Sanders at Liberty: Students are saying it was NOT mandatory.

[MADem]

27. Sounds to me like they are saying they had to attend but didn't mind (as much, anyway).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/07/why-liberty-university-is-requiring-its-students-to-attend-a-bernie-sanders-speech/

Just as Sanders hopes to bolster his candidacy by speaking to an audience from way across the aisle, Liberty sought to affirm its legitimacy by inviting him. Having a Jewish quasi-socialist speak at the school is a way of fighting the perception that the school is just an echo chamber for conservative Christian politics.

And, Falwell Jr. said, other “liberal” schools could learn a thing or two from a purportedly closed, conservative campus like Liberty’s. When former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was invited to speak at Rutgers University’s commencement last spring, students and faculty protested for weeks until she voluntarily backed out. Falwell says he’s seen no such response to the Sanders invite from Liberty’s own student body.

“You have to hear from people who believe something different from you,” he said, the only slightest hint of smugness in his voice. “That’s why you go to college.”