A Boston appeals court on Sunday upheld a decision for a middle schooler to stop wearing a "There Are Only Two Genders" shirt to school after it was ruled its message demeaned the identity of transgender and gender-nonconforming students.
In March 2023, Liam Morrison, then a seventh-grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, was banned by school officials from wearing a shirt to school that read, "There are only two genders,'' after his school held a Pride Day.
A month later, the then-12-year-old wore a shirt that said, "There are censored genders," and was again ordered to remove the shirt as school officials argued that it targeted nonbinary students. That led to a lawsuit in which Morrison, represented by conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that officials at the school violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment by censoring him by refusing to allow him to wear the T-shirt.
However, a U.S. district judge ruled in favor of the Middleborough school officials, concluding that the school did not violate the student's right to free speech.
On Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston ruled that the school's actions were justified under the "invasion of the rights of others" limitation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, noting that the shirt's message could be harmful to LGBTQ+ students and disrupt the educational environment.
The Tinker case had upheld students' First Amendment rights but allowed for restrictions if the speech would cause substantial disruption or infringe on the rights of others.
Newsweek has reached out to the Alliance Defending Freedom via email for comment.
The ruling comes as transgender youth have been faced with hundreds of bills nationwide as conservative lawmakers have been moving to limit LGBTQ people's rights such as access to gender-affirming care, use of bathroom facilities, and participation in sports. According to the ACLU, at least 510 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2023.
Newsweek has reached out to ACLU via email for comment.
"We think it was reasonable for Middleborough to forecast that a message displayed throughout the school day denying the existence of the gender identities of transgender and gender non-conforming students would have a serious negative impact on those students' ability to concentrate on their classroom work," the court said.
According to Chief U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron, the court could not conclude that educators acted unreasonably.
"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," Baron said.
In response to the upheld ruling, Alliance Defending Freedom took to X, formerly Twitter, to condemn the ruling, saying: "This is a clear violation of Liam's free speech right," adding that it will explore all legal options, including an appeal.
"Our legal system is built on the truth that government can't censor speech it doesn't like," Alliance Defending Freedom wrote. "But unfortunately, the 1st Circuit disregarded this in their ruling for L.M. v. Town of Middleborough. While Liam Morrison's classmates are encouraged to express their ideas about gender, he can't wear a t-shirt expressing his view: 'There Are Only Two Genders.' This is a clear violation of Liam's free speech rights."
Morrison's attorney, Sam Whiting, also condemned the decision, telling the Boston Herald that "although there was no evidence that Liam's message caused a disruption at school, the court held that the possibility that some students might suffer psychological distress from his shirt was enough to justify censoring him. While we are disappointed in this decision, we aren't done fighting yet."
In February Deborah Ecker, a lawyer for the Middleborough School Committee, said the school officials' actions were in response to concern for the LGBTQ students, "who are captive in this classroom looking at it."
"I think that this message, that there are only two genders, is vile and it says to someone who is nonbinary that you do not exist, that your validity does not exist, and it attacks the very core characteristic," Ecker told NBC News.
Newsweek has reached out to Ecker via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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