Court Opinion

ID: 9404247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-22 17:01:13.696999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:12.742601
License: Public Domain

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                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-12827
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        ABBY MARTIN,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        CHANCELLOR FOR THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE
        UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF GEORGIA,
        PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY,
        BONNIE OVERSTREET,
        Conference Services Manager for Georgia Southern University,
        in her Individual Capacity,
        MICHEL BLITCH,
        Conference Services Coordinator for Georgia Southern University,
        in her Individual Capacity,
        SANDRA LENSCH,
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        2                        Opinion of the Court                    22-12827

        Conference Services Specialist for Georgia Southern University,
        in her Individual Capacity,

                                                          Defendants-Appellees.

                               ____________________

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Northern District of Georgia
                       D.C. Docket No. 1:20-cv-00596-MHC
                             ____________________

        Before WILSON, BRANCH, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
              Abby Martin appeals the district court’s dismissal of her 42
        U.S.C. § 1983 suit in favor of Michel Blitch, Bonnie Overstreet, and
        Sandra Lensch (“Defendants”) 1 on the grounds of qualified
        immunity. She argues that the district court erred in dismissing her
        claim that Defendants violated her First and Fourteenth
        Amendment rights by refusing to contract with her to speak at an
        academic conference unless she signed a clause, required by

        1 Martin also brought suit against Steve Wrigley, then-Chancellor for the
        Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, and Kyle Marrero,
        President of Georgia Southern University. However, these claims are not
        otherwise on appeal, so any reference to “Defendants” hereafter is solely to
        Blitch, Overstreet, and Lensch.
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        22-12827                  Opinion of the Court                              3

        Georgia law, promising she would not participate in a “boycott of
        Israel” for the duration of the contract. Specifically, Martin argues
        that, because it was clearly established that Defendants should have
        known that Georgia’s law requiring the clause violated the
        Constitution, they are not entitled to qualified immunity. For the
        following reasons, we affirm.
                                   I.          Background
                In 2016, the State of Georgia enacted O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85,
        which prohibits the State from entering into certain contracts
        unless the contractor certifies that it is not currently engaged in,
        and agrees for the duration of the contract not to engage in, a
        “boycott of Israel.” § 50-5-85(b). Under the statute, a “boycott of
        Israel” is defined as “refusals to deal with, terminating business
        activities with, or other actions that are intended to limit
        commercial relations with Israel or companies doing business in
        Israel . . . .” § 50-5-85(a)(1). Under the version of the law in effect
        at the time of Martin’s failed contract, state agencies were required
        to include such contractor certifications for products or services
        valued at $1,000 or more. See 2016 Ga. S.B. 327; O.C.G.A. § 50-5-
        85(b) (2016). However, on July 1, 2022, amendments to § 50-5-85
        took effect which limits its scope to companies with five or more
        employees and to contracts valued at $100,000 or more. 2 See 2022
        Ga. H.B. 383; O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85(b) (2022).

        2Under the statute as amended, individuals and sole proprietors, such as
        Martin, are eliminated from the statute’s coverage. See O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85(b).
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        4                        Opinion of the Court                     22-12827

               Plaintiff Martin is a journalist and filmmaker who, in 2019,
        sought to enter into an agreement with Georgia Southern
        University to serve as a keynote speaker at an academic conference
        hosted by the university, for which she was to receive $1,000 and
        limited travel expenses. Defendants Overstreet, Blitch, and Lensch
        were all employees of Georgia Southern at the time, and each was
        involved in coordinating the conference. In their effort to secure
        Martin as a keynote speaker, Defendants sent Martin a draft
        agreement regarding her compensation for her review and
        signature.
               Because Georgia Southern is a public university, in 2019,
        Defendants were required by O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 to include in the
        agreement language certifying that Martin was not engaged in, and
        for the duration of the agreement would not engage in, a boycott
        of Israel. Martin, who describes herself as a member of the
        “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement” (“BDS
        movement”), a political boycott of Israel, refused to sign the
        agreement because of the inclusion of the certification language.
        As a result, Georgia Southern did not enter into the contract with
        her to keynote the conference, as doing so without the certification
        language would have violated Georgia law. The conference was
        later cancelled by its organizers. 3
            Martin filed suit, asserting various First and Fourteenth
        Amendment claims. Specifically, she claimed that O.C.G.A. § 50-

