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18 AGs file briefs in support of Middleborough student who wore ‘there are only two genders’ shirt

"Please continue to pray that the Supreme Court will hear his case and that we will walk away with a win for Liam!”

Liam Morrison Alliance Defending Freedom

November 27, 2024

2 minutes to read

Eighteen state attorneys general from mostly Republican-led states are voicing their support for the Massachusetts middle schooler who claims his First Amendment rights were violated when he was banned from wearing a “There are only two genders” shirt to school last year.

Liam Morrison, a then-seventh grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, was sent home from school in March 2023 after he refused to change his t-shirt. A District Court judge found that his rights were not violated, and a United States Court of Appeals agreed in June.

The case was filed on behalf of Morrison and his family last year by two conservative Christian groups, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute. The groups have said they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

ADF announced several friend-of-the-court briefs, which are filed to ask the country’s highest court to take on Morrison’s case. Attorneys general from South Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and Virginia argued that public education is centered around “pursuing truth – even when uncomfortable.”

“We are thankful for the broad support that Liam is receiving from these allied organizations. Please continue to pray that the Supreme Court will hear his case and that we will walk away with a win for Liam!” MFI wrote on their website.

The lower courts ruled that Morrison’s t-shirts (including one he wore in protest that read: “There are CENSORED genders”) that the shirts are generally understood in a middle school setting to “demean the identity of transgender and gender-nonconforming NMS students.”

The AGs argued that the court didn’t prove that the shirt caused a real disruption in class and called their evidence “far too attenuated.”

“The school’s facts showing “substantial disruption” were a survey of some LGBTQ+ students saying they sometimes felt unwelcome or bullied at school, a teacher who said they thought LGBTQ+ students “impacted” by the Tshirt could “potentially disrupt classes,” and a belief that LGBTQ+ students generally struggle with suicide,” the AGs wrote.

Multiple other religious and educational organizations including Parents Defending Education and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression also filed briefs to support the students.

“School administrators nationwide will wield (this decision) to censor unpopular or dissenting viewpoints—miseducating students about their expressive rights in our pluralist society,” FIRE wrote in their brief.