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Record for NoIndoctrination.org entry #187.

Long Beach City College (LBCC)

Mar. 9, 2003

http://www.lbcc.cc.ca.us

Course: ANTHR 1: Physical Anthropology

Course Catalog Description: Focuses on the evolutionary development of the human capacity for culture and its subsequent effects on human biology: the relation of people and animals; the origin and antiquity of humans; fossil humans; principles of heredity and population genetics; the synthetic theory of evolution.

Professor: Adrian Novotny

Required? Met a General Ed./diversity/other requirement with a few course options.

Lecture Bias: Excessive

Comments: Dr. Novotny uses his Anthropology class as a forum for his excessively socialistic / political views. He would consistently interject his personal views, ie: The white race should be ashamed of itself, I'm ashamed to be white, The system should be more socialistic - Take from those who have and give to those who do not, Women are too lazy to breast feed, We should be ashamed of our government, Our government is nothing more than a giant war monger, Democracy is nothing more than a diguise for colonialism, The rest of the world has just cause to hate us, We should pay reparations to All African Americans, etc... The man is full of guilt and makes every effort to instill this guilt upon his students. None of this belongs in an Anthropology course. He takes young and impressionable minds and attempts to bend them into forming an Anti-American ideology. His use of an Anthropology class as a soap box for his political views is abhorring!

Discussion Bias: Excessive

Comments: Dr. Novotny has managed to turn every discussion in his Anthropology course into one which reflects his political views. He shames Caucasian students into being ashamed of their heritage - If he were to do this to any other racial group, he would be labeled a racist!! He was extremely belittling to any opposing wiewpoints. He was extremely hostile to alternative views. When I expresed the viewpoint that reparations would possibly break the bank of our government and would not, in any way, repay anybody who had actually been a slave, he yelled at me. I was uncomfortable each and every class meeting. I felt personally attacked (daily), and we were all discouraged from expressing alternative viewpoints.

Readings Bias: Excessive

Comments: The main text was informative and was NOT politically biased. However, he was the co-author of the secondary text, "In the Shadow of the Hunter" (required). This text has little to nothing to do with the course objectives.

General Comments: Although, the course did (eventually) meet all the criteria of the course decription, I felt that I was held hostage to his personal and political views. This was most frustrating, as I was (and still am) a Political Science major. I filed a formal complaint with the department head only to discover that Dr. Novotny IS the department head. Nothing has changed. His actions (in class) remain unchecked.

Rebuttal

Submitted: Mar. 10, 2003

Well, here we go again. I sometimes get such glib, knee-jerk patriotic "you hurt my feelings" reactions to my lectures. For many of my students, I am their first encounter with the stark reality of the world at large. I expect to be attacked by people whose reality has been largely formed thorough indoctrination into unchallenged patriotism, unexamined Christianity, and a general absence of understanding of world history, especially the role of multinational corporations and the U.S. military in neocolonial ventures. Yes, I do occasionally "soapbox" on topics involving our species' headlong plunge into self-destruction (after all, I do teach anthropology, the study of people). I am guilty of placing the Earth, all its living systems, and human well-being above corporate greed, national policy, hegemonic religion, and the "comfort level" of students in my class. For every "griper" like the one I am responding to on your site, I can furnish dozens of students whose lives have been empowered by my influence.

I do not "yell" at students, though I can imagine that a professor saying something so upsetting to an ultraconservative student might sound like yelling.

Anyone who reads this and is in the Long Beach area is invited to enroll in one of my classes and judge me, if you must, by first-hand experience.

Thanks for the opportunity to respond.

[Received from Professor Adrian Novotny]