WATCH: University of Oklahoma trains instructors to censor students, 'In the classroom free speech does not apply'

The University of Oklahoma held a training session for professors and graduate student instructors where they were specifically instructed to censor students with viewpoints they did not agree with and that the Supreme Court has ruled that free speech does not apply in the classroom.

"I usually look for my students who might be entertaining the idea of listening to a problematic argument," said Kasey Woody, one of the instructors. "I say, 'We don't have to listen to that. That's not an argument we have to listen to.'"

The training session entitled "Anti-Racist Rhetoric and Pedagogies" was an hour-long video that contains a variety of unbelievable statements from presenters Kelli Pyron Alvarez and and the aforementioned Kasey Woody.

Woody and Alvarez told the group that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that free speech doesn't apply in the classroom. Alvarez says the Supreme Court "has actually upheld that hate speech, derogatory speech, any of the -isms, do not apply in the classroom because they do not foster a productive learning environment. As instructors, we can tell our students no, you don't have the right to say that, stop talking right now."

Contrary to the claims of Woody and Alvarez, Justice Samuel Alito for the majority, quoting from a 1929 dissent by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. "Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate.'"  

The University of Oklahoma is a public university, funded by tax payer dollars and bound by the First Amendment. According to FIRE, any professor caught silencing students in a non-neutral manner is at risk of legal issues down the road. "Professors cannot abuse their power to require students to personally adhere to a particular viewpoint or ideology," wrote FIRE's Daniel Burnett and Sabrina Conza. "As the AAUP has written, instructors have academic freedom of 'instruction, not indoctrination.' It can be hard to define precisely where this line falls, but there's no question that a significant amount of this workshop teaches participants how to indoctrinate instead of how to instruct."