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 academic freedom plays in our public schools, particularly at the post-secondary level, we do not find support to conclude that academic freedom is an independent First Amendment right.”). But the Eleventh Circuit still recognized that academic freedom remains an important interest to consider when analyzing university professors’ First Amendment claims. See id. (“Last and somewhat countervailing, we consider the strong predilection for academic freedom as an adjunct of the free speech rights of the First Amendment.”). This is consistent with binding precedent, as the Supreme Court has long recognized that “First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). Accordingly, “the state may not act as though professors or students ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the [university] gate.’ ” Meriwether, 992 F.3d at 503 (alteration added) (quoting Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506). Nor does the First Amendment “tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.” Keyishian, 385 U.S. at 683.

This Court also recognizes that while “[t]he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools,” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487 (1960), these freedoms are not