Henry Louis Gates to speak at IU

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor at the center of a race conflict with 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, according to a University news release.

The Harvard professor became embroiled in a national race debate after he was arrested in July for trying to break into his Massachusetts home.

Gates, Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley and President Barack Obama eventually held a “beer summit” to address the issue.

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. In 1997, Time Magazine named Gates one of the 25 most influential Americans.

Gates will be speaking April 12 and 14.