Pedagogically speaking, multiculturalism in education can and should only purport to give students the necessary analytical tools in understanding the multi-cultural, global world in which we live. The university admissions policy, as well as its requirement that students take subjects in four distribution areas, seems to be founded on this pedagogical goal.

The point about diversifying education, however, is that it does need to be an either-or proposition. In the same way that our knowledge of German history and culture benefits from studying both its high and low points and the conflict therein, the hegemony of Western thought in a Western society whose demographics arechanging might be considered in some ways inadequate.

David Tubbs' GS prescriptive (in "Politics and Pedagogy following the Nassau Hall sit-in", on Friday May 3) that students take it upon themselves to "assiduously search for the answers" is only fair is the assertion that professors "are conscientious and strive to present the questions as fully and accurately as possible" is more a given than an assumption.

Far from a disparagement of the Princeton faculty's dedication to open-minded teaching, my statement is meant to take the issues of multicultural education from pedagogy into a more appropriate sphere, that of academic scholarship. Ethnic studies that does not have an exclusionist agenda can only aid the access that faculty will have to more diverse, and thus fuller, bodies of knowledge. Academic scholarship is a dialogue among scholars which should disturb, challenge, as well as animate, inspire, humanize.

As an Asian-American, the sit-in at Nassau Hall last years evokes for me a bevy of mixed feelings. On the one hand I disagree with the strong-arm tactics the students employed, on the other hand I am more than grateful that, as a result of their brave actions, the opportunity to take a course on Asian-American identity in my next and last year here at Princeton became available to me.

More than a chance to participate in one-sided, feel-good sessions of find-ways-to-blame-the-white-establishment, I expect that the class will give me new perspectives in my attempt as a human being to answer those enduring questios of humanity which Mr. Tubbs has articulated, as have all my classes here at Princeton. By making "identity" a political word, one forgets that the question of identity is central to the study of ethnicity in America; Ethnic-Americans, for better or for worse, have a distinct, collective identity. Simply because an academic subject will have strong personal resonances for some of its students is no reason to invalidate its study. Conversely, neither will it be valid, or constructive, to use "identity" as the focal battle cry.

Nonetheless, the pedagogical, broadly conceived, necessarily becomes political when we agree that intellectual knowledge and concrete power structures are mutually constitutive. The national fight over ethnic studies cannot be faulted for its political nature; it can only be faulted if it chooses to breed an us-against-them attitude.