Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to speak at IU

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of a race controversy involving President Barack Obama and a Cambridge officer last month, will give two talks at IU in April.

Gates will be one of the speakers for the William T. Patten Lecture Series on April 12 and 14, according to a University news release. The series brings world renowed scholars to IU for one week to give lectures and interact with students, according to the William T. Patten Foundation Web site.

Gates was selected as a speaker prior to becoming the center of controversy.

Gates is widely known as one of the most prominent scholars of black culture and studies. He has written and edited numerous books and co-founded theroot.com, a news Web site focused on black perspectives.

The Harvard professor became embroiled in a national race debate after a neighbor called police when she saw Gates breaking into his own Massachusetts home in July.

Cambridge police responded and Sgt. James Crowley eventually arrested Gates for disorderly conduct after Gates yelled at the officer and accused him of racism.

Soon the situation hit a media fire-storm and Obama invited both Gates and Crowley to a “beer summit” to address the issue.

In 1997, Time Magazine named Gates one of the 25 most influential Americans. He is director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and one of the country’s pre-eminent black scholars.

Also speaking during the Patten series will be Andrew H. Knoll, a Harvard natural history professor, and W. J. T. Mitchell, a University of Chicago professor.