Supreme Court declines to review free speech case involving student who wore 'only two genders' shirt
The student, Liam Morrison, brought the case through his father and stepmother, Christopher and Susan Morrison. The plaintiffs argue Nichols Middle School violated his free speech rights when it banned him from wearing two T-shirts to school with the words "There are only two genders" and "There are [censored] genders" on the front.
Liam was sent home both times after he refused to change shirts. The school argued the shirts made his classmates feel unsafe, and a federal court agreed, saying the message was demeaning for transgender students.
Judges V Trump: Here Are The Key Court Battles Halting The White House Agenda
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both issued separate dissents, arguing the court should have taken up the case.
The decision comes nearly a year after the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Liam and his parents in June 2024, finding that the school was justified in asking him to remove the shirt and sending him home when he refused.
Read On The Fox News App
Judge Orders University Of California Workers To End Strike Protesting Response To Anti-israel Protests
Morrison, who was in seventh grade at the time, was sent home with his father in May 2023 after he refused to take off the shirt, according to court documents. He later wore the same shirt with the words "only two" covered with a piece of tape on which "censored" was written. The school also told him to take this shirt off.
In a 2023 interview with Fox News Digital, Liam stressed that his T-shirt was not directed toward anyone, specifically people who are "lesbian or gay or transgender or anything like that."
Click To Get The Fox News App
"I'm just voicing my opinion about a statement that I believe to be true," he said at the time. "And I feel like some people may think that I'm imposing hate speech, even though it's not directed towards anyone."
The Morrison family was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute.Original article source: Supreme Court declines to review free speech case involving student who wore 'only two genders' shirt
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
7 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Under Trump, the future of U.S. Latino history preservation is uncertain
The future of Latino history is in peril. President Trump's proposed 2026 budget, which is currently under congressional review, could halt plans for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino to expand on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The president's budget would not provide funding for the long-awaited Latino museum, which was signed into law by Trump during his first term. News of the 2026 budget proposal came after he issued a March executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which alleges a 'divisive, race-centered ideology' at the core of the Smithsonian Institution. Instead, the FY26 budget requests $5.8 million to fund and revert back to a Smithsonian Latino Center model, which shares U.S. Latino history and culture collections, programs and educational content throughout other Smithsonian Institutions. This is in lieu of developing a Latino museum on the National Mall, modeled after the National Museum of the American Indian or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. On June 6, the Republican-led Congressional Hispanic Conference submitted a letter urging the Senate and House appropriations committees to fund the museum. 'We also understand, and support, efforts to root out anti-American sentiment and DEI over merit-based ideology across our government,' the letter stated. 'That is why the leadership and membership of the Congressional Hispanic Conference have taken proactive steps to ensure the National Museum of the American Latino remains unbiased.' The Democrat-led Congressional Hispanic Caucus followed suit with a letter of its own, in support of the museum. 'Curtailing these efforts through inadequate funding would be a setback not only for the Latino community, but for all Americans who benefit from a more complete and inclusive historical narrative,' stated the letter. Currently, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino is rotating its temporary exhibits in the 4,500-square-foot Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History. It recently closed out its popular exhibit, '¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States,' which garnered nearly 1 million visitors across its three-year stretch. Now, the museum is collecting artifacts and installing its next spring exhibit, '¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa.' ' I always tell everyone I'm trying to represent over 63 million people in the United States,' says Jorge Zamanillo, director of the National Museum of the American Latino. 'But when we open a museum that's gonna have over 100,000 square feet of public spaces … imagine the kinds of stories you could tell.' For Zamanillo, a permanent site on the National Mall would make all the difference, not just for the preservation of Latino stories but for generations of Latinos to feel represented on a national scale. ' We served in every military conflict in the United States since the American Revolution,' says Zamanillo. 