Harvard's Afro-American Studies professors have varying responses proper role of Afrocentrism and differing answers to how inclusive the the department should make itself to its ideas.

Matory says an evenhanded study of Afrocentric texts and approaches in the context of classes can be valuable.

"I con imagine a professor in this department using books from that canon critically to study Afrocentrism itself critically," he says. "I know some students are genuinely quite prepared to criticize naive assumptions."

Appiah agrees with that way of answering the question and says the department would have no problem tenuring someone with an Afrocentric focus if he or she were the best professor for a position.

"Someone's holding that position wouldn't count against them, but they'd have to meet certain scholarly standards," he said. He does not feel Harvard's concentration needs to "represent every socially significant political and cultural perspective," he says.

Professors acknowledge a student desire for slightly less unanimity of vision on some issues.

"If you have a somewhat militant view, certain professors will listen and will let your opinions be heard, but there is a feeling that if you do not think as they do you will grow out of it," says Lisa D. Ellis '94, an Afro-American Studies concentrator.

Another question, closely linked both to a desire for Afrocentric dialogue and the call for greater social science coverage, is that of a political articulation for the department itself.

As a department born of activism, one which had for years a pronounced political slant and voice through its chair, Afro-American Studies is under unique pressures to manifest an outlook, to students and colleagues.

Some students today say that the department should assert itself more politically.

"Last year when [City University of New York Professor Leonard] Jeffries came the faculty of the Afro-Am department didn't' come out one way or another,' says Rashida K. LaLande '95. "It never occured to us at the time, but looking back it would have been nice to have some support from the faculty."

Gates says the pressure to enter the arena of campus politics definitely exists. He himself, through columns in national publications, has become a national figure in debates on race relations.

"Being a professor of Afro-American Studies and being Black is not like being a professor of Ango-Saxon literature in the English department," Gates says.

"We don't believe the department to have a political agenda," says Appiah.

Smith says that the department is inherently political but points out that many departments are. "The people who challenge ethnic studies for being political seem to think that history and other departments aren't political, but I think that's a fallacy."