While Bloom was not alone in arguing for the Western canon in the 1990s, many academics disagreed with his perspective. Allan Bloom, Mortimer Adler, Camille Paglia, Jacques Barzun, and E.D. Hirsch Jr. are some of the academics on the side of the traditionalists like Bloom, but Henry Louis Gates Jr., Stanley Fish, Gerald Gradd, Paulo Freire, John Guillory, and Lawrence Levine are just a few of the revisers who pushed for diversification.

Mary Lousie Pratt, discussing Allan Bloom, William Bennett, and Saul Bellow, whom she calls “the Killer B’s,” says that the conservative position “must not be reduced to nostalgia or conservatism,” specifying, “They are fueled […] by an aggressive desire to lay hold of the present and future” (John R. Searle, “The Storm Over the University.” The New York Review of Books. 6 December 1990). This “aggressive desire” is masked by the claim that they are “unaware of the cultural and demographic diversification” of the United States (Searle). Pratt argues that the conservatives are intentionally trying to reinforce a specific ideal of literature as a white, male field with no room for people of color, women, or queer authors.

Bloom frames his opposition as disregarding literary quality in the pursuit of diversifying the canon, but his opponents note that aesthetic and literary value is largely determined by “cultural capital”—the share of a culture that belongs to certain groups or ideologies, and which inevitably favors those who align with those values. As such, teaching a curriculum of predominantly white, male authors creates an environment in which white, male students are most likely to benefit and succeed, while female students, students of color, and queer students are less likely to benefit. Even beyond literary and cultural studies, the issue of representation continues to be a prominent debate.