        3 Organizers claimed the cancellation of the conference was their “statement”
        in protest of O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85.
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        22-12827                     Opinion of the Court                             5

        5-85 restricts protected speech and compels speech in violation of
        the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague in violation
        of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; she
        sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Steve Wright, then-
        Chancellor for the Board of Regents of the University System of
        Georgia, and Kyle Marrero, President of Georgia Southern
        University. 4 She also asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
        Defendants in their individual capacities, claiming she suffered a
        loss of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by the inclusion
        of § 50-5-85’s mandatory certification language; she sought
        damages as relief.
               In May 2021, the district court granted in part and denied in
        part a motion to dismiss filed by Defendants, dismissing Martin’s
        § 1983 claim for damages against Defendants on qualified
        immunity grounds. 5 Martin timely appealed.
                                       II.         Discussion
              We review a district court’s decision to grant a motion to
        dismiss based on qualified immunity de novo, accepting the factual

        4   Martin’s injunctive and declaratory relief claims are not on appeal.
        5 The district court permitted Martin’s First and Fourteenth Amendment
        official-capacity claims for equitable relief to proceed. However, in July 2022,
        the aforementioned amendments to § 50-5-85 took effect, which rendered the
        statute inapplicable to Martin. See 2021 Ga. H.B. 383. As a result, the district
        court dismissed her remaining claims for equitable relief for lack of standing
        and on mootness grounds. Martin does not challenge this dismissal on appeal.
        The only claims that remain on appeal are her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims for
        damages against Defendants.
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-12827

        allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable
        inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.
        Paez v. Mulvey, 915 F.3d 1276, 1284 (11th Cir. 2019).
                “In order to prevail on a civil rights action under § 1983, a
        plaintiff must show that he or she was deprived of a federal right
        by a person acting under color of state law.” Griffin v. City of Opa-
        Locka, 261 F.3d 1295, 1303 (11th Cir. 2001). Martin argues that
        Defendants’ inclusion of the anti-boycott clause, mandated by
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85, violated her First Amendment right to free
        speech and freedom of expression, as well as her Fourteenth
        Amendment right to due process. On appeal, she argues that the
        district court erred in finding that qualified immunity barred her
        suit against Defendants.
               “Qualified immunity offers complete protection for
        individual public officials performing discretionary functions
        ‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established
        statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
        would have known.’” Sherrod v. Johnson, 667 F.3d 1359, 1363 (11th
        Cir. 2012) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)).
        To assert the defense of qualified immunity, Defendants must first
        show that they were performing a discretionary function. Barnes v.
        Zaccari, 669 F.3d 1295, 1303 (11th Cir. 2012). It is undisputed on
        appeal that Defendants were acting in their discretionary authority
        here.
              “Once discretionary authority is established, the burden
        then shifts to the plaintiff to show that qualified immunity should
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        22-12827               Opinion of the Court                         7

