Supreme Court denies student's right to wear 'only two genders' T-shirt at school

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a middle-school student's claim he had a free-speech right to wear a T-shirt stating there are "only two genders."
Over two dissents, the justices let stand a ruling that said a school may enforce a dress code to protect students from "hate speech" or bullying.
After three months of internal debate, the justices decided they would not take up another conservative, culture war challenge to progressive policies that protect LGBTQ+ youth.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed a 14-page dissent joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas. He said the case "presented an issue of great importance for our nation's youth: whether public schools may suppress student speech because it expresses a viewpoint the schools disfavor."
Liam Morrison, a 7th grader from Massachusetts, said he was responding to his school's promotion of Pride Month when students were encouraged to wear rainbow colors and posters urged them to "rise up to protect trans and gender non-confirming students."
Two years ago, he went to school wearing a black T-shirt that said "There are only two genders."
Read more: Supreme Court splits 4-4, blocking first religious charter school in Oklahoma
A teacher reported him to the principal who sent him home to change his shirt. A few weeks later, he returned with the word "censored" taped over the words "two genders" but was sent home again.
The T-shirt dispute asked the Supreme Court to decide whether school officials may limit the free expression of some students to protect others from messages they may see as offensive or hurtful.
In March, the court voted to hear a free-speech challenge to laws in California and 21 other states that forbid licensed counselors from using "conversion therapy" with minors.
That case, like the one on school T-shirts, arose from appeals by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group. It has already won free-speech rulings that allowed a cake maker and a website designer to refuse to participate in same-sex weddings despite state laws that barred discrimination based on sexual orientation.
On April 22, the court sounded ready to rule for religious parents in Montgomery County, Md., who seek the right to have their young elementary children "opt out" of the classroom use of a new 'LGBTQ-inclusive' storybooks.
The T-shirt case came before the court shortly after President Trump's executive order declaring the U.S. government will "recognize two sexes, male and female," not "an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity."
While the Supreme Court has yet to rule on T-shirts and the 1st Amendment, lower courts have upheld limits imposed by schools.
In 2006, the 9th Circuit Court in a 2-1 decision upheld school officials at Poway High School in San Diego who barred a student from wearing a T-shirt that said "Homosexuality is shameful." The appeals court said students are free to speak on controversial matters, but they are not free to make "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation.'
Other courts have ruled schools may prohibit a student from wearing a Confederate flag on a T-shirt.
In the new case from Massachusetts, the boy's father said his son's T-shirt message was not "directed at any particular person" but dealt with a "hot political topic."
In their defense, school officials pointed to their policy against "bullying" and a dress code that says "clothing must not 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."
Lawyers for the ADF sued on the student's behalf and argued the school violated his rights under the 1st Amendment. They lost before a federal judge in Boston who ruled for school officials and said the T-shirt "invaded the rights of the other students..to a safe and secure educational environment."
The 1st Circuit Court agreed as well, noting that schools may limit free expression of students if they fear a particular message will cause a disruption or "poison the atmosphere" at school.
Read more: Supreme Court will hear free-speech challenge to 'conversion therapy' bans in California, Colorado
The Supreme Court's most famous ruling on student rights arose during the Vietnam War. In 1969, the Warren Court ruled for high school students who wore black arm bands as a protest.
In Tinker vs. Des Moines, the court said students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate....For school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, [they] must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint."
The justices said then a symbolic protest should be permitted so long as it did not cause a "substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities."
The attorneys for Liam Morrison contended he should win under that standard.
"This case isn't about T-shirts. It's about public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn't allowed to express a view that it differs from their own," said David Cortman, an ADF attorney in the case of L.M vs. Town of Middleborough.
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

