A group of 'academic scholars' -- including the University of Illinois, Chicago's Bill Ayers -- have written a letter to President Obama imploring him to discontinue the tradition of having a wreath laid at Arlington National Cemetary's Confederate Monument, writing, in part:

We ask you to break this chain of racism stretching back to Woodrow Wilson, and not send a wreath or other token of esteem to the Arlington Confederate Monument. This monument should not be elevated in prestige above other monuments by a presidential wreath.

ABC News Karen Travers reports:

On Memorial Day, President Barack Obama will participate in an annual presidential tradition -- a public wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

But the day may be marred by a brewing controversy over whether President Obama will send a wreath to the cemetery's Confederate Memorial, as presidents have done since Woodrow Wilson.

A group of several dozen university professors and scholars have written a letter to the president asking him to not send a wreath or any commemorative token to the Confederate Memorial.

The group, along with Bill Ayers, consists of "university professors and scholars," including at least two professors each from schools of sociology and education, and at least one each from the fields of english, algebra, anthropology, medicine, cultural geography, and geography.

The letter's signees might more appropriately be labeled as a group of political activists who happen to be academics, many of whom are experts in fields unrelated to history...