{"id":407080,"date":"2021-04-10T11:58:33","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T15:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=407080"},"modified":"2021-04-10T11:58:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T15:58:37","slug":"university-diversity-training-requires-students-faculty-to-express-agreement-with-universitys-preferred-viewpoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/university-diversity-training-requires-students-faculty-to-express-agreement-with-universitys-preferred-viewpoints\/","title":{"rendered":"University Diversity Training Requires Students, Faculty To Express Agreement With University\u2019s Preferred Viewpoints"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Funiversity-diversity-training-requires-students-faculty-to-express-agreement-with-universitys-preferred-viewpoints%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=407080&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1267.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Mandated diversity training at the University of Oklahoma forces students and faculty members to say they agree with political viewpoints preferred by the school.<\/p>\n<p>The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefire.org\/university-of-oklahoma-diversity-training-requires-students-faculty-to-agree-with-university-approved-viewpoints\/\">reported<\/a> that while schools generally \u201crequire members of their community to participate in diversity training without implicating the First Amendment rights of students and faculty,\u201d they don\u2019t include questions designed to force students and faculty members to <em>agree<\/em> with the school\u2019s position.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHearing the university\u2019s views \u2014 whether or not students and faculty agree with them \u2014 doesn\u2019t necessarily require anyone to agree with those views, and for a university to operate at all you need to be prepared to hear speech you disagree with. A university may also ask students and faculty questions designed to demonstrate their understanding of the institution\u2019s policies,\u201d FIRE\u2019s Sabrina Conza wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Oklahoma\u2019s diversity training, however, goes much further, \u201crequiring students and faculty to answer questions in a manner that&nbsp;<em>expresses agreement<\/em>&nbsp;with the university\u2019s viewpoints on thorny and difficult issues. Viewpoints with which students and faculty may not actually agree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Conza then explained how such a requirement runs afoul of the First Amendment:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"13.96978021978\">\n<p><em>At a public university, requiring students and faculty to express agreement with the university\u2019s position, viewpoint, or values in this manner runs headlong into the First Amendment right against compelled speech \u2014 as the First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but also the right not to speak. Famously, in ruling that schoolchildren cannot be compelled to salute the American flag, the Supreme Court held in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefire.org\/first-amendment-library\/decision\/west-virginia-state-board-of-education-et-al-v-barnette-et-al\/\">West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette<\/a>&nbsp;(1943) that it\u2019s unconstitutional for the government to require a person \u201cto declare a belief [and . . . ] to utter what is not in his mind.\u201d The Court, correctly, held that compelled speech \u201cwould strangle the free mind at its sources.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On November 16, 2020, FIRE wrote a letter to OU asking the university \u201cto either make its diversity training optional or allow participants to select the answer choices that most closely reflect their beliefs.\u201d The university has yet to respond.<\/p>\n<p>OU also took four months to respond to FIRE\u2019s open records request relating to the training, saying the organization could only view the materials in person. With the help of OU graduate student and staff member Elizabeth Owen, the organization was able to view the materials. Owen had gone through the student and staff training already. The staff training required participants to answer questions with the university\u2019s preferred answer:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"10\">\n<p><em>In one of these hypothetical situations, Owen was required to communicate with a fictional colleague named Michael. It showed a video of Michael saying he was \u201ctired of all this transgender stuff\u201d and gave Owen options to select in response. When Owen selected the response that she felt was most similar to her feelings (\u201cI agree. Political correctness can be so tiring\u201d), she was told that her opinion was not the \u201cbest choice.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As FIRE wrote, if Owen were allowed to continue the training despite choosing an answer with which the university disagreed, there would be no abridgment of rights, but the training forced Owen to select the university preferred answer in order to continue. In order to continue and ultimately complete the training, Owen had to select \u201cYou seem upset. What\u2019s the matter?\u201d as the correct answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn doing so, the university, an agency of the state, compelled Owen (and who knows how many others) to express a viewpoint with which she did not agree,\u201d FIRE wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The organization noted that students appear to be able to select answers that fit their beliefs and still be able to complete the training, though it is unclear if students who select the \u201cwrong\u201d answers face other adverse actions by the university.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mandated diversity training at the University of Oklahoma forces students and faculty members to say they agree with political viewpoints preferred by the school.The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2311962,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1267.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"University Diversity Training Requires Students, Faculty To Express Agreement With University\u2019s Preferred Viewpoints","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1267.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"University Diversity Training Requires Students, Faculty To Express Agreement With University\u2019s Preferred Viewpoints","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2311962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}