MIDDLEBORO — Liam Morrison, the Nichols Middle School student whose wearing of a T-shirt that read “There Are Only Two Genders’’ sparked controversy, cannot immediately wear the shirt to school again, a district court judge has ruled.

A request by Liam’s legal representatives for an emergency restraining order allowing him to wear the shirt immediately was denied by Judge Indira Talwani in a June 1 decision. She said he needs to wait until at least the next court hearing to wear the shirt to school again.

The judge said the request did not qualify as an emergency because the motion was filed nearly two months after the March 21 incident when Liam wore the shirt in question, his free speech has not been limited outside of school hours and the court has set a date to consider the issue again before the end of the school year, which is June 21.

The court set a date of June 13 to review the issue and determine whether Liam will be allowed to wear the shirt while litigation is ongoing. 

The determination was made in conjunction with a suit filed in U.S. District Court against the town and school system on behalf of Liam and his family by attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Massachusetts Family Institute.

The lawsuit stems from the schools’ refusal to allow Liam, who is 12 and in the seventh grade, to wear the shirt. He was asked to remove the shirt when he wore it to class March 21 and instead went home rather than change clothing.

The suit states that the schools’ insistence that Liam remove the shirt constitutes a “gross violation of the First Amendment.’’ 

The town and schools have countered that the school handbook specifically prevents clothing that “target[s] groups based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, religious affiliation or any other classification,’’ which they argue his shirt does.

Although the emergency restraining order was denied, lawyers for Liam and his family said the quick turnaround to the next hearing was a positive development. 

“The court has shown that it takes threats to Liam’s First Amendment rights very seriously by quickly hearing our initial request and setting a follow-up hearing to try to issue a decision before the end of the school year,’’ said Logan Spena, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom.

In a motion against the restraining order, Nichols Middle School Principal Heather Tucker said she is “aware of several students at NMS who identify as trangender or gender non-conforming’’ and that about 10 to 20 students attend meetings of the school’s Gay Straight Alliance, which “provides a safe and accepting space for students who fit under the umbrella or LGBTQ+ or their allies.’’

Tucker said she was notified about the shirt on March 21 by one of Liam’s teachers who was “concerned for [Liam’s] physical safety as well as other students’ safety” and cited “multiple members of the LGBTQ+ population … who would be impacted by the T-shirt message’’ that would “potentially disrupt classes.’’

Liam stated at the April 27 School Committee meeting that the message was “nothing harmful, nothing threatening, just a statement I believe to be a fact.’’

“Students don’t give up their free speech when they walk into the school building,’’ Spena said. 

Superintendent of Schools Carolyn Lyons has not commented directly on the lawsuit, but at the April 27 School Committee she spoke out against people who were bearing signs that read “Keep woke politics out of schools’’ and “There are Only Two Genders’’ outside of the school earlier that day.

“The dividing line for me as this district’s leader,’’ she said, “is when all students are not protected, when all students are not accepted for who they are and are told, either directly or indirectly, that they don’t belong here in Middleboro.’’