School faces lawsuit for making student remove 'only two genders' shirt: 'Censoring a 7th-grader'

One Massachusetts student filed suit against his school, alleging it censored his ability to exercise his First Amendment rights after he was told to take off a shirt saying, "There are only two genders." 

Seventh-grader Liam Morrison wore the shirt in March to Nichols Middle School (NMS), but was pulled from his gym class and asked to change it over allegations it violated the school's dress code. Morrison declined to remove the shirt and was picked up by his father shortly thereafter. 

"They completely blocked my ability or took away my ability to have a different opinion than they wanted me to have," Morrison told Steve Doocy during "Fox & Friends" Thursday. 

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In an email reviewed by Fox News Digital, Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Carolyn Lyons stated that Morrison had violated its dress code. Specifically, the "content of Liam’s shirt targeted students of a protected class; namely in the area of gender identity." 

But Morrison said when he wore the shirt he was celebrated by many of his classmates for taking a stance on the controversial issue, despite school officials telling him "a lot of people" were upset by it. 

The Morrison family's attorney, Tyson Langhofer, detailed by he believes the school violated Morrison's free speech rights in the form of censorship. 

"This is about a school censoring a seventh grader who just has a different viewpoint," Langhofer said. "Students don't forfeit their free speech rights when they… step into the school. The school is talking about this issue all the time, and all Liam wanted to do was to express his opinion, which is actually shared by a lot of his classmates."

But even after the school made it clear Morrison was barred from wearing the shirt to school again, he wore another shirt earlier this month saying, "There are censored genders."

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He said he was asked to remove the shirt shortly after school started. It was after the second incident that the family took legal action. 

"So what happened is very, very shortly after I arrived, I was actually a bit early, is just as the school was opening up-- it didn't really take long for someone to walk into my homeroom and [someone] to tell me, ‘Hey, I need you to follow me,’" Morrison previously told Fox News Digital. "And knowing the shirt I was wearing and even though how different it was, I figured out that they would probably want me to come to the principal's office."

"And after I had followed them, I went to the room that they told me to, and I already took my shirt off because I knew that that's what they were going to ask me to do," he continued. 

Despite school pushback, Langhofer said the school's handbook even supports Morrison's claims that there are only two genders, despite numerous gender identities. 

"It's hard to tell because their student handbook actually says that public education must be available to members of both sexes, and it says that sexual harassment can't be against either gender," Langhofer said. "So… the school's own communications actually support Liam's viewpoint. But what they've told him is that he can't express that on his shirt, and we think that's wrong."

"No student should ever be punished for simply peacefully sharing their view on a really important topic," he continued. 

Middleborough Public Schools did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. Middleborough town manager James McGrail said he was unable to comment on pending litigation. 

"No one's really given me any trouble," Morrison said. "A lot of people are happy with what I'm doing, in fact."

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Fox News' Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.