In an email sent Monday afternoon, Kennesaw State University Professor Jalessah Jackson told the students of her Gender Studies “Love and Sex” class that she is relocating that evening’s class and approaching it in a different “format” than usual. The new location? The Campus Green. The new format? A protest against bestselling author and Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles. The students are “expected to be present” at the protest of the mainstream conservative, Jackson asserts in the email.

In the email to her students, a screenshot of which was published Monday by Young America’s Foundation (the organization sponsoring Knowles’ appearance on campus), Prof. Jackson begins by pulling almost word for word from an announcement posted on Facebook earlier by progressive activist groups providing details about the protest ahead of Knowles speech.

“Dear Students,” the email reads. “I am emailing to inform you all of today’s class format and meeting space. KSU Young Americans for Freedom will be hosting a transphobic [event] today, Monday, Oct 21 called ‘Men are not Women’ with Michael Knowles, who has been known for his racist and transphobic comments. You may know him as the man who was recently banned from Fox News for calling Greta Thunberg a ‘mentally ill Swedish child’.”

Jackson goes on to inform the class that they are “expected to be present” at the protest event.

“As a class, we will be coming out to support trans students at KSU. We want to communicate to the campus and broader community that transgender people have advocates on campus who support them and their right to exist,” she continues, again drawing almost verbatim from portions of the progressive activist group’s earlier announcement.

“Although the event is 4-7 pm, you all will be expected to be present during class time 5:00-6:15pm,” she writes. “However, feel free to come early and stay the entire time.”

Forcing students to attend a protest is obviously a violation of the First Amendment and far oversteps any reasonable school policy on employee advocacy of a political view or cause.

Called out for the apparent coercion of students to protest another student group’s event, Jackson seem to contradict her assertion that students would be “expected to be present during class time,” insisting to Young America’s Foundation that students would not be “penalized for not attending.”

“Attendance will not be taken for today’s class,” Jackson told YAF. “As a result, students not in attendance will not be penalized for not attending.”

As The Daily Wire reported earlier Monday, the protest of Knowles’ speech was organized over the weekend by progressive student activist groups Kennesaw State United and Kennesaw Pride. Below is the full text of the announcement of the protest, some of the language of which Jackson heavily borrowed in her highly problematic email to her Gender Studies students: