn’t also required to suppress markers from other or opposite stances on an issue is not a neutral position, it is one of not just advocacy but one of overt viewpoint discrimination. Maintaining neutrality and refraining from suppression of some but not other views on a particular issue isn’t a tough hurdle for a school.
Chief, once again THIS IS NOT ABOUT DISCUSSION OF AN ISSUE. It’s about ATTACKING SPECIFIC STUDENTS, by telling them, over and over all day long in a way that they cannot avoid, that they don’t exist, they don’t matter, they don’t belong in the school. How can they study in such an environment?
Or at least, that is a reasonable thing for the school district to worry about. I think they’re wrong. I think trans kids can study even in the presence of such hostility. I think they can even choose not to take it as a personal attack, but as an honest if mistaken (in their view) opinion. But I can’t say the school is so obviously wrong that SCOTUS has a clear duty to grant this kid the very rare privilege of a writ of certiorari.
And that is where I have a big issue with this you and the school board both used the phrase ” It’s about ATTACKING SPECIFIC STUDENTS,” Since when is a message on a tee shirt considered an attack? It isn’t. And if these kids can’t function when someone in the room is wearing a shirt they don’t like the school is teaching them the wrong message. Granted it is middle school but in High School, College, and in their eventual career they are going to see and hear a lot of things they don’t like. Their boss will ask them to do things that while not at all illegal may go completely against their beliefs, and guess what, your choices are do it or quit. They need to toughen up and just ignore small things like the shirt. Now if the kid places himself in front of you, taunting you with the shirt then the school should do something, but otherwise let it go and learn to live with differing opinions.
Milhouse – I think there are 3 or 4 separate and distinct issues involved
A- I agree that the school can ban various types of speech for the purpose of maintaining discipline and/or a conducive learning environment.
B – The speech bans should be on a viewpoint neutral basis ( can not ban 2 gender shirts but approve changing gender shirts)
C – the vastly more important issue is the promotion by the mental health commmunity and leftists who intentionally inflict harm to the mentally ill with the bogus gender confusion diagnosis.
C is irrelevant to this case.
On B, if the only basis on which a restriction can be imposed is that it disrupts the learning that is the purpose of the schools’ existence, then the restriction can’t be viewpoint neutral. Some messages are disruptive, while their opposites are simply not.
Suppose a school with at least one Jewish student, and another student shows up with a shirt reading “Jews to the ovens”, or “Hitler was right”. In and of itself it’s protected speech. But it’s also a personal attack on the Jewish students who see it, which, if they are made to look at it all day, can be predicted to disrupt their ability to receive the education they’re entitled to.
Whereas the opposite is not true. If the Jews wear shirts proclaiming “Am Yisrael Chai”, that is not an attack on the Nazi students, it does not threaten or undermine them in any way, it doesn’t say they shouldn’t exist, or shouldn’t be at the school, it simply disagrees with them. It would be disingenuous to argue that merely seeing this message, even all day every day, can possibly harm their ability to be educated.
I don’t think the potential harm in this case is anywhere near as dramatic as that, and I think the school was wrong. But the first circuit wasn’t asked to agree with the school, but simply whether the school’s concerns are reasonable. Whether it’s possible that the shirt could have the effect the school feared. And yes, it is possible. I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s possible.
“on the impact that seeing the shirt all day would have on students who identify as trans or nonbinary, and the disruption to their schoolwork.”
Whereas constant in-your-face Pride celebrations, rainbow posters, and essay assignments have absolutely no impact on students who identify biologically, traditionally, or religiously. Is that the decision here?
Of course they have no such impact. Why would they? They do not attack those students in any way. They do not deny their existence, their importance, or make them feel in any way that they don’t belong. There is absolutely no excuse for them not to be able to concentrate on their school work, just because they are forced to acknowledge that different people exist and have the same rights they do.
