Liam Morrison, whose Massachusetts middle school told him to remove a shirt that said “there are only two genders,” has asked the Supreme Court to take up his case, alleging the school is violating his First Amendment rights by preventing him from wearing it.
The case typifies the divide between outspoken conservative families and school leaders who say they must protect and promote acceptance for all students, as Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Carolyn Lyons said last year.
The tension was also made evident in a recent report called “The Costs of Conflict,” which intended to quantify the costs of culturally divisive conflicts over topics like transgender policies and content moderation.
According to a public records request made by Chalkboard, Lyons spoke with the report authors for an interview over the summer.
A district court and court of appeals have sided with the school’s arguments that to protect sexual minority students who base their identity off the premise that there are more than two genders, Morrison would not be allowed to wear a shirt that threatens their identity.
In 2023, Lyons spoke to the school board about the issue, and explained why — even though she said she did not decide what students get to think — she had sided against Morrison being able to wear the shirt.
“The dividing line for me as this district’s leader, is when all students are not protected, not accepted for who they are and told either directly or indirectly that they don’t belong here in Middleborough,” Lyons said in her report to the board that April.
“Exposing our children to messages that marginalize groups of students is a safety issue,” Lyons said. “Mental health is a significant issue facing our children today. This is an issue that existed before the last few years and it only worsened since 2020.”
Lyons said rates of self-harm and suicide ideation are at “terrifying rates.”
“We must safeguard against anything that harms our students mental health. Failing to model measured and reasonable discourse is also a safety issue. Whether we like it or not, our culture needs to cultivate a practice of unpacking disagreement in a respectful way that protects our children.”
Lyons said students’ voices matter the most to her.
“They, and all the other groups I have mentioned, have told me that they want Middleborough Public Schools to be a safe place for all students. I will be renewing our efforts to achieve respectful discourse in matters of disagreement, specifically racial equity, diversity and inclusion.”
As Chalkboard has previously written, Morrison alleges that the school promoted DEI topics regularly and his shirt communicated a message in opposition to such messaging. He alleges that the school’s prohibition on wearing the shirt violated his First Amendment rights.
According to Morrison’s October petition to the Supreme Court, the central question of the case is: “Whether school officials may presume substantial disruption or a violation of the rights of others from a student’s silent, passive, and untargeted ideological speech simply because that speech relates to matters of personal identity, even when the speech responds to the school’s opposing views, actions, or policies.”
The petition also points out that Middleborough’s handbook uses “sex-binary language” with the phrase “both sexes” and “either gender” making appearances.
“The First Circuit takes the remarkable position that a school may flood its halls with its views on a matter of public concern — here, gender identity — and encourage students to join in, then bar students from responding with different views,” the petition reads.
Ideological differences are not confined to Middleborough. Divides and litigation have occurred across the nation and follow a similar pattern of parents speaking out on transgender notification policies or books with graphic scenes while administrators and opponents say they need to protect LGBTQ+ students.
Last month, “The Costs of Conflict” report relying on survey responses from school superintendents highlighted how leaders’ approach parental concerns.
“Many superintendents we spoke with told us that it is vital for educational leaders and for the broader public to work to diminish the opportunities for conflict entrepreneurs to disrupt and distract and gain power — in school board meetings and elsewhere,” the report reads.
Chalkboard learned from a public records request that Lyons spoke with a researcher behind the report after she took the survey. The report appendix says researchers interviewed 12 superintendents who responded that they had experienced moderate or high levels of conflict.
Morrison is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute.
The report authors argued that if school leaders could minimize the power of “conflict entrepreneurs,” it would save billions of dollars from school budgets. Moms for Liberty slammed the report’s findings as “nonsense” and said schools should be listening to parents and families calling for change.
“If they weren’t doing so much nonsense, they wouldn’t have to deal with the ire of parents,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said.
