Posted on 06/17/2021 7:16:05 AM PDT by george76
An education nonprofit argues that in order to complete the training, students were compelled to answer questions in a way that agreed with the university’s position on transgenderism.
The University of Oklahoma rejected FIRE's request to make its mandatory diversity training optional.
The University of Oklahoma rejected an appeal from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit, to revise its mandatory diversity training.
Recently, the FIRE discovered that the University of Oklahoma is forcing students to attend a virtual program that “required trainees to acknowledge their agreements with the university’s approved political viewpoints in order to complete the requirement.”
According to FIRE’s November 16 letter to administrators, the program “begins with a set of questions titled ‘Insights’ that are said to ‘encourage reflection and introspection.’” Though the section states that there are “no right answers to these questions and your selections will be completely anonymous,” graduate student Elizabeth Owen — who alerted FIRE to the program — was forced to repeat questions until she selected the answer that the university deemed correct.
“One of the questions in the training asked Owen to ‘try to help your frustrated coworker, Michael, realize that understanding difference is not a prerequisite for respecting it,’” explains FIRE’s letter. “It then showed a video of the coworker — Michael — saying ‘I’m so tired of all this transgender stuff.’”
Owen was prompted to select a response. When Owen chose the response that aligned with her thoughts about the situation — that “political correctness can be tiring” — the module informed Owen that her opinion was not the “best choice.”
The module then repeated itself until Owen was forced to select the university’s preferred answer to Michael: “You seem upset. What’s the matter?”
FIRE’s letter asserted that the program “requires its participants to affirm to the university what response to questions of social and political concerns are correct according to the university’s administration.”
On April 26, the University of Oklahoma rejected FIRE’s request to make the course optional, claiming that the training “does not impose specific ways of thinking, but instead, presents situational examples of how to engage with the broader world in a way that is understanding of all people and perspectives.”
FIRE submitted a public records request on May 4 to obtain the school’s contract with EVERFI — the software vendor that produced the program — to see whether the university followed through with its promise to discuss FIRE’s concerns with the company.
University of Oklahoma Director of Media Relations Kesha Keith told Campus Reform that its diversity training “does not impose specific ways of thinking, but instead, presents situational examples of how to engage with the broader world in a way that is understanding of all people and perspectives.”
University officials “will continue to monitor its training efforts while continuing to advance the university’s work of engaging community members in a meaningful learning experience with the goal of fostering a more inclusive campus community.”
Diversity!
Your fact based questions will put the lie to the indoctrination.
Who cares if you fail the class?
I was in the San Fran airport when two gay flight attendants first saw a sign for a Tranny bathroom.
They pointed at the sign and laughed.
Gays think trannies are wack.
I’ll say this. Oklahoma is the most solidly conservative state of all. If they cannot grab that state university by the throat, there isn’t much home for weaker states.
The Diversity of Oklahoma Sooners.
The state legislature must have been asleep when this was adopted. No excuse.
I think there are only an amount of ‘steers queers”’ to equall the whole darn college’s amount of students in the last 3 years, in all the nation!
This is the University that hired Anita Hill…..not a single thing about Zero U is conservative
I’m so sick of these filthy universities pushing leftist causes! Don’t their Boards of Regents care?
The State of Oklahoma should cut off all funding to the university, and residents should not spend on red cent to this university in any fashion: tuition, books, sports. Not one penny. They shouldn’t be emulating Berkeley.
2 + 2 = 5
It is time to close the University of Oklahoma and send everyone home. The school is outside of science and truth given that its ideology is easily proven wrong.
Send everyone home.
How do these maggots get away with this in Oklahoma which is a conservative state? Never forget that these diversity trainers get paid big bucks for this crap. Oklahoma Taxpayers are paying for them.
A former University of Oklahoma volleyball player is suing the school, claiming that she was “frozen out” from the team due to her political beliefs.
Kylee McLaughlin is suing the university and her former head coach Lindsey Gray-Walton and former assistant coach Kyle Walton. One of the complaints accuses the coaches of violating McLaughlin’s First Amendment rights.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3965134/posts
Klick your heels together Toto ,were out of here.
That school is the product of david boren being president for almost 25 years.
Perversity and failure!
IF they had any academic credentials OU would be Berkley on the prairie.
They trotted out the football team to demand this piece of crap legislation and all the mouth-breather “conservative” legislators all started crying about “Muh team”. This is why I loathe college football and consider it the most corrupt, filthy sport in the US.
Time to start seizing endowments since they are creating more of a problem than an education.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.