Now a trans student should be able to concentrate even in the face of being told all day that there are only two genders. They will of course disagree with that message, but it shouldn’t be so harmful to them as to justify the school’s decision. But the court was not asked to make that decision; in court the presumption is always with the defendant, and the onus is on the plaintiff to prove his case. And the kid can’t prove, on the balance of probability, that his shirt couldn’t have such an effect. Or at least, he can’t prove it so overwhelmingly that it would be a no-brainer for SCOTUS to grant him a privilege very few people get, to allow him to argue his case before it.
Wrong agin Milhouse
Where’s Fuzzy to tell us all how smart you are
We don’t need Fuzzy to tell us that you are dumb dumb dumb insane and dumb.
By the logic you give then any pro-tranny top would have to be banned by the school because of the impact it’d have on students who reject the delusion of trans and non-binary yet have to endure this disruption or distraction to their day. Worse, if the school promotes such delusion then such students are at risk of bullying by staff who refuse to tolerate their existence.
What impact? Such a shirt could not possibly have any negative impact on them at all. NOBODY AT ALL is challenging the existence of cisgender (i.e. normal) students. A pro-trans top would simply be telling them that their opinions are incorrect. If being told they’re wrong disrupts their schoolwork that is THEIR FAULT AND THEIR PROBLEM and no one else’s. It is completely unreasonable for it to have such an effect on them.
But we don’t care about the effect having all the pride garbage up for people who don’t want to have your particular sexual deviancy shoved in their face all the time? We only care in one direction.
the first circuit’s decision was not based on the fact that the shirt promotes a position, but on the impact that seeing the shirt all day would have on students who identify as trans or nonbinary, and the disruption to their schoolwork.
Which is a violation of the first amendment. The First Circuit brazenly violated the first amendment. As did the school.
There is no right ANYWHERE to not be offended.
Interestingly, the same school that banned that shirt because it would supposedly have an impact on students who ‘identify’ as trans or non-binary allows shirts and material that have an impact on students who are one of the two sexes/genders that actually exist.
It’s like their feelings don’t matter.
As if it’s a clear example of viewpoint discrimination.
Being a leftist and a Democrat, Milhouse, you can’t accept that.
While you re correct in what the court said, the premise of the whole decision is wrong. words on a shirt can not be disruptive if they are not threatening.
The next step is for people to use this decision and claim fear, discomfort and disruption on pride flags and any LGBT propaganda worn in school.
Next? This has been their whiny game plan for over a decade. You exercising your rights “makes them feel unsafe.” That’s why it’s called crybullying.
Absolutely
And any such claims are rejected by the transfascists, homofascists and their allies as -phobia with those who ‘out’ themselves facing enhanced scrutiny and likely bullying by staff.
That is the one thing I find absent in this report. Were progressive opinions tolerated and expressed on clothing, books, and posters in the school. How did the teachers dress and comport themselves. Were they neutral? If neutral then this student was singled out. If not then I would argue the school environment was disruptive to begin with and the school forfeited their right to police this student’s dress.
It was the correct decision – the shirt was meant to be disruptive to the school, and falls squarely in that exception.
The way out for the kid is to quote Milton (Paradise Lost), with attribution, “Two great sexes animate the world”
Let them claim that Milton is not educational.
If the truth is disruptive to the school, there’s something wrong with the school.
Except that the school has not proven the fact of “disruption” or harm of any kind, it merely ASSERTS that a certain viewpoint which contradicts their own beliefs is hurtful. This is not sufficient.
It is also passive aggressive bs, If the shirt said “Kill the trans” it be a different matter,
Wow. I agree with rhhardin… my meds might be running low but I do agree. High schools are a place for learning and intellectual debate. They are also teeming swamps of hormones which cause poor impulse control. (Read as aggressive behavior).
Clothes with any political or other provocative messaging should be prohibited at the discretion of the School. Now, if one side of the spectrum is allowed to express their views through dress and the other side is not, that’s a different question than the one before the court.
In short, anyone who has had to manage a group of more than 10 adults knows that most days you are just one remark away from the Hatfields shooting up the McCoys.
With high school kids that situation is even worse…
T-shirts aren’t the only canvas for expression. That argument would also apply to hair styles and hair dye, Body piercing, Tattoos and wigs/toupee. No non natural stuff and no ornamentation. Gotta ban all sorts of stickers, drawings, logos, messaging on everything; backpacks, books, computers, phones, Then inspect the lockers, hallway, bathrooms and definitely the classrooms for any sort of political/social messaging.
Of course those prohibitions would have to also be enforced upon faculty, administration and staff without any exception not just in school but in district offices at school board meetings anyplace where school age children might view it.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
“High schools are a place for learning and intellectual debate. They are also teeming swamps of hormones which cause poor impulse control. (Read as aggressive behavior).
Clothes with any political or other provocative messaging should be prohibited at the discretion of the School.”
We should also ban girls from wearing and provocative clothing, because those teeming swamps of hormones could cause boys to rape girls. Perhaps girls should be forced to wear clothing that covers them from head to toe so no one can see any skin other than their eyes.
We can’t have one side of the spectrum expressing themselves and be allowed to wear provocative clothing.
“In short, anyone who has had to manage a group of more than 10 adults knows that most days you are just one” bare midriff or short shorts away from a “worse situation…”
/s
If schools were serious about making sure they provided a disruption- free learning environment, they’d have sex-segregated schools rather than coed and at least minimize the “raging hormones” factor.
Of course that would be a tacit admission of that which they vehemently deny, so I wouldn’t expect that solution to occur to them anytime soon.
IOW, the “disruption” excuse is merely a pretext for them to justify imposition of their rigid ideology.
If you think sexually segregating an educational institution — or a prison — minimizes the “raging hormones” factor, you probably haven’t ever endured either one.
You’re right, but the raging hormones can be checked in school when a bunch of boys who all their lives have been told they’re a bunch of burros no longer have to worry about looking “dumb” in front of the girls with whom they hope to score. They’ll start turning their “risk-taking adolescent male behavior” towards getting into a subject, mastering int, or even competing with their male peers in that area. I’ve seen it.
Speaking as a public high school school teacher (English Language Development, Social Studies, Chinese Language), I agree with Nordic Prince. I once had an advanced English as a Second Language group in which there were only three girls. One day, all three girls were absent; and, wouldn’t you know it, even the third- and fourth-string boys participated, halting pronunciation and all.
In adolescence, no matter what schools, laws, and ideologues think, the hormones and bodily changes are telling the kids, “find a mate; do the mating dances.” Hence, nobody wants to look “dumb” in front of the other sex. Hence, passive learning, fear of questioning, and host of other ills. You can tell Joe student that he isn’t really stupid, just ignorant till you’re blue in the face, and that schools and older people are there to fix ignorance (and you’ll be 100% right), but Joe’s still going to be cautious about putting forth when he’s got his eyes on Jill.
So you, like Thomas, think the Des Moines schools were right to prevent the Tinkers from wearing their armbands.
They don’t have to claim it’s “not educational.”
Now they only have to claim that it makes some neurotic feel uneasy.
The neurotic has the same right to learn as every other student. And being told that he/she/it doesn’t exist can reasonably be supposed to make him/her/it feel so “uneasy” that he/she/it cannot learn.
If the school can be disrupted by a shirt, it deserves to be disrupted.
They would claim that Milton is not educational. I bet you can’t find a public school that has assigned Milton in the las 30 years.
“Conservative” Supreme Court.
They’re too chicken to take a case and affirm the freaking obvious. That tells me a lot.
That’s the problem with conservatives–we’re too risk-averse.
No, it’s “Trump’s” Supreme Court which is doing this.
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump 🎶
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump
Glorious Trummmmmmp, Wonderful Trump….
Shut up, you idiot.
It makes me want to vomit
When the highest legal authority of the republic fails to recognize basic Constitutional rights what recourse is there?
When the highest legal authority of the republic fails to recognize basic Constitutional rights what recourse is there?
__________________________________________________________
you ask the most important question of all–thank you
The answer is hidden in plain sight near the top of the Bill of Rights.
Wake me when the Rule of Law gets pronounced by the coroner.
The courts have not failed to recognize students’ right to freedom of speech. The only judge, at any level, who doesn’t recognize it is none other than Clarence Thomas.
But Tinker, which is the only basis for this right, explicitly does recognize an exception. So the only question is whether this case fits into that exception.
I repeat, in case you missed it: The position you are advocating, that students have an unlimited freedom of speech in school just as adults have outside school, is supported by NOBODY AT ALL. Tinker rejects it, and of course anyone who would overturn Tinker rejects it even more strongly.
Supporting Pride Month and allowing pro LEPQMNOP (whatever) is disruptive to those that believe in science. The school is taking sides. If one is allowed then the other should be too.
No, it is not disruptive. No students can possibly have their ability to learn negatively affected simply by the knowledge that not everyone agrees with them. Their own existence is neither attacked nor ignored. They are not being told they don’t belong in school, or that they must change their identity.
Here, read this–
No students can possibly have their ability to learn negatively affected simply by the knowledge that not everyone agrees with them
And understand that this single sentence undermines all your support for this asinine decision.
If all the normal kids have to deal with you and yours labeling them ‘cis’ and thrusting your sexual practices in their face in school then you can deal with A kid wearing a shirt that lets you all know that not everyone agrees with you.
Holy mackerel! It seems that at this point, it’s the religious fundamentalists who believe the real science!
This entire obsession with inclusion has become a descent into madness. No one can safely say anything without being labeled a racist, sexist, fascist or some other “ist”.
Let me add though that school is a poor place for challenging this absurdity in the manner the kid chose. About 55 years ago my younger brother was expelled from school for a couple of days for wearing a black arm band protesting the Vietnam War. While he was right he was also wrong. Thank God that the expulsion apparently prevented his acceptance at Harvard. God works in mysterious ways.
I would have thought it would have helped him actually
In some eras, Harvard was surprisingly sane.
Still snooty, but sane.
Can’t be 55 years ago, because Tinker was 56 years ago. Your brother’s case must have been before that. And for 56 years the law of the land has been that he was right and his school was wrong.
Well, I hope that Liam has learned his lesson and will now sit in class and keep his damn mouth shut while “The True Word” is being gifted to these children! /sarc off
My, how we have fallen!
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977). Significant Jewish population in Skokie, but they were just going to have to put up with the Nazis marching in their village.
Now, a t-shirt, i.e. – an opinion, causes too much disruption in an environment where different opinions should be vigorously debated.
With this decision, our schools are becoming like a communist indoctrination session where people sat and listened to outrageous lies, but could not say one word against them.
The school doesn’t want the position vigorously debated.
The school has adopted one position as Revealed Truth.
There is a State Religion… it’s just not yours.
The people of Skokie were indeed required to allow the Nazi parade, though no one was going to compel them to watch it. But anyone who tried wearing a swastika in school all day would have been expelled.
This is not about suppressing opinions, it’s about protecting the ability of all students to learn, which is the purpose of a school in the first place.
The kid was not even being required to keep his opinions quiet; he was merely being required not to shove them in the faces of students who would naturally take it as an attack on them personally.
No students can possibly have their ability to learn negatively affected simply by the knowledge that not everyone agrees with them
–Mi8lhouse
SCOTUS shouldn’t take this case because it’s not their business to settle an ideological argument. We can argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin but the Court cannot determine which number is constitutionally correct.
If SCOTUS ruled that there are two genders is free speech then that would apply to the contrary as well. If a Catholic school student wore a shirt that said God is wrong, there are 47 genders, is the school barred by the First Amendment to tell the student to go home?
It’s up to us to settle this with the schools, not SCOTUS.
Wrong. The issue is not whether there are only 2 genders. The issue is whether the student’s first amendment rights were violated by the school.
Accepting your premise that this is an ideological argument, it’s being fomented by a government school, and the school (government) is taking a side and then using its power to inculcate citizens (the students) with one-sided messaging. This is indoctrination. Government regularly takes sides over ideology (re pro-life legislation v pro-abortion legislation). This is unavoidable. But what is avoidable, and I would argue beyond the authority of government, is indoctrination. The boy’s t-shirt is an indication to school officials (government) that he rejects their efforts to indoctrinate him. Nobody here believes for a moment that he was singled out for making other students feel “unsafe.” He was singled out for rejecting the indoctrination and, heaven forbid, encouraging others to do the same.
Well over a year ago I rejected mandatory “race” training at my workplace (I’m a government employee) based on this principle (see https://locals.com/fatwahsforsaleorrent/feed?post=5969025). I received zero blowback after doing so.
Lower courts already inserted themselves in the ideological argument. So it would be ludicrous to state that appeals process to SCOTUS is wrong.
It was wrong for the courts to get involved in indoctrination issues. But once it happens, we can’t deny the appeals.
This really is an uninformed debating point.
Given that a Catholic School is not a government school, by definition, the First Amendment doesn’t even come into play.
A Roman Catholic school can rule contrary to the government because they’re bound by ‘church law’ rather than the Constitution. A public school is not legally permitted to mandate a single reality denying perspective whilst banning reality based statements, and yet they are now.
Catholic schools are not governed by the first amendment. Government schools (except according to Thomas) are. But the decision that established that also said it’s subject to the caveat that they don’t have to allow speech that is likely to interfere with the very purpose of their existence.
Most Catholic schools have uniforms so sending them home would not be a free speech issue at all it would be not following the Uniform code. You could wear a shirt with a picture of Pope Leo on it and they would send you home because you are out of uniform.
You have this totally backwards. Thomas thinks Tinker was wrongly decided, and students have no freedom of speech rights against their schools. If it were up to him he would overturn Tinker and throw this kid out on his ear, telling him that he can only say what his school allows. The only reason he dissents here is because Tinker is the controlling law, and he thinks the exception noted in that incorrect decision doesn’t apply here.
From the quote, it seems what Thomas disagrees with is Tinker’s assertion that there are exceptions to the 1st Amendment that allow schools to suppress free speech. He’s not rejecting Tinker’s determination that what the school did in this case was unconstitutional. Thomas is saying there are no exceptions and Tinker was wrong to suggest that there are.
I can see a clear basis for his position (which is mine, as indicated in a post above) – in these (government) school cases, government is singularly disempowered from controlling speech. This argument applies peculiarly to government and wouldn’t necessarily apply to, say, a private school or place of employment.
EIiher of you could be correct, entirely depending on exactly what reasoning it was that Thomas “previously explained.” Unfortunately, that is not cited here nor am I familiar with it.
No, that is not a possible reading. Tinker is the entire basis for granting government school students freedom of speech at all. Before Tinker they had no such rights, and if it were to be overturned, as Thomas says it should be, then they would again have no such rights. Thomas is fundamentally hostile to the idea that students at government schools have any freedom of speech; he wants schools to be able to shut them up at will. He believes they are there to learn, not to speak. They should accept whatever the school is teaching them, and not say anything to the contrary — even if they are adults, and even off campus (see Bong Hits for Jesus, or whatever its official title was).
They ALWAYS had such rights.
Tinker interferes with those rights by allowing that some free speech is prohibited.
YOU agree with that prohibition when you suggest that the shirt interfered with ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’ kids comfort in their identity.
Thomas does not.
YOu are a fucking liar. Before Tinker school kids had no free speech rights whatsoever. It was Tinker that created those rights for the first time ever. And Thomas disagrees with Tinker.
You are also a fucking disgusting slandering liar when you continually and knowingly falsely accuse me of being a leftist or a Democrat. Every time you do that you condemn yourself to Hell.
And you lie again when you claim that the issue here is trans kids not being able to handle the existence of people who disagree with them. The issue here is not disagreement, it’s telling someone that they don’t exist, that they don’t count, that they don’t matter. This kid’s shirt is exactly the same as one that says “There are only two kinds of people: Christians and atheists”.
You are correct. The post has been updated to reflect your correct take on Justice Thomas’ position. Thanks for the assist.
This is a clear freedom of speech issue and the court should have taken the case,
The problem with giving the government (the school) the ability to ban certain speech (t-shirt slogans) is that only certain speech reflecting the viewpoint of the administrators will be allowed, Schools have created this problem by wading into and taking sides of social issues they have no business becoming involved in. And some students and activists have taken advantage of this by manipulating the system so that only their viewpoint is allowed. This is purposeful on their part.
There are two solutions. Allow all speech unless it proposes a violent act or disallow any speech. There is no middle ground where the government gets to decide. (Speech in this case refers to tshirts and posters)
The entire court system is reinforcing the fact that our government bureaucratic monopoly school system is America’s best example of totalitarian leftism. If only parents would prioritize their children highly enough to pay attention and act accordingly.
The court system is saying, “Love or leave it.” Many parents are still deciding to “love it”.
“words are violence” only to be used against the judeo-christian agenda of maga
Hey Roberts… this is why people are losing faith in YOUR institution. This young man had his constitutional rights stomped on and you don’t think it’s worth your time and attention.
My very conservative school district, decades ago, mandated uniforms.
Plain pants, with a choice of several colors, and plain unprinted shirts with a choice of colors. No text or images on any clothing.
How appropriate that our failing public schools now ban facts.
Classic Roberts ‘legitimacy’ nonsense.
He knows there would be massive backlash for ruling against the kid, so he pretends to not rule, when that means that the leftist nonsense stands.
Again the courts being part of the administrative state will do what’s best for the court.
The Mass Teachers/schools embrace blm and lgbtq+_ etc
so that means that non adherents to those agendas feel threatened by not only those groups and their known propensity towards violence but also the fear of speaking out against them
THE BATTLE THAT THE LEFT WANTS/DEMANDS grows stronger with the SCOTUS refusing to try and settle these issues with WORDS AND NOT VIOLENCE
how much of the scotus reluctance to take on a case THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD TAKE ON
is due to their own fears of left wing blacklash?
BTW
what do they teach in their biology classes???
Chicks have d|cks.
I believe government schools and their employees should be neutral. I have no problem discussing current events and even controversial topics as long as they are age appropriate and maintain neutrality. They can not be allowed to take aside. Unfortunately that is what it appears most schools do today.
The school needs to be allowed to police for attire and presentation that would be distracting. I got a whole list of things to disallow. Ideally uniforms should be mandated but actually normal casual clothes would be fine. We all know what is really appropriate and what isn’t.
Frankly I wouldnt have a problem if schools were same sex. I know I was distracted in middle and high school merely by the presence of females. (Of course that was the mini skirt era). I realize that opens up a can of worms for those not heter0-sexual, and there is the cost factor.
the problem is this is not how public schools are today. They embrace left wing causes because their teachers, administrators, and school boards are
generally left wing. This is the problem. They feel compelled to indoctrinate and convert, The last things they want is a thinking, reasoning, questioning student.
When I was in both the 8th and 9th grades, I had a social studies teacher who was an obvious liberal as he regularly espoused liberal viewpoints concerning domestic policies and geopolitics. Of note, he was the only teacher our division (advanced/college prep) had for whom we had any inkling of what his or her politics were. This was back in the school years that ended in 70 and 71, so one might think that there might have been a strong anti-Vietnam War sentiment voiced by our teachers. There was not. Schools have changed so much since then that an objective observer would think their purpose is political indoctrination.
Men debate issues; women assemble blocs.
So much explains itself from the proper viewpoint.
What was starting to happen way back then is entirely obvious in the makeup of the major political parties today.
Yeah, I know your teacher was male, but so is David Hogg.
Are you sure hogg is male?
YSWIDT.
He should have been taken to task for expressing his opinions.
I don’t recall any such think in my school and I was 15 and in 10th grade in 70, the only social issues I remember being pushed was anti-drugs and anti-smoking. There was environmental and hunger awareness but that was pushed by us students but it was not man made climate change crazyness. Mostly pollution and recycling. I don’t recall much anti-war sentiment although some students had such opinions. The school didn’t. The school and its students were left but not oppressively.
BTW: Then male teachers worse sport coats and ties mostly. The women teachers wore dresses. Things have changed a lot.
This issue should have never gotten supreme court. The district court should have taken a good look at the school. If the school was neutral then I think it would have been fine to ban the shirt. If the school expressed or allowed students to express an opinion then they should have been told to pound sand.
I don’t know what this school was like or what the district court did, but own bias tells me to say the probably did everything wrong and so did the appellate court, and so did the supreme court.
The supreme court should have remanded the case (if that is the term) back to the district court with appropriate instructions on how to adjudicate this particular issue since they were probably clueless. I can see them not taking the case unless they wanted to establish a firm general precedence governing freedom of speech in schools.
Apparently so.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=pie+and+punch&qs=n&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=pie+and+punch&sc=11-13&sk=&cvid=D210768D1C854039B22C1696460DAB44&ajaxnorecss=1&sid=07152D8BF2506E0F2CD73865F3DF6F1B&jsoncbid=0&ajaxsydconv=1&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dpie%2520and%2520punch%26qs%3dn%26form%3dQBRE%26sp%3d-1%26lq%3d0%26pq%3dpie%2520and%2520punch%26sc%3d11-13%26sk%3d%26cvid%3dD210768D1C854039B22C1696460DAB44%26ajaxnorecss%3d1%26sid%3d07152D8BF2506E0F2CD73865F3DF6F1B%26format%3dsnrjson%26jsoncbid%3d0%26ajaxsydconv%3d1&mmscn=vwrc&mid=41C40C4B4F0F30FC4AA341C40C4B4F0F30FC4AA3&FORM=WRVORC&ntb=1&msockid=1238c0253c3111f0857036ba1a63f684
I wonder if Liam would be permitted to wear a t-shirt saying Fact Free Zone – Truth is illegal @Nichols Middle School or something to that effect?
I hope Liam’s parents will choose to homeschool. He is obviously highly motivated, and has enormous common sense.
4 thoughts:
1. Ambiguity of the Shirt’s Message
The shirt states “There are only 2 genders” but doesn’t specify what those genders are. Why would someone feel threatened or erased by this unless they assume the genders being referenced? This reaction might suggest an implicit acknowledgment of a widely accepted binary, which raises questions about the perceived threat.
2. Consistency with Trans Identity Claims
I’ve been repeatedly informed that “trans boys are boys” and “trans girls are girls.” If this is true, then the shirt’s message shouldn’t pose a threat, provided no one is being misgendered. Since the shirt doesn’t target or misgender anyone directly, the claim of harm seems inconsistent with these affirmations.
3. Impact of Publicized Beliefs
The student wore the shirt, and the school administration’s demand to remove it has made his beliefs widely known. Since his views are now common knowledge, could his mere presence be perceived as threatening or disruptive to other students’ learning environment? If so, does this imply he should be removed from the classroom for holding these beliefs? This raises serious concerns about penalizing someone for their expressed opinions.
4. Censorship and the Altered Shirt
The follow-up shirt stating “There are [censored] genders” makes no explicit claim and, without context, appears harmless or nonsensical. Why ban it? Banning this shirt either reinforces the original issue (point 3) or suggests an overreach in censoring ambiguous messages, which could stifle free expression.