But what the College now takes for politics has more to do with cultural identities than political ideals. Constantly the administration encourages students to find their cultural heritage and to celebrate their difference. Rarely do we hear about ideals that we share, or the notion that the things we have in common as students might be able to bridge cultural gaps.

In the United States--another pluralist community--we all make a bargain with the government: We get to keep our individuality, our sense of ethnicity, our notions of self and culture, our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) and the like.

But, in return, we all must accept some basic political ideals: individual freedom, equality of opportunity, democracy. When we disagree over precisely how to achieve these ideals, we enter the political arena.

At Harvard we need to strike the same bargain. Students can keep and celebrate their differences of cultural heritage. But we should also recognize that, as students, we're pursuing the same ideals. We're not only what our ethnic, religious and cultural differences determine. And we should be encouraged to come together, not to break apart.

The administration seems content with a Vance-Owen Harvard, where Jews, Blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos and the rest of us find geographic and extracurricular niches, and no one advances on the others' territory. Learning about each other and living together happily--not just peacefully--are given lip service, but no policy manifestation.

In the "Handbook on Race Relations," one student group, clumsily named Students at Harvard and Radcliffe Against Racism and Ethnocentrism (SHARE), says its workshops "are designed to help participants examine their own backgrounds, identify stereotypes, and understand the damaging behaviors and interactions which can result from those assumptions."

Those are laudable goals. But they are also goals that reinforce differences. And I have an inkling that most SHARE events are preaching to the converted. As one first-year put it, "In an hour, you can't really change a racist's behavior."

More broadly, Harvard has two main offices that deal with race and ethnicity--the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations and the Office of Race Relations and Minority Affairs. The Foundation focuses on "cultural recognition" by sponsoring discussion series, granting funds to minority student groups and publications and bringing minority Hollywood types to campus. The Office of Race Relations mainly deals with handling and trying to prevent racial harassment cases.

Where's the group for bringing us together? When do we hear about our commonalities? Will Harvard draw a line between cultural celebration and separatism?

You might argue that my goal--emphasizing what we have in common in order to bring students together (what President Neil L. Rudenstine has frighteningly called "intermingling")--is impossible to achieve in an institutionalized setting. That may be true. But using those institutions to amplify our differences surely cannot be the answer.

In last year's Commencement address, recently republished in the "Handbook," Rudenstine correctly argued that historical experience suggests a monocultural community is impossible: "If we look closely at our larger American society (and if we are candid with ourselves), we cannot fail to notice that vast segments of our population live, socialize and even work with people who have racial, religious or cultural characteristics very similar to our own."

Similarly, I'm not arguing for some Marxist nihilism that forces identity into a big monocultural box. Nor am I saying that Harvard was a great place when the students were white guys, the professors were white guys and all the books were written by white guys. I'd take an uneasy diversity to homogeneity any day.

But what Rudenstine fails to admit is that Harvard hasn't just allowed "boundary lines" to crop up spontaneously among students, as he said. In fact, its policies regarding race and ethnicity have encouraged those boundaries to proliferate.

The more we talk of "promoting cultural appreciation" and identifying our "symbolic and oppositional identities," as the "Handbook" does, the more we will feel that our fragmentation is natural. And the less we engage with each other in political settings, ready to compromise and work together to make Harvard better.

What about the future? When faced with complaints about Harvard's handling of race relations recently, Epps and other administrators have encouraged students to wait for the publication of the Negotiations Project study, put together by two "conflict management" firms in Cambridge.