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 In NTEU, the Supreme Court reviewed a statute prohibiting over 1.5 million lower-level federal employees from receiving honoraria for writing articles or delivering speeches and held the government to a heavier burden of justification that could not be satisfied through “mere speculation about serious harms.” Id. As discussed at the hearing, NTEU’s facts are distinguishable here because that case addressed a restriction on speech that was “largely unrelated to [the employees’] government employment.” Id. at 466. Nonetheless, NTEU suggests that Defendants face a heavier burden to justify a “statutory restriction on expression,” id. at 468, than the University of Alabama faced in Bishop “with respect to an isolated disciplinary action,” id.

Likewise, the context here is different from that in Bishop, because the Professor Plaintiffs, unlike Dr. Bishop at the University of Alabama, are not seeking to inject unsanctioned concepts into their class content or hijack the established curriculum with their own personal agenda. Instead, the Professor Plaintiffs are challenging a prohibition on expressing approval as to eight specific concepts, when the State of Florida has already sanctioned these eight concepts as part of the curriculum. Indeed, Defendants admit that these concepts are expressly allowed to be discussed in university classrooms. See ECF No. 52 at 31, in Case No.: