When will they get it?

Every year my school cancels classes for two days to put on the Symposium on Democracy. Every year there is a different focus and every year attendance is "required." The college wants the students to get a chance to listen to speakers they may never thought to listen to and gives information that we might never have experienced otherwise. Up until this year the "required" attendance was more of a trust thing. This year they are swiping ID cards and "counting absences" for students who don't attend certain sessions.
First off, forcing me to go to something I am not interested in is going to make me upset and when I go I'm not going to pay attention. I am going to be "that person" who is on their phone, not paying attention, and I am going to be itching to get out of there. Secondly, because I was forced to go to something I didn't want to go to, now I don't want to go to the thing I was interested in because I just wasted 2 hours on something I couldn't care less about.
Not every topic is going to be interesting to everyone. Expecting students to attend all sessions is ridiculous. They can't do anything with this "attendance policy." There are no consequences to not going and they can't force people to go. I am not going to any of the required sessions, 1 because none of them are of any interest to me, 2 There are non required sessions that I'd rather go to because they sound interesting to me, and 3 I am an adult paying to go to this school. You do not tell me what to do. I pay you...I do what I want to do. Really I am wanting to "stick it to the man." Also, it helps that the last two years I was much more interested in the topics and attended many more sessions. Not because my attendance was being taken but because I was interested.