        not apply.” Edwards v. Shanley, 666 F.3d 1289, 1294 (11th Cir. 2012)
        (quotation omitted). A plaintiff can demonstrate that qualified
        immunity does not apply by showing (1) that a defendant violated
        a constitutional right and (2) that the constitutional “right at issue
        was clearly established at the time” of the alleged violation. Crocker
        v. Beatty, 886 F.3d 1132, 1135 (11th Cir. 2018). The Supreme Court
        has made it clear that we can address either prong “of the qualified
        immunity analysis . . . first in light of the circumstances in the
        particular case at hand.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236
        (2009).
               As for the second prong, a constitutional right is clearly
        established “only if its contours are ‘sufficiently clear that a
        reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates
        that right.’” Vaughan v. Cox, 343 F.3d 1323, 1332 (11th Cir. 2003)
        (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)). “When
        we consider whether the law clearly established the relevant
        conduct as a constitutional violation at the time that [the
        government official] engaged in the challenged acts, we look for
        ‘fair warning’ to [the official] that the conduct at issue violated a
        constitutional right.” Jones v. Fransen, 857 F.3d 843, 851 (11th Cir.
        2017) (quoting Coffin v. Brandau, 642 F.3d 999, 1013 (11th Cir. 2011)
        (en banc)). “‘Fair warning’ comes in the form of binding caselaw
        from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the highest court
        of the state (Georgia, here) that ‘make[s] it obvious to all
        reasonable government actors, in the defendant’s place, that what
        he is doing violated a federal law.’” Id. (quoting Priester v. City of
        Riviera Beach, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000)). There are three
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        8                          Opinion of the Court                        22-12827

        ways a plaintiff can show that a government official had “fair
        warning”:
                First, the plaintiff[] may show that a materially similar
                case has already been decided. Second, the plaintiff[]
                can point to a broader, clearly established principle
                that should control the novel facts of the situation.
                Finally, the conduct involved in the case may so
                obviously violate the constitution that prior case law
                is unnecessary.
        Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d 1203, 1208 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting
        Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1255–56 (11th Cir. 2012)).
               As we have expressed, “[t]he second and third methods are
        known as ‘obvious clarity’ cases,” and are “narrow exception[s]”
        that “don’t arise often.” King v. Pridmore, 961 F.3d 1135, 1146 (11th
        Cir. 2020) (quotations omitted). And, “[i]n light of the rarity of
        obvious clarity cases, if a plaintiff cannot show that the law at issue
        was clearly established under the first (materially similar case on
        point) method, that usually means qualified immunity is
        appropriate.” Id.
               Here, our inquiry begins and ends with the “clearly
        established” prong. 6 Martin invokes all three methods in an

        6 Because we conclude that Martin is unable to show that Defendants violated
        a right that was “clearly established in the specific context of the facts in this
        case, we do not reach the question of whether Defendants violated [Martin’s]
        constitutional rights.” Jones, 857 F.3d at 851.
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        22-12827              Opinion of the Court                        9

        attempt to show that Defendants violated a “clearly established”
        constitutional right. We address each method in turn.
              A.     Materially Similar
               First, Martin argues that Cole v. Richardson, 405 U.S. 676
        (1972), is “materially similar” and “clearly establishes” that
        Defendants’ actions were unconstitutional. We disagree.
               To show that a constitutional violation was clearly
        established by a “materially similar” case, “[a] close factual fit
        between the pre-existing case and the present one is essential.”
        Cantu v. City of Dothan, Ala., 974 F.3d 1217, 1232 (11th Cir. 2020).
        Importantly, “[g]eneral propositions from earlier decisions will not
        do.” Id. Instead, the facts must be close enough to have “placed
        the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft
        v. Al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). The key question is whether
        the decision in the pre-existing case “make[s] it obvious to all
        reasonable government actors” that their behavior violates federal
        law. Cantu, 974 F.3d at 1232 (quotation omitted).
                In Cole, the Supreme Court considered a Massachusetts law
        that, as a condition of employment with the Commonwealth,
        employers were required to swear that they would “uphold and
        defend” the constitutions of the United States and Massachusetts
        and “oppose the overthrow of the government of the United States
        of America or of this Commonwealth by force, violence or by any
        illegal or unconstitutional method.” 405 U.S. at 677–78. After
        reviewing several of its prior “oath cases,” the Supreme Court held
        that the Massachusetts oath was constitutional. Id. at 680–87.
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                   22-12827

