In a scathing dissent, Justice Samuel Alito reprimanded the First Circuit for its manipulation of what constitutes disruption under the Tinker precedent and its disregard for students’ free speech rights under the First Amendment.
[UPDATE] The Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of Liam Morrison, a middle school student who was sent home from school for wearing a shirt that read: “There Are Only Two Genders”.
Morrison catapulted into national headlines in 2023 when the then-12-year-old student at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, was told to change not one but two shirts. The second time was for wearing a shirt that read: “There Are Censored Genders”.
Morrison then spoke at a school committee meeting in which he defended his right to state his beliefs.
What prompted Morrison’s shirt was the school’s celebration of LGBT lifestyles and pushing such ideas on students.
Morrison and his legal representation, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), filed suit for his right to wear the shirt, claiming the school was violating his First Amendment rights and engaging in viewpoint discrimination.
Nichols Middle School claimed that there were transgender students in the school who would be distressed if Morrison was allowed to wear the shirt.
A U.S. district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit each ruled in favor of the school.
Morrison appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier today declined to hear the case.
Not all the justices agreed with the decision, however, as Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, penned a 14-page dissent in which he excoriated the First Circuit for its misunderstanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent set in the 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District.
In that case, students had been banned from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, but the school did not ban students from wearing buttons related to political campaigns or even symbols associated with Nazism.
The Supreme Court ruled in Tinker that the school could not ban the students from exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
Moreover, it ruled that schools cannot restrict a student’s freedom of speech unless it “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.”
Alito wrote that in Tinker, there had been tangible disruptions in the school due to the students wearing of the armbands. A math teacher had numerous lesson periods “wrecked” by disputes with 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker who wore the armband. Also students in the school had friends or neighbors who had been killed fighting in Vietnam and the minds of students were taken off classwork and onto thoughts about the war.
Despite this, the Court ruled that the school’s “undifferentiated fear” of a situation it could not control did not “overcome the right to freedom of expression.”
In Morrison’s case, Alito wrote that the concerns were far more “speculative” as the school was aware of no disruptions or any problems caused by the shirt’s message.
“Instead of applying Tinker’s speech-protective standards, the court below crafted a novel and permissive test that distorts the ‘material disruption’ rule beyond recognition,” he reasoned. “This rule cannot be squared with Tinker.”
Alito wrote that the First Circuit “sidestepped” Morrison’s viewpoint discrimination claim. The First Circuit argued that Morrison’s claims were brought under recent court decisions and it did not see them as applicable.
“The court below erred, and badly so: the rule that viewpoint-based restrictions on speech are almost never allowed is not a new principle proclaimed only in ‘recent decisions’ like Matal or Iancu,” he explained. “To the contrary, viewpoint neutrality has long been seen as going to ‘the very heart of the First Amendment.’ The First Circuit was wrong to expel this bedrock constitutional safeguard from our schools.”
Alito demonstrated clearly that Nichols Middle School had been discriminating against Morrison’s viewpoint, citing Morrison’s claim that the school allows students to make political statements through their clothing, posters, pins, and speech. NMS also deliberately pushes LGBT ideas such as “Pride” and made a social media post showing a student wearing a shirt which read: “HE SHE THEY IT’S ALL OKAY”.
Alito summarized his argument by writing:
“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 nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools. 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.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
{Published on June 2, 2025} On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied seventh grade student Liam Morrison’s request that he be allowed to immediately express his views on gender identity after the school he attends banned him from wearing a t-shirt that read: “There are only two genders”.
Morrison, who attends Nichols Middle School (NMS) in Middleborough, Massachusetts, garnered national headlines after the school told him he had to change his shirt. Morrison refused and his dad had to pick him up from school. When NMS told Morrison and his family that he would be prohibited from wearing the shirt, he instead wore a shirt with the message, “There are censored genders.” He was told to remove that shirt as well.
Morrison said he wore the shirt because “everyone has a right to their opinions and I wanted to be able to voice mine on a subject that a lot of people were talking about.”
The 12-year-old spoke during a school committee meeting on April 13, saying,
“What did my shirt say? Five simple words, ‘There are only two genders.’ Nothing harmful, nothing threatening, just a statement I believe to be a fact. I have been told that my shirt was targeting a protected class. Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights? I don’t complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do.”
The Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed suit on Morrison’s behalf. They claim that the school has “adopted one particular view on the subject of sex and gender: that a person’s subjective identity determines whether a person is male or female, not a person’s sex.” They also argue that NMS has “expressed this view through their own speech; instituted annual, school-wide events celebrating their view; and encouraged students to engage in their own speech on this subject—so long as the students express the school’s favored viewpoint.”
NMS claims the shirt was banned because the dress code prohibits clothing that expresses messages that “state, imply, or depict hate speech or imagery that target groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification.”
On Wednesday, Morrison’s attorneys asked for a preliminary injunction that would stop NMS from enforcing its ban on Morrison’s shirt while the court considers the case. The court denied the request, but there will be another hearing on June 13.
ADF Legal Counsel Logan Spena said in a statement,
“This isn’t about a T-shirt; this is about a public school telling a 7th grader that he isn’t allowed to hold a view that differs from the school’s preferred orthodoxy. Public school officials can’t censor Liam’s speech by forcing him to remove a shirt that states a scientific fact. Doing so is a gross violation of the First Amendment that we’re urging the court to rectify.”
When asked what advice he would give to other people, Morrison replied: “Always fight for what you believe in and never let anyone stop you from believing…In the place that we live or in the time that we live there are a lot of people that try and make it so that you’re not allowed to believe what you can but it’s being taken away from us and being able to speak up not just about…your own opinion but for everybody else is a thing that we should all be doing.”
This is an obvious case of a government institution silencing a citizen because it disagrees with his views. The school argues that his shirt was somehow hate speech or targeting a group, despite the fact that the shirt’s message was not threatening. The school’s intent was made transparent when it prohibited Morrison’s shirt pointing out the school’s censorship.
The real story is not that Morrison was somehow hateful, but that a public school has been celebrating a particular view on sexual orientation and gender identity, essentially advocating for a religious and philosophical viewpoint, a clear violation of the Establishment Clause. The school takes its violations further by attempting to silence a student’s opposing views, views that are actually in keeping with the biological fact that the school should relay to its students — dispelling the gender identity delusion. That shows the state of education: Empirical truth is shunned as hate while ideological propaganda is lauded.
This court should rectify this violation of Morrison’s rights and should issue a strong ruling to guard against further violations. We should all take this brave young student’s advice seriously and defend the right of free speech for all.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 states,
“Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
There is much pressure to stay quiet on LGBT matters. Yet God’s Word calls us to keep the faith. We must remember that the loving thing to do in this situation is to tell the truth, not a lie, and to withstand the outrage of those who say our beliefs are hateful. The country would be a better place if more Christians were like Liam: courageous, thoughtful, and persistent in speaking the truth — no matter the cost.
Many K-12 schools now embrace the secular woke agenda and are hostile to Christian beliefs and parental rights. Fortunately, parents don’t have to settle for this. Liberty University Online Academy is a K-12 program designed to educate your children in the ways of the Lord while preparing them to stand firm in their faith when they graduate. Our flexible online curriculum ensures that your student is trained at your convenience and keeps YOU the ultimate educator of your children.
