"Influencing public policy is a process that the Kennedy School understands and cares about," says Kennedy School spokesperson Steve Singer.
But Skocpol, who herself has served as a consultant to President Clinton and other White House officals, cautions that making noise in Washington can backfire on academics.
"As the Kennedy School experts who went to Health and Human Services to shape welfare policy found out, academics can also end up getting selectively manipulatively used," Skocpol wrote.
"Some of their ideas--like David Ellwood's two-year limit on AFDC benefits--can get co-opted out of context, while their overall vision--like Ellwood's desire to support work and parenting and 'make work pay'--can get ignored," she continued.
Though Afro-Am has yet to practice politics like the Kennedy School, the department's heavy hitters are well heard on a national level.
The department now has a sliding scale of famous names. Appiah says he doesn't consider himself a public figure, while West's voice mail refers "reporters and those interested in inviting Professor West to speak at a conference" to his press agent in New York City.
Gates, who writes six articles for The New Yorker each year, probably falls in the middle as a more public intellectual.
But Gates and his colleagues say they want more influence on American social policy. "If you spend a lot of time thinking about race in America, you can't help but think how things could be better," Appiah says.
Early this year, Gates, West and Wilson, as well as other prominent scholars, attended a series of dinners at the official residence of Vice President Al Gore '69, advising him on race issues for the upcoming election.
"This is the kind of thing Bill Wilson does regularly," Gates says. "I want the department and the [DuBois] Institute to play an active role in policy matters."
Skocpol says such a goal will be difficult to attain.
"No single school or department is likely ever to determine political or policy outcomes. And there is a danger that academics who imagine themselves to be more influential than they are can get used for purposes of window-dressing, especially when contentious issues like race or gender are involved," Skocpol wrote.
And she cautioned that meeting with the vice president is not likely to substantively shape policy.
"If [Wilson's] ideas are to make headway ... this depends on building organized progressive networks of ideas and people for a revitalized Democratic Party...," Skocpol wrote. "The Harvard Afro-Am department can be a part of that, but only a part. And this cannot be done by focusing on individuals as personal super-stars."
Gates argues that there is precedence for what he and his colleagues hope to accomplish. "Some places don't want you to write a book aimed at a general audience," he says. "But we do. Harvard has a long tradition of people being involved in the public arena."
Gates says possible goals for entry into social policy can come through participating in the Black Congressional Caucus, forming coalitions with other black policy institutes and producing scholarly research which public officials can turn to for reliable data.
Nevertheless, Gates and Appiah are aware of their limitations as intellectuals.
"We're non-partisan; we have to be. We're scholars.... We're not a program or a political party," Gates says. "I can't tell these guys what to do."
Gates describes himself as having "one foot in the center and one foot on the left," while West and Wilson are known as progressives.
"There isn't something we want everyone in the department to leave the department believing," Appiah says. "If people want to listen to us, it's because we've tried to struggle with difficult questions and tried to make sense of them."