CBS News

an hour ago

• CBS News

How a Baltimore-based organization is supporting LGBTQ+ first responders

Being a first responder can take a toll on anybody, but if you're also a part of the LGBTQ+ community, that toll can be even bigger to deal with. That's why the group 'Responders For Pride' works to support the community and teach agencies how to be good allies. LGBTQ+ stigma Nicola Maguire has been a firefighter for 18 years. However, when she started, she wasn't out to her colleagues. Eventually, she came out as a lesbian, and while she didn't experience any hate from them, there was still a stigma she grappled with—a stigma that's still alive and well today. "I won't be the same provider, or firefighter, or police officer I am tomorrow if I came out today," Maguire said as she explained the sort of thoughts some LGBTQ+ members grapple with. It's a stigma she is working to get rid of with the help of 'Responders For Pride', or RFP. "So, we want to be able to make it [so] that they can be their true identity. Growing up as LGBT, you never get to truly grow up, just being your true self," she stated. Mental health awareness for first responders Maguire is the president and one of RFP's founders, created in 2023. The group focuses on raising mental health awareness for LGBTQI+ first responders, sharing resources, and working with different agencies to develop liaison programs. Last month, RFP put on its first ignite conference, providing hands on training to ten different agencies, including one based in Canada. Allison Bingner and Sarah Corrigan, RFP volunteers and first responders, said the org's work has built a local LGBTQ+ support network. "You have your firefighters, you have police, you have everyone that's there that understands everything, from not only the work that you're doing career-wise, but what it is in your personal life," Bingner said. The network RFP curated has been essential in creating safe, welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ first responders to be themselves. "Use it as a strength instead of a weakness..." WJZ first met Corrigan in 2022, when she first came out and transitioned. "By having groups like RFP out there that make all of this visible to everybody, and showing the world you can be LGBTQ+ and still do this job, I think it really opens up the possibility for more people from our community to do this job," she said. That's all RFP wants first responders to do: be themselves. "Use it as a strength instead of a weakness within their departments, I think really would've helped me from the beginning to just be me and be the person I got hired within the department," Maguire explained. To learn more about 'Responders For Pride' and get involved, click here.

The Hill

4 hours ago

• The Hill

Delaware governor signs executive order protecting gender-affirming care

On Friday, Delaware Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer signed an executive order increasing protection for receivers and providers of gender-affirming care. 'In Delaware, we cherish privacy, dignity and the right to make personal medical decisions. Everyone deserves the freedom to access healthcare rooted in science and compassion,' said Meyer. The executive order prohibits any state agency from providing 'medical records, data or billing information, or utilize state resources' that could help any criminal or civil investigation against someone receiving or providing gender-affirming care. It also dictated that the state professional regulations board cannot disbar healthcare professionals only due to providing gender-affirming care. California, New York, Illinois and 11 other states, and Washington, D.C., have enacted similar legislation to shield patients and doctors from aggressive legislation in states where gender-affirming care is highly restricted. Patients can now travel to shield states to receive their care without fear of retribution in their home states. This comes after a Supreme Court decision on June 18 that upheld Tennessee's decision to ban puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors. 'This ruling undermines doctors in delivering care to some of the most vulnerable patients in our country,' Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the nation's first openly transgender member of Congress, said Wednesday on the social platform X. Since President Trump took office transgender rights have increasingly been limited. Trump signed an executive order recognizing only two genders, has tried to ban transgender troops from the military, has refused requests to change the gender of passports and has tried to defund gender-affirming medical care. Delaware has a long history of tolerance for LGBTQ populations. According to the order, the state hosts 40,000 LGBTQ individuals and 6,300 transgender adults. In 2013, it legalized same sex marriage and implemented anti-discrimination laws in housing, employment and public accommodation. 'We will do everything in our power to protect transgender families in the state of Delaware and throughout the country,' the Executive Committee of the Delaware Democratic Party PRIDE Caucus said in a press statement earlier this week. 'We call on every legislator, from the state and county level to the federal level, to speak out and step up. This is the moment to act – not with caution, but with courage.'

Los Angeles Times

5 hours ago

• Los Angeles Times

Mahmoud Khalil, back home after release from prison, vows to continue protesting Israel's war in Gaza

CONCORD, N.H. — A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his infant son's stroller with one hand and pumped his fist in the air with the other as supporters welcomed him home Saturday. Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters Saturday at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey a day after a judge ordered his release from a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. The former Columbia University graduate student, a symbol of President Trump's clampdown on campus protests, vowed to continue protesting Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. 'The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,' he said. 'This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.' Khalil, a legal U.S. resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center. 'Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you're not illegal. That doesn't make you less of a human,' he said. The 30-year-old international affairs student wasn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However, the Trump administration has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views it deems to be antisemitic or 'pro-Hamas,' referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be 'highly, highly unusual' for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn't been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it is appealing Khalil's release. Joining Khalil at the airport, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said his detention violated the 1st Amendment and was 'an affront to every American.' 'He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,' she said. 'The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,' Ocasio-Cortez added. 'They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.' Ramer writes for the Associated Press.