'Black Minds Matter' under fire from conservative group

By Gary Warth

Aug. 29, 2017 12:45 PM PT

San Diego —

A coalition of conservatives and some civil rights activists is calling on San Diego State University to withdrawal its support of a doctoral class inspired by Black Lives Matter.

“Now we want to give them taxpayer dollars to train educators on how to indoctrinate our children?” organizer Craig DeLuz said in a press release Tuesday. “That’s insane.”

SDSU professor of education J. Luke Wood developed the course, Black Minds Matter, and said its purpose is not indoctrination, but rather to educate future teachers about how to make black male students more successful in school.

“Our goal is to change the paradigm as to how educators view their role,” he said, adding that doctoral students will learn about challenges black male students face and strategies that can help them succeed.

The course will be taught to SDSU students studying to become education professors, or teachers of teachers. Wood said interest in the course has been so high that he’s also creating a free public course that will allow people to watch the first hour of each class online.

DeLuz, a trustee in the Robla School District in Sacramento, said he heard about the course through a Facebook post and plans to send a letter to SDSU demanding its cancellation before its scheduled Oct. 23 start. He’s started a Facebook page, Education Not Indoctrination, and enlisted leaders of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California in his effort.

The course is similar in mission to a program Wood co-developed to help community college teachers have better success with black male students by making lessons relevant and validating student efforts in class, among other steps.

DeLuz, who is black, said he understands what Wood is trying to do, but is troubled by its association with Black Lives Matter and Wood’s list of speakers, which includes Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors. The class also will include an interview with Ilyasah Shabazz, an educator and daughter of Malcolm X.

“I hear what he’s trying to say,” DeLuz said about Wood. “But I have a lack of confidence in what these folks (the guest speakers) are going to say as part of the class.”

Part of the dispute is rooted in the conflicting views DeLuz and Wood have of Black Lives Matter.

“Black Lives Matter is a political movement,” DeLuz said in the press release. “And even worse, it’s movement whose members have promoted segregation and violence against law enforcement.”

Wood sees Black Lives Matter differently.

“Its guiding principles are directly against segregation of any form,” he said. “If he has ever been to a Black Lives Matter rally, which I have, he would see there are people of all ethnic backgrounds, or different races and genders, who are there because they are disaffected.”

Wood said he was inspired by Black Lives Matter in creating the course, and he does not see the organization as violent, but rather a response to the systemic violence the black community has faced at times by law enforcement.

“We’re organizing around Black Lives Matter’s guiding principles of loving engagement, empathy, values and restorative justice,” he said.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal called Wood’s course “a monumental waste of taxpayers’ dollars.”

“We should be spending public funds on courses that will actually prepare the next generation for meaningful jobs instead of teaching them how to be victims,” he said.

Wood took exception to the comment and said the course is teaching students how to recognize and confront oppression that is played out daily in the education system.

“If that’s making them into victims, I think that’s woefully inaccurate and a dangerous misinterpretation,” he said.

Kevin McGary, president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California, also said that he opposed the association with Black Lives Matter.

DeLuz also questioned what type of handouts and reading assignments students will receive in the course, and he said Black Lives Matter has little to do with educating black males but rather is about activism.

Wood again had a different view of Black Lives Matter and said the movement’s focus on how black men are undervalued and criminalized in society can be used to show teachers how those same patterns exist in the education system.

As teachers learn to recognize those patterns, they also can learn strategies to overcome them, he said. As an example, Wood said teachers traditionally have held low expectations for black male students, but the course will help them recognize that perception and change it.

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