A Race Man Argues for a Broader Curriculum: HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. wants W.E.B. Dubois, Wole Soyinka and Phillis % Wheatley on the nation's reading lists, as well as Western classics like Milton and Shakespeare

Q. You advocate something you call a multicultural curriculum in American education. What does that mean?

A. What I advocate is a more truly diverse notion of excellence. What we've done is exclude the best that's been thought by everybody but this slender sliver of people who happen in the main to be white males.

Now, I wouldn't want to get rid of anything in that tradition. I think the Western tradition has been a marvelous, wonderful tradition. But it's not the only tradition full of great ideas. And I'm not talking about any diminishment of standards. Even by the most...

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