A 12-year-old boy is taking the fight to his school district for violating his right to free speech after administrators at his middle school forced him to remove a t-shirt proclaiming that there are only two genders. And the school has now admitted out right that gays and transgenders are a “protected class.”
Liam Morrison was reportedly pulled out of gym class on March 21 and told by the administrators of Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, that he had to remove his shirt because, they said, it was threatening to other students and some students and staffers of the school had supposedly complained about the message on the shirt.
The boy said he politely declined to remove the shirt, and he maintains that he was making a political statement, not targeting anyone.
But officials made the decision to have him removed from class for the day and called his father to come pick him up.
The boy said he was confused over the activist school’s decision. He told Fox News Digital that his classmates were supportive of the shirt.
“Everyone in my homeroom and everyone in my gym class had supported what I had done,” he said, Fox News reported.
The school later claimed that Morrison had somehow violated the school’s dress code.
Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Carolyn Lyons has now admitted in a message to Fox that the “content of Liam’s shirt targeted students of a protected class; namely in the area of gender identity.”
Morrison, though, said he wore the shirt to express his First Amendment right of freedom of speech and was targeting a political issue with his shirt.
“The reason that I wore it is because, well, everyone has a right to their opinions, and I want to be able to voice mine on a subject that a lot of people were talking about,” Morrison told Fox.
“I definitely don’t like that they violated what is basically the first thing that the people who were in charge of America at the time stated we were allowed to do, and nowadays it feels like that’s being taken away a lot, which is why some people choose to speak up about it. It’s not just me,” he added.
Now, the student is considering a lawsuit against the school for a violation of free speech and is now being represented by the Massachusetts Family Institute, a non-partisan public policy organization.
MFI attorney Sam Whiting said that the case is a “pretty plain case of censorship.”
“There’s case law dating all the way back to the 1960s and maybe even before that states very clearly from the Supreme Court that students don’t lose their right to free speech when they walk in the schoolhouse door. And that’s exactly what the school was trying to do here,” Whiting explained.
“You know, Liam was trying to express his opinion on a topic that is controversial in our culture right now. It’s a political topic. A lot of people have different opinions on it. But they said that opinion, you know, is not authorized in school and so you’re not allowed to state it,” the attorney said.
Whiting added that since nothing Morrison did caused a substantial disruption in the school, administrators had no right to try to oppress his free speech with the shirt.
The attorney added that other people being “offended” is also no cause.
“But the law is clear that other students being upset about something that you say doesn’t even come close to causing that kind of substantial disruption that would justify them clamping down on your free speech rights,” Whiting said.
Morrison also noted that he understands that others are entitled to their opinion of the message on his shirt, but added, “They are entitled to their opinions just as I am,” and insisted that he has “a right to have a voice.”
The abusive school administrators also hired a lawfirm, Stoneman, Chandler & Miller LLP, and through the attorneys said that they will continue to “prohibit the wearing of a T-shirt by Liam Morrison or anyone else which is likely to be considered discriminatory, harassing and/or bullying to others including those who are gender nonconforming by suggesting that their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression does not exist or is invalid.”
Morrison and his family are now preparing to file a lawsuit against the district and also warned that he is planning on wearing another shirt that will “make a strong statement about censorship.”
The student also appeared before the Middleborough School Committee on April 13 and delivered a heartfelt address that went viral.
If Liam does file his lawsuit, it is very likely he will win. As MFI noted, the case law is pretty straight forward. Students don’t lose their rights just by walking through the schoolhouse door. And these left-wing administrators had no right to impose their political agenda on their students. No wonder kids are learning less and less. Too many of their teachers and administrators are more concerned with promulgating left-wing politics than in teaching anything.
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This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
