A Massachusetts middle schooler and his family are suing Nichols Middle School for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights after he was told to remove his shirt, which had the phrase “there are only two genders” written on it.
The incident first occurred on March 5 when Liam Morrison was pulled from gym class and asked to remove his shirt because other students were allegedly complaining and did not feel safe, as first reported by WPDE. The seventh grader was told by a staff member that his shirt was “targeting a protected class.” Morrison said he would not change his shirt, and the school called his father to pick him up.
During a Middleborough Public Schools board meeting on April 13, Morrison shared his experience with the intention that the school district should show more support for students’ First Amendment rights. The video was picked up by Libs of TikTok and received more than 127,000 likes on Twitter.
“I don’t complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school,” Morrison said in his speech. “Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do.”
On May 5, Morrison wore a modified version of his shirt, which read, “there are ‘censored’ genders,” as reported by Fox News. Before even the first bell rang, a faculty member walked into Morrison’s homeroom.
“Hey, I need you to follow me,” Morrison told Fox News Digital. “And knowing the shirt I was wearing and even though how different it was, I figured out that they would probably want me to come to the principal’s office. And after I had followed them, I went to the room that they told me to, and I already took my shirt off because I knew that that’s what they were going to ask me to do.”
Morrison is being represented by Massachusetts Family Institute. Sam Whiting, an attorney for the Christian public policy center said the lawsuit should be filed within the coming weeks or the next month.