Alliance Defending Freedom is suing the Town of Middleborough on behalf of Liam Morrison, who attends Nichols Middle School, where he was forced to remove a t-shirt that says, “There are only two genders.”
ADF attorney Logan Spena says the religious liberty law firm got involved because it sees a “remarkable case” in which a school implemented its own belief system about human nature, sex, and gender identity. A seventh grader who disagreed with that belief system and expressed his own, the attorney says, was punished for it.
“Schools are not enclaves of totalitarianism,” the attorney warns. “They're not allowed to ‘foster a homogenous people,’ as the Supreme Court has said, but that's exactly what this school is trying to do."
In reality, young Liam expressed a biological reality that was accepted as common sense and non-controversial just a few years ago. As the 2023 school year comes to an end, millions of school kids can verify their schools have embraced a transgender-obsessed culture of gender selection, pronoun usage, transition closets, classroom assignments, and even secretive policies that are kept hidden from disapproving parents.
That is the classroom environment at Nichols Middle School according to the young man’s two-minute speech to school board members that went viral.
“I don’t complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school,” Liam said. “Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do.”
The purpose of his lawsuit, according to ADF, is that Liam doesn’t have that same legal right at Nichols Middle to express his views. The reason given is the shirt made others feel “unsafe,” he was told. That accusation of creating an “unsafe” environment is a routine argument when, in reality, a lone dissenting teacher, or a 12-year-old student, are the minority in many schools where their view is quickly purged.
Spena, the ADF attorney, says that is what is happening with his client. "The defendants are trying to essentially purge the school from [Morrison’s] viewpoint,” he warns.
The public school system, Spena tells AFN, serves a critical function of government. Students are being prepared to graduate as citizens of a representative democracy, he says, and part of that education means respecting free speech and alternative beliefs.
Reached for comment for this story, Middleborough Town Manager James McGrail said the town is aware of a federal lawsuit filed over a “dress code policy” at Nichols Middle School. He declined to comment further citing legal counsel.
Citing the end of the school year, Spena says ADF and its young client are asking the federal court for a speedy conclusion to the lawsuit.
