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.”
