ENEMY PROFESSOR (No. 14) - Doris Flowers

No Indoctrination dot org ^ | 2-11-05 | dfu

[doug from upland]

Note: I have no affiliation with the website.

As a public service to students and the parents who foot the bill, we continue our dissemination of information from the website NoIndoctrination.org. A classroom is for exploration, teaching, and open discussion --- not bias. It is not a place to be bashing the president while foaming at the mouth. Is Doris Flowers a whackjob? You decide.
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Record for NoIndoctrination.org entry #400.

San Francisco State University (SFSU)

Jun. 2, 2004

http://www.sfsu.edu

CA

  Course: ISED 747: Culture, Language, and Society in Education

  Course Catalog Description: Research on interactions of culture, education, and society; the notion of culture; identifying interactions of culture and language in K-12 and adult education programs. [ISED = Interdisciplinary Studies in Education. This is a graduate-level course.]

  Professor: Dr. Doris Flowers

  Required? Yes, for my major or minor

  Lecture Bias: Excessive

  Comments: Far from being a forum for learning and enlightenment, it quickly proved only to be a podium for the poisonous rhetoric of Professor Flowers. She urged us, teachers, to go on strike and "overthrow the system". She told that the troubles and violence in Oakland were "all a conspiracy" (to keep African-Americans down). I made the point that families in Oakland seem to be quite fragmented, and I believed that it is only when we have strong, healthy families and communities, will we move towards a more peaceful Oakland. I told the class that I am a 'Stay at Home Mom' because I believe in the importance of a parent being at home. I was at this point shouted down and dismissed as having 'White Privilege'. I am white but have never been given any special privileges. In the next class, professor Flowers told us to speak in our students’ language (the language of the street) so that we may relate to them. The point was also made that only people of color could and should teach students of color. We also learnt from professor Flowers that the police keep the 10% of Americans (white, rich minority) safe and are in place to suppress all the rest of us but especially people of color. We were also told that it was WHITE SUPREMACIST CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY that killed Nicole Brown Simpson. What of OJ, I asked? She went on to say that it "begins and ends with Male Violence".

  Discussion Bias: Excessive

  Comments: One of the messages of this class centered on "the evils of the white man". It evolved into other favored whipping posts, including police brutality. Professor Flowers would say, "all police are in on the conspiracy to keep people of color down". I was amazed to hear the generalizations. I did not mention that my husband was a police officer for fear of being lynched. I am the first to admit that there are rotten apples in every walk of life (corrupt police), but I found myself so angered by this hatred of the police. Rather than creating any bridge of understanding and intelligent debate, this class was one of the most contentious and hostile environments that I have ever encountered. When I said that in my opinion, as an immigrant, I believed that life in America, while not perfect, still afforded people of all races opportunities not available elsewhere, I was soundly ridiculed by the Professor and the core of dissenters that had developed around her. My experiences were not valued but despised. By the third class, when I decided I would not challenge the professor, as the atmosphere was clearly not a safe one for debate and diversity of thought, the professor said that she "hated onlookers and wanted everyone to engage in discussion". She looked at me as she said these words. How could we speak when the professor was not interested in the opinions of those people of differing ideologies and when the atmosphere was heavy with hostility? When a white male student presented a project and supported it by bringing in eight at-risk teenagers of color (young men that he coaches and mentors) professor Flowers made no mention of this excellent work that the student was doing. His project was easily an example of changing the lives of people of color, but the professor was not interested in acknowledging the student as he was not the “right” color to teach these young men of color. She constantly picked on the white students. One student that I know who took this class actually began to feel so poorly that she was hospitalized. Many people that I spoke about the class to felt ill, shocked and some even sick with fear. I wrote a letter of complaint to the Chair of the Department - Marilyn Stepney. She listened to me and then told me that I needed to speak up for myself. She's right in one way, but professor Flowers holds all the power in that room.

  Readings Bias: Objectionable

  Comments: One of the books on the required reading list was Choosing Democracy by Duane Campbell. We refered to this book twice. The other book was Race,Class, and Gender by Andersen. Both books were both used to reinforce the professor's viewpoints.

  General Comments: There was no freedom of contrary expression; there was no intelligent discussions analyzing the root causes of race conflict, only a series of despicable statements designed to inflame while offering little substance to support them. It was a shameful embarrassment of a class. Professor Flowers was successful in creating an atmosphere of tension and distrust where many of us withdrew our comments. There was no structure or planning evident to this class and we received no handouts. On the Saturday class, we sat through 8 hours of unstructured, rolling conversations that often turned into therapy for some sexually confused students. The sad truth is that she is unable to run this class. Under the SFSU's Guidelines for Academic Freedom and Responsibility [http://www.sfsu.edu/~acaffrs/facman/append-1.htm#769], it is stated that "Faculty members, as well as students, are free to hold and express opinions about materials offered in their courses, and this right must not be impinged on by threats, force or intimidation." Professor Flowers violated this guideline as she intimidated many of us who held opposing views by creating an unsafe and hate- filled atmosphere (see my examples). "Students have a right to disagree with the conduct or content of courses and to seek change..." Professor Flowers took away our right to disagree as she allowed an atmosphere of intolerance and even hatred to seep into the classroom (see my examples). "Students in all academic disciplines have a right to receive effective presentations of a broad spectrum of philosophies relative to those disciplines." Professor Flowers presented one viewpoint throughout the entire course (see my examples).

Rebuttal

  When a course posting goes online, NoIndoctrination.org sends a notice to the professor inviting him/her to contest any specifics. (See Rebuttals.) If we receive a rebuttal, it will be posted here.

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[odoso]

Double Whackjob!

[Russ]

I wish I had the time and money to go around the country and take a course from each one of these intellectual midgets. A couple of knowledgeble adults in these classes could turn the tables on them.

[doug from upland]

Should I start a ping list for this series???

[TASMANIANRED]

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[LaBradford22]

Noindocrtination.org is a very important web site. It needs to have its profile elevated so that the decent middle-class citizens of this country who pay for the "education" that comes out of public universities can be informed regarding what they are truly paying for in many cases.

[doug from upland]

We need to get FReeper chapters started at every campus and have the collegiate FReepers lead the way in these outings.

[Cicero]

Not many rebuttals yet at the bottom of these posts.

As you say, the posts are only opinions. But so far they have been persuasive. From their tone I would judge that all the students whose remarks I have read sound fair and reasonable and give good illustrative reasons for their judgments.

These folks so far are among the more stupid of the leftist brainwashers. The smarter ones are more subtle and careful than this. But I suppose it takes a certain directness and brutality to recruit a corps of same-thinking student radicals, such as one of these responses describes: "I was soundly ridiculed by the Professor and the core of dissenters that had developed around her."

One comment on an earlier post said that the teacher lost 3/4 of the class, driven out in disgust. But I suppose the remaining quarter had the makings of some good little storm troopers.

[doug from upland]

Coming soon, an Intermediate Writing professor who showed porn in the classroom.