Do I think they caused the 2008 financial crisis?
Ummm.......no, but they obviously didn't help prevent it either. And as quasi-government institutions, they were at least responsible for the oversight of the banks that sold all those NINJA loans.
The professor was a total Conflict theorist, if not full blown Marxist. He graduated from Cal Berkeley during I think the late '60's or early '70's. Every topic we discussed was a predator-prey relationship. Government good. Capitalism evil. Nice guy, he still believed in free speech. But the class was total indoctrination. I'm was a little older than everyone in there, so let's say I didn't buy in.
Getting back to your original question, I think if you're teaching a class about the financial meltdown of 2008, without even once mentioning Freddie/Fannie and their lack of oversight, is dereliction in my view. Especially when those rascally Republicans had been warning for years that Fannie/Freddie needed more regulation. How Franklin Raines avoided prosecution is beyond me.