Soon teachers are going to be afraid of their students. Which is the point of all this. Shame on the university.

Or their parents.

But it is amazing how conservatives need their safe spaces...

throwing chum in the water in the hopes of netting one or two of the non-White Christian instructors for replacement. Dreams of a whiter tomorrow brought to us by useful idiots and youthful brown-shirts.

sound like the old Soviet Union

going to do when they are out in the workforce? "I didn't feel like coming in today so I didn't", or not arranging for a personal day to attend a protest, or counterprotest. The right wing likes to blame "dem librul blue states", but this is happening at a major university in a deep red state.
I know someone who is an instructor at a college.. One of the requirements is to go to the art gallery found in the lobby of the building pick one painting, and write a 500 word essay on it. There are very straightforward simple instructions of how to write the essay. But many instead of just doing that, use GTP to spit out an essay. The AI detectors the school used immediately flagged the essays. Some were not even about any of the art in the gallery. AI is making people lazier than ever.
Those students then complained about receiving failing grades on the essay.
Entitlement, laziness is not a left/right issue, but it everywhere in our schools and colleges. Administrators in high schools, middle schools agreeing to change a student's grade from a C to a B or even an A, regardless if the student even completed all their classwork, passed tests with those grades. It is no wonder we have trouble recruiting teachers, and having teachers leave teaching, because they don't want to deal with all that BS.

They will be arrogant entitled jerks, who refuse to follow instructions, who loudly mouth off right wing nonsense all day, treat non-white co-workers with contempt, spend beyond their means and brag about their luxury purchases.

When they get a poor evaluation, they will complain they are being discriminated against for being a white, "christian" nazi.

Yes, I have worked with too many of these losers

Hypatia. The Islamic Golden Age which preserved knowledge from fallen civilizations, 8th to 13th century.

So if you can get your hands on the knowledge, hide it away. It's valuable, and they won't have it but you will!

I fear it's just getting started.

Stating that you are excusing absences for attending a protest is silly. Not being even-handed about what you will excuse is even more silly. Not understanding that the climate is going to get you jammed up for something like that is even more silly again.

If you are going to excuse the absences at all, you don't need to announce it. Just do it. This instructor was trying to be provocative. Well, guess what? It worked.

Ultimately, the better lesson is that protesting costs you something, that protesting can be a sacrifice. In this case, students should have had to have decided whether to risk the absence for attending the protest. That's the better lesson than "I'll excuse absences for people I agree with," and then using the dishonest tactic of restricting the excuse to "organized protests" in order to punish those who want to counterprotest. That's a terrible message to students, actually.

That’s where they messed up.

We only value what we are willing to sacrifice for. if there is no sacrifice, there is no value in the protest.

And the instructor shows very poor judgement and little political awareness

Solicitations from OU have gone straight in the trash along with a few others. Even if there were a full ride involved, I wouldn't subject my child to that crap.