'When you start really studying our presence here over the centuries, it's amazing,' he adds. Following Trump's proposed budget, the Smithsonian Institution submitted its budget justification to Congress. No funding decisions will be finalized until Congress passes a final FY26 appropriation. Zamanillo knows that the process to secure a prime spot on the National Mall might take longer than expected, but he calls it a 'generational project' that once enacted will allow for Latino stories to exist in perpetuity. ' We're doing this for our kids and our grandkids, to make sure that they won't have the same issues [with] feeling underrepresented,' says Zamanillo. However, with the Trump administration hammering down on all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including equity-related grants, the future of Latino history preservation could face setbacks. On May 2, Trump proposed a $158-million cut to the federal Historic Preservation Fund, effectively eviscerating its funding, including the Underrepresented Communities grant, which has played a significant national role in supporting more inclusive preservation efforts. The National Park Service has requested zero funds for the upcoming fiscal year. The Times reached out to NPS for a comment on the phasing-out of the grant program but did not hear back. Early this year, Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national network focused on supporting Latino preservation efforts, conducted an equity study that reviewed how many of the 95,000 National Register of Historic Places across the U.S. were associated with Latino heritage. The results were grim. LHC found that only 0.65% of the current registered sites in the U.S. reflect Latino history after analyzing survey data from state historic preservation offices as well as public information on the National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund website. Historical sites can be any culturally or spiritually significant emblems and spaces — including a house, a monument or a cemetery — that are deemed worthy of preservation. In Los Angeles, for example, Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights is listed for its importance to the Chicano civil rights movement. Meanwhile, Boyle Heights' Forsythe Memorial School for Girls, a Protestant missionary school that sought to Americanize Mexican girls, is also on the list of historic places. However, the lack of historical site representation is even more harrowing when considering the fact that Latinos make up roughly 20% of the United States population. ' That's why we have to do this work,' says Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of LHC. Since 2014, LHC has worked to preserve and catalog Latino histories that might have gone overlooked by mainstream textbooks, museums and the federal government. With no national inventory of Latino heritage sites, they remain invisible to organizations that may otherwise fund and protect them. LHC has designed its own conservation grant, the Nuestra Herencia Grant, which the organization says is the nation's first grant program dedicated to funding Latin Heritage Projects. Its inaugural cycle will fund a traveling exhibit for the Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas, which was the only public education institution for the city's Mexican American students from 1909 to 1965. LHC also launched its Abuelas Project in 2021— which pays homage to grandmothers, often the culture bearers in Latino families — to help fill gaps in folk knowledge. The national digital library consolidates 26 oral histories, 700 photographs and other community-submitted materials. ' We wanted to create something that allowed us to look outside of those parameters [in museums and libraries], and acknowledge that colonization has erased our history,' says Mota Casper, who has championed Latino preservation for over a decade. One of the Abuelas Project includes an interactive website focused on the Bracero program, the temporary program that brought over Mexican workers due to agricultural and railroad labor shortages between 1942 and 1964. The program played an integral role in shaping national identities and communities, as well as U.S. relations with Mexico. 'The purpose [of the Abuelas Project] is to find sites and stories that someone knows to be true, but it wasn't in the local newspaper, it's not online, not in the history books,' says Mota Casper about the Abuelas Project. Today, however, only one remaining historical site, Rio Vista Farm, is left to tell its story. The processing center, formerly Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center, was designated a National Historic Landmark by the secretary of the Interior in 2023, through the Underrepresented Communities Grant. 'This history is not only important for us just to tell a truthful story, but it's also to ensure that our contributions are seen and felt for generations to come,' says Mota Casper.
New York Post
7 minutes ago
- New York Post
Anti-ICE activists help illegal migrant escape detention in LA: ‘Out of control'
Anti-ICE protesters helped an illegal migrant escape from a federal detention centre in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday, The Post has learned. The British migrant was shackled as contractors walked him and several others into the ICE detention center for processing when he snuck away with the help of the activists, Homeland Security sources said. The escape artist detainee was then loaded into a van with the help of the protesters. 4 Protesters blocking the garage entrance of the Los Angeles Federal Building react as Law enforcement officers fire pepper spray at them following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in downtown Los Angeles onJune 6, 2025. REUTERS 4 A demonstrator kicks a canister of tear gas during a protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. AP 4 Protesters confront law enforcement outside an ICE building in LA. Getty Images 4 A woman waves up to prisoners in the Metropolitan Detention Center in LA. DAVID SWANSON/EPA/Shutterstock 'This is getting out of control,' one source fumed of the anti-ICE activists dominating the streets around the detention center. A manhunt is now underway for the illegal immigrant, who has not been identified. A spokesperson for ICE didn't immediately respond to The Post's request for comment.
Washington Post
8 minutes ago
- Washington Post
What Starmer's plan for the UK to recognize a Palestinian state means
LONDON — Britain has announced that it will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza , stops building settlements in the West Bank and commits to a two-state solution. The U.K. followed France, which declared last week that it will recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
