Supreme Court Rejects Student Appeal on ‘Two Genders’ Shirt (1)

The US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a public middle school student who said his free speech rights were violated when his principal barred him from wearing a T-shirt saying “there are only two genders.”

Over the dissents of two conservative justices, the court left intact a federal appeals court decision that said the Massachusetts principal and school district were on solid ground in concluding the shirt carried a demeaning message that could disrupt the learning environment.

The rebuff comes as the court deliberates over another case affecting transgender Americans. The justices are scheduled to rule by late June on the constitutionality of a Tennessee law that outlaws certain medical treatments for transgender children. The court is also considering expanding religious rights by letting parents opt out of classroom lessons that incorporate LGBTQ-friendly books.

The student in the t-shirt case, identified in court papers only as L.M., said Middleborough Public Schools was taking sides on a hotly debated issue while barring students from voicing different views. He and his parents said the school district posts signs backing LGBTQ rights and encourages students to don rainbow colors to celebrate Pride Month.

The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals “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 family argued.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have heard those arguments. “So long as the 1st Circuit’s opinion is on the books, thousands of students will attend school without the full panoply of First Amendment rights,” Alito wrote for the pair.

The court as a whole, as is its usual practice, gave no explanation for the rebuff.

The school district urged the court not to hear the case, saying the principal, Heather Tucker, reasonably took into account the mental health struggles of transgender and gender-nonconforming youths and her experience working with students who were bullied because of their gender identity.

Under past Supreme Court decisions, “a public school must be able to restrict some student speech to protect its students and ensure a learning environment in which all students can flourish,” Middleborough argued.

The dispute took place in 2023, when L.M. was a seventh grader at Nichols Middle School. After he arrived at school wearing the shirt, Tucker pulled him from class and told him he couldn’t return unless he took it off. When L.M. declined, the principal called his father, who took L.M. home.

L.M. later tried to wear the same shirt with a piece of tape over the words “only two” and “censored” written on top. L.M. removed that shirt after he was confronted by school officials. He wasn’t disciplined for either incident.

The case is L.M. v. Middleborough, 24-410.

(Updates with excerpt from Alito opinion in sixth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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