Today’s blacklisted American: Federal court rules conservative kids have no free speech rights
Liam Morrison, wearing the evil shirt that he wore the
second time teachers at Nichols Middle School sent
him home.
They’re coming for you next: In a ruling that completely contradicts long standing court rulings that had insisted the first amendment allowed students to wear T-shirts and armbands with whatever political statements they wished, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on June 9, 2024 ruled that a Massachusetts middle school had the right to censor and ban a 12-year-old boy wearing a shirt that said “There are only two genders.”
This story is a follow-up of a blacklist story from May 2023. At that time 12-year-old Liam Morrison was forced to leave Nichols Middle School when he refused to remove his T-shirt that said “There are only two genders.” He later came to class with the T-shirt shown in the picture to the right, with the words “only two” covered with the word “censored.” He was once again sent home, and subsequently his parents sued.
According to the court’s ruling this week (which you can read here), a student’s political clothing doesn’t have to cause any disturbances at all. All that matters is if school officials think it might (or they simply dislike the ideas expressed).
“The question here is not whether the t-shirts should have been barred. The question is who should decide whether to bar them—educators or federal judges. Based on Tinker, the cases applying it, and the specific record here, we cannot say that in this instance the Constitution assigns the sensitive (and potentially consequential) judgment about what would make ‘an environment conducive to learning’ at NMS to us rather than to the educators closest to the scene,” U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron wrote for a unanimous panel of the court.
This ruling endorses an earlier lower court ruling by Judge Indira Talwani, who ruled in August 2023 that Morrison had no free speech rights at all.
All these judges were appointed by either Barack Obama or Joe Biden, and have apparently decided that it is okay for conservative speech to be banned by schools. In the original ruling from 1969, the court had ruled that armbands protesting the establishment and the war in Vietnam must be allowed, because the first amendment took precedent over everything. Then the student speech was coming from the left, and thus could not be banned. Now that it is coming from the right banning must be allowed.
What is most important is that the first amendment does not get cancelled just because a person is offended by someone’s speech. In fact, the whole point of the first amendment is to allow offensive speech. That these judges don’t understand this basic point of law is beyond belief. One wonders if they are all DEI hires (Didn’t Earn It), picked more for their gender or race than their qualifications. Below are the four judges who have ruled against Liam Morrison’s free speech rights.
We know that both Thompson and Talwani were DEI hires. Thompson was hailed as the first black woman judge on 1st Court of Appeals, while Talwani was celebrated as the first Asian judge in Massachusetts and the second such judge nationwide. And while Montecalvo apparently doesn’t have these distinctions, she is still a female judge appointed by the Democrats, who put race and gender as the most important qualification for all appointees.
Barron meanwhile might not have been a DEI appointment, but his appointment by Barack Obama was likely a quid pro quo because Barron wrote the legal memo within the Obama administration justifying the use of lethal drone strikes against U.S. citizens without judicial process. He clearly thinks the government has the right to do anything it wants to American citizens — including murdering them — while considering it okay to dismiss their rights nonchalently.
Morrison’s family will likely appeal. Whether the case gets picked up by the Supreme Court remains unknown.
As for Liam Morrison, this middle-schooler has already demonstrated a greater understanding of the law and the First Amendment then all these judges. Watch him do so before the Middleborough School Committee on April 13, 2024:
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Liam Morrison, wearing the evil shirt that he wore the
second time teachers at Nichols Middle School sent
him home.
They’re coming for you next: In a ruling that completely contradicts long standing court rulings that had insisted the first amendment allowed students to wear T-shirts and armbands with whatever political statements they wished, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on June 9, 2024 ruled that a Massachusetts middle school had the right to censor and ban a 12-year-old boy wearing a shirt that said “There are only two genders.”
This story is a follow-up of a blacklist story from May 2023. At that time 12-year-old Liam Morrison was forced to leave Nichols Middle School when he refused to remove his T-shirt that said “There are only two genders.” He later came to class with the T-shirt shown in the picture to the right, with the words “only two” covered with the word “censored.” He was once again sent home, and subsequently his parents sued.
According to the court’s ruling this week (which you can read here), a student’s political clothing doesn’t have to cause any disturbances at all. All that matters is if school officials think it might (or they simply dislike the ideas expressed).
“The question here is not whether the t-shirts should have been barred. The question is who should decide whether to bar them—educators or federal judges. Based on Tinker, the cases applying it, and the specific record here, we cannot say that in this instance the Constitution assigns the sensitive (and potentially consequential) judgment about what would make ‘an environment conducive to learning’ at NMS to us rather than to the educators closest to the scene,” U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron wrote for a unanimous panel of the court.
