Dive Summary:

• Author Alice Walker will be speaking at the University of Michigan after all, after an invitation was extended to her and then pulled last month.
• Walker, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "The Color Purple," will give the biannual Zora Neale Hurston Lecture for the department of Afroamerican and African studies in November 2014.
• In accepting the invitation, Walker writes: "I believe we have all learned something from our efforts to reach out to one another, and I believe also that - if solar flares or deeply unintelligent wars haven’t carried us off - it will be a good time."

Dive Insight:

At the time of the original kerfuffle, Gloria D. Thomas, who had invited Walker to campus, said she withdrew the invitation "because I did not think Ms. Walker would be the optimum choice for the celebratory nature of our 50th anniversary event​." Faculty expressed concern that uninviting Walker might damage the university's reputation.