The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied to hear a student’s appeal to his school district’s ban on his wearing a t-shirt to class that reads, “There are only two genders.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two of the court’s prominent conservatives, suggested they would have revisited the student’s case, claiming that lower courts were distorting the First Amendment, The Hill reported.
“If a school sees fit to instruct students of a certain age on a social issue like LGBTQ+ rights or gender identity, then the school must tolerate dissenting student speech on those issues,” wrote Alito, joined by Thomas.
Lower courts ruled that the school’s restriction did not conflict with the historic 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines, which allowed students to wear armbands opposing the Vietnam War by stating that pupils do not “shed their constitutional rights” when they reach “the schoolhouse gate.”
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Christopher and Susan Morrison, the guardians of student L.M., who is not named in court filings because he is a minor, used the precedent to sue the Middleborough, Mass., school district in 2023 for refusing to let the student wear the shirt, as well as another that read, “there are censored genders.”
“It gives schools a blank check to suppress unpopular political or religious views, allows censorship based on ‘negative psychological impact’ or ideological offense, rejects a public school’s duty to inculcate tolerance, and lowers free-speech protection for expression that schools say implicates ‘characteristics of personal identity’ in an ‘assertedly demeaning’ way. This flouts Tinker and turns the First Amendment on its head,” the lawsuit states.
A Christian conservative legal force that regularly prevails in matters involving gender and sexuality before the Supreme Court, Alliance Defending Freedom, is the organization that is representing the student in this investigation.
The attorneys for the school district stated that the organization “attempts to rewrite the facts” and does not consider the testimonies that were filed by school administrators at Nichols Middle School (NMS). These statements give “crucial context,” demonstrating how the shirts interfere with the ability of other pupils to focus.
“School administrators attested to the young age of NMS students, the severe mental health struggles of transgender and gender-nonconforming students (including suicidal ideation), and the then-interim principal’s experience working with gender-nonconforming students who had been bullied in other districts and had harmed themselves or were hospitalized due to contemplated, or attempted, suicide,” the district wrote in court filings.
Although the petition was denied, the justices have already agreed to consider a significant issue that involves transgender protections during this term.
Whether or not Tennessee’s restriction on gender-affirming care for children constitutes unlawful sex discrimination is now being considered by the Supreme Court.
If the court rules that it does, it could affect laws passed by Republican-led state legislatures in about half of the US. A decision is expected by the beginning of summer.
SCOTUS made headlines last week when it stepped in to shield the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from transparency demands, temporarily halting lower court orders that required the agency to respond to freedom of information requests tied to an ongoing lawsuit.
The move on Friday buys time for an agency created by President Donald Trump through Executive Order 14158 on Jan. 20, an aggressive initiative aimed at slashing waste and forcing bloated federal bureaucracies to answer for their spending.
The executive order directed the entity to “implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay, effectively freezing the lower court orders while the Supreme Court decides how to proceed with the case.
He offered no explanation for the move, leaving critics to question why transparency is being delayed yet again, The Epoch Times reported.
The orders issued by the federal district court in Washington “are hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,” Roberts wrote in his new order.
