“It’s an interesting wish to erase this word, as if erasing it would erase its malevolent use in American culture,” she says. “I don’t think that omitting the word is going to get us there.”

A WELL-WORN PATH

Gribben’s endeavors do not mark the first rallying cries for the modification of classic texts.

In 2009, for instance, high school teacher John Foley publicly advocated for the removal of several well-known novels from high school reading lists in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He directly cited the use of racial slurs in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” as well as other well-known novels, including “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men.”

“Some might call this apostasy; I call it common sense,” Foley wrote at the time. “Obama’s victory signals that Americans are ready for a change. Let’s follow his lead and make a change that removes the N-word from the high school curriculum.”

Kennedy, the HLS professor, says that he profoundly disagrees with the new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” spearheaded by Gribben.

Modifying texts is not a valuable remedy to the racial dilemmas that our society must continue to confront, he says.

“Of course it can be a terribly insulting term that is used to ostracize and terrorize people, but it is also true that it’s used in other ways as well,” Kennedy says.

“It seems to me that this word is a part of American culture and we need to understand it. We can’t understand it by papering over it.”

—Staff writer Barbara B. DePena can be reached at barbara.b.depena@college.harvard.edu.