        Specifically, the Supreme Court noted that the oath’s “use of such
        general terms such as ‘uphold,’ ‘defend,’ and ‘oppose’” indicates “a
        commitment not to use illegal and constitutionally unprotected
        force to change the constitutional system,” but did not “impose
        obligations of specific, positive action on oath takers.” Id. at 684.
               Ignoring that the Supreme Court has made clear that
        “clearly established law must be ‘particularized’ to the facts of the
        case” and “should not be defined at a high level of generality,”
        White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79 (2017) (quotations omitted), Martin
        argues that Cole established that “a state-imposed loyalty oath is
        unconstitutional if it requires oath-takers to take specific actions or
        refrain from constitutionally protected associational activities.”
                But Cole did no such thing, and Cole is not a “close factual fit”
        with Martin’s situation, in two notable respects. Cantu, 974 F.3d at
        1232. First, Cole dealt with the constitutionality of a statute that
        required Massachusetts employees to swear to defend the
        constitution and oppose a violent overthrow of the government.
        The Massachusetts statute is vastly different from a statute like
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85, which requires certain individuals contracting
        with the State of Georgia to refrain from an economic “boycott of
        Israel.” Martin herself clearly recognizes this key factual
        distinction—she acknowledges that, unlike the statute in Cole,
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 “required Martin to affirmatively certify in
        writing—a specific, positive action—that she was ‘not currently
        engaged in’ . . . ‘a boycott of Israel.”
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        22-12827                Opinion of the Court                          11

                While this concession certainly undercuts her argument that
        Cole is materially similar, Martin highlights the fact that O.C.G.A. §
        50-5-85 imposes a “positive action” requirement on individuals
        contracting with the state as a way of aligning it with what the
        Supreme Court suggested might be unconstitutional in Cole. 405
        U.S. at 684. But Martin glosses over the fact that the Supreme
        Court’s language in Cole about a hypothetical “positive action
        requirement” was not a holding and had nothing to do with the
        outcome of the case. Instead, the suggestion Martin seeks to rely on
        was mere dicta—and dicta cannot clearly establish law. See, e.g.,
        Jones v. Cannon, 174 F.3d 1271, 1288 n.11 (1999) (“This Circuit has
        held that dicta cannot clearly establish the law for qualified
        immunity purposes.”); Hamilton v. Cannon, 80 F.3d 1525, 1530 (11th
        Cir. 1996) (“The law cannot be established by dicta. Dicta is
        particularly unhelpful in qualified immunity cases where we seek
        to identify clearly established law.”); In re United States, 60 F.3d 729,
        731 (11th Cir. 1996) (“Statements of dicta are not part of the law of
        the case.”).
               Second, the entire reason Martin seeks to rely on this dicta
        is because the underlying holding in Cole is also a major factual
        distinction between Cole and the present case. Namely, the
        Supreme Court in Cole upheld the Massachusetts statute as
        constitutional. Martin, on the other hand, is attempting to show
        the exact opposite of what the Supreme Court held in Cole—that
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 is unconstitutional.
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                  22-12827

                Quite simply, the factual differences between Cole and
        Martin’s situation are drastic. Accordingly, Martin has failed to
        prove that Cole is “materially similar” enough to “make it obvious
        to all reasonable government actors” in Defendants’ position that
        the inclusion of the anti-boycott clause in Martin’s contract was
        unconstitutional. Cantu, 974 F.3d at 1232 (quotation omitted). As
        we have made clear, “[a] close factual fit between the pre-existing
        case and the present one is essential.” Id. There is no close factual
        fit between Cole and the facts here. As such, Martin is unable to
        point to a case with materially similar facts that clearly establishes
        that Defendants’ inclusion of O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85’s anti-boycott
        clause in her contract was unconstitutional.
               B.     Broad Principle
               Next, Martin argues that NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.,
        458 U.S. 886 (1982), presents a “broader, clearly established
        principle that should control the novel facts of the situation.” We
        disagree.
                For a broad, clearly established principle to prevent qualified
        immunity from applying, “the principle must be established with
        ‘obvious clarity’ by the case law so that ‘every objectively
        reasonable government official facing the circumstances would
        know that the official’s conduct did violate federal law when the
        official acted.’” Terrell, 668 F.3d at 1256 (quoting Vinyard v. Wilson,
        311 F.3d 1340, 1351 (11th Cir. 2002)). In other words, a plaintiff
        must show that, “in the light of pre-existing law[,] the unlawfulness
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        22-12827                    Opinion of the Court                                  13

