Appeals Court Upholds Ban on Student Wearing ‘Only Two Genders’ Shirt

The ban on a student wearing a shirt that said “there are only two genders” is permissible, a U.S. appeals court ruled on June 9. Administrators who later forbade the same student from wearing the shirt with “only two” covered by tape, on which was written “censored,” is also allowed under court precedent, according to the ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. “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....