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 cannot decide to teach something entirely different or do an end-run around the prescribed curriculum by paying lip service to the subject they are supposed to teach and then spend the rest of class time instructing on something else. Defendants, however, ask this Court to read these cases to conflate the State’s right to make content-based choices in setting the public school curriculum with unfettered discretion in limiting a professor’s ability to express certain viewpoints about the content of the curriculum once it has been set.

But that is not what these cases hold, nor does their reasoning extend so far. Although then-Judge Alito stated “that a public university professor does not have a First Amendment right to decide what will be taught in the classroom,” he did so in the context of determining whether the First Amendment protects a professor’s “choice of curriculum materials and the content and subjects of his classes.” Edwards, 156 F.3d at 491. Given his broad pronouncement, this Court understands why Defendants would cherry-pick it from Edwards. But then-Judge Alito’s concern was with a professor who sought to change the content of his course from one that “initially focused on how teachers can effectively use various classroom tools, such as projection equipment, chalkboards, photographs, and films,” to the professor’s chosen syllabi that “included a new emphasis on issues of bias, censorship, religion, and humanism … .” Id. at 489.