        [of the government official’s actions] must be apparent.” Id.
        (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640).
               Contrary to Martin’s assertion, Defendants’ inclusion of
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85’s mandatory anti-boycott clause in her failed
        contract is not a scenario where a broad principle clearly establishes
        a constitutional violation. Martin asserts that Claiborne, which
        involved a consumer boycott of white-owned businesses in
        Mississippi, established the broad principle that the government
        cannot prohibit nonviolent, politically motivated boycotts and
        argues that principle “makes clear that [O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85] violates
        the First Amendment.” But although the Court held that the
        “nonviolent elements of petitioners’ activities are entitled to the
        protection of the First Amendment,” the conduct at issue in
        Claiborne involved private actors rather than government officials,
        and there was no state statute involved in the case. Claiborne, 458
        U.S. at 915. Notably, the Court expressly reserved the question of
        whether “a narrowly tailored statute designed to prohibit certain
        forms of anticompetitive conduct or certain types of secondary
        pressure may restrict protected First Amendment activity.” 7 Id. at
        915 n.49.

        7 While we make no conclusion on the underlying constitutionality of
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85, we also note that the Eighth Circuit recently upheld the
        constitutionality of a similar anti-“boycott of Israel” statute in Arkansas. See
        Ark. Times LP v. Waldrip as Tr. Of Univ. of Ark. Bd. of Trs., 37 F.4th 1386 (8th Cir.
        2022), cert. denied, Ark. Times LP v. Waldrip as Tr. Of Univ. of Ark. Bd. of Trs., No.
        22-379 (U.S. Feb. 21, 2023). In doing so, the Eight Circuit emphasized that the
        key question in Claiborne was “whether the activities in support of the boycott,
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        14                         Opinion of the Court                       22-12827

                So, while Claiborne did find that the plaintiffs there were
        engaged in a constitutionally protected activity with regard to their
        boycott, it did not speak to a state’s ability to regulate anti-
        competitive behavior by state employees via statutes like O.C.G.A.
        § 50-5-85. Thus, it did not craft a “broad principle” that established
        with “obvious clarity” that Defendants would know that “every
        objectively reasonable government official” implementing their
        state’s anti-“boycott of Israel” laws, as Defendants did so here, were
        violating federal law in doing so. Terrell, 668 F.3d at 1256 (quoting
        Vinyard, 311 F.3d at 1351).
              Accordingly, Martin is unable to point to a case that makes
        “apparent” through a broad principle that Defendants’ inclusion of
        § O.C.G.A. 50-5-85’s required anti-boycott clause was
        unconstitutional. Id.

        both peaceful and violent, were protected.” Id. And, as the Eighth Circuit also
        noted, Claiborne “stopped short of declaring that a ‘boycott’ itself—that is, the
        refusal to purchase from a business—is protected by the First Amendment”;
        expressly acknowledged that “‘States have broad power to regulate economic
        activity’”; and held only that States cannot prohibit the “‘peaceful political
        activity such as that found in the boycott in’” Claiborne. Id. at 1392 (quoting
        Claiborne, 458 U.S. at 913).
                While Martin argues that Waldrip was erroneously decided, she misses
        the point—even if it was erroneously decided, the fact that a sister circuit
        distinguished Clairborne and held that a law similar to O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85 is
        constitutional reinforces the reality that Clairborne did not establish with
        “obvious clarity” that the implementation of such anti-boycott clauses into
        contracts is unconstitutional. See Terrell, 668 F.3d at 1256.
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        22-12827                Opinion of the Court                          15

