West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says he is co-leading a multistate amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court to safeguard students’ First Amendment free expression rights.
A middle school student in Massachusetts wore a T-shirt to school that said, “There are only two genders.” School administrators informed the student that he could not wear the shirt. The student then taped over the term “two,” resulting in the message, “There are only (censored) genders,” which school administrators also prohibited.
Following a lower court’s decision in favor of the school, the coalition’s brief requests that the Supreme Court hear the matter.
“Free speech is just that, free speech no matter where it is—it is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “Schools should encourage students to exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression.”
In a 1969 case, the Supreme Court declared that teachers and students do not “give up their constitutional rights to free speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” which is exactly what is happening here.
According to the brief, Tinker (1969) believes that “a student may express his mind ‘if he does so without materially and substantially interfering with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and without colliding with the rights of others.'”
Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Utah, and Virginia all joined the West Virginia and South Carolina-led brief.
You can access the brief here.