A University of Wisconsin professor will break his
silence this week on the controversy surrounding student reaction to allegedly
racist remarks he made in a lecture last semester.

Students from the Hmong community accused law
professor Leonard Kaplan of making "racist and inappropriate" remarks in an
e-mail circulated following the Feb. 15 lecture, igniting campuswide debate on academic
freedom and racism against Hmong people.

Kaplan will give a speech Wednesday titled "My Story"
of the Hmong/Law School Incident Last Spring. Kaplan is a Madison Rotary Club
Member, and the event is open only to members and their guests.

Rotary Club Secretary Patricia Jenkins said Kaplan
would be presenting on teaching multicultural issues in the classroom and that
she thought the Rotary Club's title of the presentation doesn't reflect the
actual topic very accurately.

"I'm not so sure he's going to be
talking about that particular incident," Jenkins said. "I believe it's going to
be a broader topic he's speaking about. I guess he will perhaps use examples."

Jenkins added Kaplan's presentation was consistent
with the kinds of presentations usually given at Rotary Club meetings by
members.

"We try to have a variety of topics, some more timely
issues and that kind of thing," Jenkins said.

Following accusations of racism
last semester expressed in an open forum with hundreds of attendees, Kaplan
released a statement in the form of a letter to Law School Dean Ken Davis March
5 in response to the attacks against him.

"Many of the statements attributed
to me in press accounts and e-mails are hateful," Kaplan wrote. "Had I made the
hateful comments wrongly attributed to me, I would repudiate them without
hesitation. I did not make them."

Some of the statements students
alleged Kaplan made include, "Hmong men have no talent other than to kill" and
"all second-generation Hmong end up in gangs and other criminal activity."

Kaplan declined to comment on his decision to
speak at the Rotary Club and the content of his remarks.