               C.     So Obviously Unconstitutional
               Finally, Martin argues that “Defendants’ conduct was so
        obviously unconstitutional that no specific case is needed to
        establish it.” We disagree.
               Where no past case is “materially similar” and a
        constitutional violation cannot be established through a “broader,
        clearly established principle,” a plaintiff can still show that a
        defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity by proving that the
        defendant’s conduct “lies so obviously at the core of what the
        [Constitution] prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct was
        readily apparent to the [defendant], notwithstanding the lack of
        fact-specific case law.” J W by and through Tammy Williams v.
        Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F.3d 1248, 1259–60 (11th Cir. 2018)
        (quotation omitted). As we have emphasized, “[c]ases that fall
        under this narrow exception are rare and don’t arise often.” King,
        961 F.3d at 1146. And these situations are frequently reserved for
        instances where officers exert their physical will on a plaintiff in an
        “outrageous” way in an obvious violation of the Fourth
        Amendment. See e.g., Fils v. City of Aventura, 647 F.3d 1272, 1291–
        92 (11th Cir. 2011) (“Concrete facts are generally necessary to
        provide an officer with notice of the hazy border between excessive
        and acceptable force. But, where the officer’s conduct is so
        outrageous that it clearly goes so far beyond these borders,
        qualified immunity will not protect him even in the absence of case
        law.” (quotations omitted)); Priester v. City of Riviera Beach, Fla., 208
        F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000) (“A narrow exception exists to the
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12827

        rule requiring particularized case law to establish clearly the law in
        excessive force cases. When an excessive force plaintiff shows that
        the official’s conduct lies so obviously at the very core of what the
        Fourth Amendment prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct
        was readily apparent to the official, notwithstanding the lack of
        caselaw, the official is not entitled to the defense of qualified
        immunity.” (emphasis added) (quotation omitted)).
               Contrary to Martin’s assertion, Defendants’ inclusion of
        O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85’s mandatory anti-boycott clause in her failed
        contract is not one of those instances. In light of the fact that the
        Eighth Circuit has expressly approved the constitutionality of a
        similar law in Arkansas, Waldrip, 37 F.4th at 1392, there is no
        reasonable argument that the inclusion of the anti-boycott clause
        in Martin’s contract “lies so obviously at the core of what the
        [Constitution] prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct was
        readily apparent” to Defendants. J W by and through Tammy
        Williams, 904 F.3d at 1260. While another state’s law and another
        circuit’s precedent certainly cannot clearly establish law in this
        circuit, the existence of this law and Waldrip demonstrates the
        ongoing debate about the constitutionality of anti-boycott clauses
        nationwide. Nor is this an excessive force case where an officer’s
        “outrageous” behavior clearly implicates the Fourth Amendment.
        Instead, Martin is upset that a contractual obligation was included
        in a contract she wished to sign for an event that ultimately did not
        occur. This case is not a “rare” “obvious clarity” case where a
        plaintiff can show a constitutional violation was clearly established
        without relying on any caselaw. See King, 961 F.3d at 1146.
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        22-12827                 Opinion of the Court                             17

                               III.            Conclusion
               Martin has failed to show that it was clearly established that
        Defendants’ inclusion of the anti-boycott clause in Martin’s
        contract, in adherence of O.C.G.A. § 50-5-85, was a constitutional
        violation. As such, we affirm the district court’s grant of
        Defendants’ motion to dismiss on the ground of qualified
        immunity. 8
               AFFIRMED.

        8As a last-ditch effort, Martin argues that we should reconsider and overrule
        the doctrine of qualified immunity in the First Amendment context. We reject
        this argument, as we are bound by Supreme Court precedent “until it is
        overruled, receded from, or in some other way altered by the Supreme
        Court.” United States v. Henco Holding Corp., 985 F.3d 1290, 1302 (11th Cir.
        2021).