OF COURSE, it makes sense that Lee wants to limit the enrollment of his class. Students and teachers can learn much more from each other in a small discussion group, rather than in Sanders Theatre, where the professor must use a microphone and the students are limited to one or two questions--if any at all--during the last five minutes of the lecture hour.

And Lee's decision to keep the class small, intimate and closed to the press will certainly create a good forum for free, candid discussion. But more broadly, Lee's method of restricting the class and the exclusive attitude he displayed toward students on Friday makes a mockery of the University's diversity creed.

As a Harvard instructor, Lee should invite to his class students of government, history, psychology, anthropology and sociology. He should make a conscious effort to have Black people, white people and students from other ethnic backgrounds in his course.

If the class enrollment must be restricted for practical reasons, Afro-Am and VES majors should have priority. After all, these students have demonstrated an interest in the subject that Lee has come to teach. But we all have something to learn from Lee (whether or not we agree with him), and no doubt he could learn from the rest of us. But he doesn't seem to want to address the rest of us--the Jewish student of American history, the Korean student who concentrates in government, the Italian psychology major.

Lee should reserve a majority of the class space--perhaps 60 percent--for Afro-Am and VES majors, while allowing for students with other interests and backgrounds to fill the rest of the slots. These students could be chosen by a random lottery or by a selection process requiring them to write a short essay about what they think they could learn from and add to the class.

If Lee insists on restricting his entire class to Afro-Am majors and to VES majors, the University should ensure that the entire, diverse Harvard community gets the opportunity to hear what this prominent, controversial figure has to say.

The administration should have required Lee to hold open office hours or give lectures or host discussions for the wider Harvard community.

I am not implying, as an insensitive student did during the question-and-answer period on Friday, that Afro-Am majors are a homogeneous group that agree on every idea. But by addressing himself to one particular set of students, Lee seems to condone the very packaging of racial groups that leads people to think of others as Others.

THE UNIVERSITY and its policies consistently stand by its dedication to diversity. The college admissions policy and partial randomization in the housing lottery are designed to create diversity in every sphere of University life.

Lee's policy of exclusion in inconsistent with the University's policy of fostering diversity. Even worse, his attitude violates the spirit of communication, openness and diversity that the University tries so hard to maintain. Having 61 students learn about contemporary African-American film is not worth violating that spirit.