This ruling endorses an earlier lower court ruling by Judge Indira Talwani, who ruled in August 2023 that Morrison had no free speech rights at all.
All these judges were appointed by either Barack Obama or Joe Biden, and have apparently decided that it is okay for conservative speech to be banned by schools. In the original ruling from 1969, the court had ruled that armbands protesting the establishment and the war in Vietnam must be allowed, because the first amendment took precedent over everything. Then the student speech was coming from the left, and thus could not be banned. Now that it is coming from the right banning must be allowed.
What is most important is that the first amendment does not get cancelled just because a person is offended by someone’s speech. In fact, the whole point of the first amendment is to allow offensive speech. That these judges don’t understand this basic point of law is beyond belief. One wonders if they are all DEI hires (Didn’t Earn It), picked more for their gender or race than their qualifications. Below are the four judges who have ruled against Liam Morrison’s free speech rights.
We know that both Thompson and Talwani were DEI hires. Thompson was hailed as the first black woman judge on 1st Court of Appeals, while Talwani was celebrated as the first Asian judge in Massachusetts and the second such judge nationwide. And while Montecalvo apparently doesn’t have these distinctions, she is still a female judge appointed by the Democrats, who put race and gender as the most important qualification for all appointees.
Barron meanwhile might not have been a DEI appointment, but his appointment by Barack Obama was likely a quid pro quo because Barron wrote the legal memo within the Obama administration justifying the use of lethal drone strikes against U.S. citizens without judicial process. He clearly thinks the government has the right to do anything it wants to American citizens — including murdering them — while considering it okay to dismiss their rights nonchalently.
Morrison’s family will likely appeal. Whether the case gets picked up by the Supreme Court remains unknown.
As for Liam Morrison, this middle-schooler has already demonstrated a greater understanding of the law and the First Amendment then all these judges. Watch him do so before the Middleborough School Committee on April 13, 2024:
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Four fascists
We’re in charge, and you’re not. We do what we want, what are you going to do about it? We wield and abuse power without hesitation or shame. If we can stop adherence of the Constitution from preventing the advancement of our ideology, then truly we are good people. We will make the world into the place we know it should be. Us, not you. It’s Hierarchy, and they’re doing it on purpose.
Good for Liam for not backing down. Brave kid. This war is being fought on social media and his story is helping expose the left’s lunacy.
In Spokane Washington a 19 year old and two minors were each charged with a Class B felony for burning rubber on their Lime electric scooters on a pride crosswalk.
“Multiple Arrests Make After Downtown Pride Mural Is Vandalized”
https://my.spokanecity.org/police/news/2024/06/06/multiple-arrests-make-after-downtown-pride-mural-is-vandalized/
And Lime has put limiters on their scooters to stop them from going near the crosswalk. I didn’t know they could do that. That’s scary.
“Lime enacts ‘no go zone’ around Pride crosswalk in Washington after vandalism”
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/lime-enacts-no-go-zone-around-pride-crosswalk-in-washington-after-vandalism-electric-scooters-bikes-pride-month-mural-spokane-police
The average citizen is really getting tired of this.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
– Jonathan Timmison, pride activist
#AmericanInquisition
Can you imagine how the appeals court might have ruled if Liam Morrison had worn a rainbow / LGBTQ+ agenda-supporting shirt (or one supporting Hamas), and the Nichols Middle School authorities told him that he couldn’t wear it? The school officials would no doubt be denounced as transphobes and haters, and enjoined from ever doing such a terrible thing again.
Yes, boys and girls, there is “good speech” and “bad speech” (equals hate speech), and don’t you forget it! The enforced silencing of good speech, after all, is violence. But we must all be protected from bad speech.
More on the pursuit of equal justice and the equal application of the law in the United States:
https://www.lifenews.com/2024/06/10/biden-attorney-who-put-pro-life-grandma-in-prison-drops-murder-charge-against-criminal-who-killed-elderly-woman/
Apparently the elderly woman who was killed had no “civil rights” — including the right to be secure in her property or to be alive — but the carjacker who killed her is entitled to every benefit of a doubt.
The only encouraging thing about all of this is that according to the polls, more and more Americans are finally saying “enough,” and they are no longer going to vote to keep the people behind all of this in office.
This must be one of those cases that Ketanji Brown Jackson was concerned about where a citizen’s freedom of speech might impinge on governmental prerogatives. The government must be allowed to censor anything and anyone that they please, or at least that is what the Obamanistas believe.
What law? None that I am familiar with. None that I understand under the Constitution. Nothing that conforms with the norms that these people operate under. What I do see is Animal Farm rules.
The sociologists won’t quit
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-dei-rollbacks-colleges-universities.html