Liam Morrison, a seventh grader at Nichols Middle School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, was sent home on March 21 for refusing to remove a shirt that read, "There are only two genders." He was making people feel "unsafe," he was told.
In a meeting that followed, he accused the school committee of violating his free speech rights. [Editor's note: His roughly 2-1/2 minute talk begins at the 9:40 mark of the meeting video.]
Staff attorney Sam Whiting of the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) says Morrison did nothing wrong.
"He was just wearing a shirt that made a statement of his opinion about the reality of biological sex and gender," says Whiting. "Some students apparently complained about that."
But according to Morrison, most of his classmates agreed with the message on his shirt and said they wanted one like it.
"Even at 12 years old, these kids understand that what our culture is pushing on us right now is completely out of touch with reality," Whiting submits. "I think that it shows that they have something in them that they recognize -- that God created male and female and that that's the way things are supposed to be."
At the school committee meeting, Morrison said he was told on the day of the incident that his shirt was "targeting a protected class," and he wondered, "Who is this protected class" and, "Are their feelings more important than my rights?"
A video segment shared by Libs of TikTok shows the 12-year-old telling the committee that he does not complain when he sees "pride" flags and "diversity" posters hung throughout his school, because "others have a right to their beliefs, just as I do."
He cited the First Amendment to the Constitution as the basis for that.
