Vol. CXXXIII No. 14

VOL. CXXXIII NO. 14

FRIDAY, FebRuARY 25, 2022

CLAREMONT, CA

SPECIAL SECTION

ILLUMINATING 5C BLACK LEGACIES

PAGES 6 — 9 INTERACTIVE STORY AT TSL.NEWS

Pomona prof makes dark matter discoveries ELINA LINGAPPA Understanding the complexities of the universe? That’s a tall order for most people.

But Jorge Moreno, an assistant professor of astronomy at Pomona College, isn’t just helping discover alternate forms of galaxies across the universe — they’re also using those discoveries to think more deeply about life right here on Earth.

Moreno is first author credited on a paper that offers new insights on galaxies that lack dark matter, published in the Nature Astronomy Journal Feb. 14.

For the last half century, astronomers internationally have understood that galaxies always contain dark matter, an important process of their formation and function. But in 2018, Princeton University postdoctoral fellow Shany Danieli and her research group discovered what they believed to be a galaxy without any dark matter.

The discovery threw many astronomers into a bit of an “existential crisis,” Moreno said.

Many discounted Danieli’s work, while others proposed getting rid of popular black matter theories altogether.

Moreno, a close friend of Danieli, used their sabbatical last year to run image simulations of different galaxies. On Dec. 23, 2020, Moreno discovered what they believed to be seven simulated galaxies that had no dark matter.

Moreno said that they felt pressure to be entirely certain of their findings. With Daneli

See SPACE on page 10

COuRTeSY: euROPeAN uNION/eCHO/H. AVRIL 2015 VIA FLICKR

Hours of rain caused floods and subsequent landslides Jan. 31 in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, where Pitzer College students are currently studying abroad.

Pitzer in Ecuador continues through devastating floods LUCIA STEIN E ve n a s u np re c e de nte d flooding and landslides devastated Quito earlier this month, Pitzer College students studying abroad in Ecuador continue to integrate themselves in the community and learn about the political and social situation in the city.

Hours of rain caused floods and subsequent landslides Jan. 31 in Ecuador’s capital, where Pitzer students are currently living with host families. According to an Al Jazeera report, the flood was caused by rain of around 16 gallons per square yard on the Pichincha volcano,

although only about 0.5 gallons per square yard were forecasted.

The flooding and landslides have killed 28 people and injured 52 others, according to France24 News.

The Pitzer students studying in Quito were unharmed since their host families’ homes are in a different district of Quito from that damaged by the landslide, Pitzer Associate Vice President of International Programs Michael Ballagh told TSL in an email.

Amaya Gustave PZ ’23 first learned of the landslides through social media, later seeing coverage of the aftermath as she watched TV with her host family that night.

Marianne Williamson joins call with Claremont DISCOVR to support hybrid learning options RYA JETHA & MARIANA DURAN

TALIA beRNSTeIN • THe STuDeNT LIFe

On Saturday, former presidential candidate and previous Pomona College student Marianne Williamson participated in a Zoom call with Claremont DISCOVR — a 5C advocacy group for students with disabilities — in support of flexible hybrid learning options for vulnerable students.

Marianne Williamson attended Pomona College for two years before dropping out in 1972.

See DISCOVR on page 10

Pitzer is well prepared to grapple with a range of challenges students might face when studying abroad, be they socio-political or natural, Ballagh said. He cited examples of evacuation from Nepal after the 2015 earthquake and relocation from Zimbabwe to Botswana at the height of the country’s repressive dictatorship under Robert Mugabe.

“Pitzer is well versed and prepared for emergencies abroad, although one needs to accept that in certain cases, irrespective of international insurance policies and highly sophisticated evacuation protocols, one remains at the mercy of local authorities who often reserve the right to control all

emergency procedures,” he said.

The natural disaster didn’t make Gustave apprehensive about being in Ecuador either. The aftermath of the turbulent weather actually gave her insight into the strong community bonds that tie the residents of Quito together, she said.

“Even my [host] mom was gathering up stuff around the house that she could bring down to an organization that would make sure that people can get what they needed.”

For Gustave, while the experience highlighted community bonds, it also called attention to

See ECUADOR on page 10

Scripps Pre-Law Society launches first 5C free legal clinic AMARA MIR The Scripps College PreLaw Society is spearheading the creation of the 5Cs’ first Small Claims Advisory Service.

Through the service, students will help community members in the city of Claremont with tenant and consumer law cases that would otherwise be difficult

to handle, while gaining legal experience themselves.

The service is intended to help people with small claims court cases, which include minor disputes in the lowest tier of the court system.

These cases have the lowest pay-out limits and include conflicts such as landlords withholding security

See SCAS on page 10

SAMSON ZHANG • THe STuDeNT LIFe

ARTS & CULTURE “The Last, Best Small Town” follows two SoCal families as they navigate culture, race and the American Dream. The play will run from March 3 - 6 at the Seaver Theatre. Read more on page 2.

The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889

OPINIONS The Pomona College administration is ignoring basic public health guidance by forcing students with medical exemptions to COVID-19 vaccination to live in Oasis, writes guest writer Gabe Schuhl PO ‘25. Read more on page 4.

SPORTS The first major meet for both the Sagehens and the Stags and Athenas, the P-P Track and Field All-Comers meet featured eight CMS event victories and six topthree finishes for P-P, having successful outings to begin the year. Read more on page 12.

INDEX: Arts & Culture 2 | Opinions 4 | BHM 6 | News 10 | Sports 11

Arts & Culture

PAGE 2 FILM FILES

The breathless, brutal world of Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’

rEADEr’S DIGEST

Flexitarianism offers college students the best of both worlds SADIE MATZ

COurTESy: IGLESIAS MÁS/SONy PICTurES CLASSICS

Milena Smit and Penélope Cruz star in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, “Parallel Mothers.”

HANNAH ELIOT All of Pedro Almodóvar’s films hold something unique and special — something you can intimately relate to — and “Parallel Mothers,” or “Madres Paralelas,” is no exception. The Spanish director’s latest film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, stars Penélope Cruz as Janis, a single mom who meets teen mom Ana (Milena Smit) in the maternity ward of a hospital. The two women bond as roommates and give birth to baby daughters at almost the same time, inspiring a series of events that link their destinies forever.

In Pedro Almodóvar’s “Live Flesh” (1997), Cruz played Isabel, a young prostitute who gives birth on a bus, screaming into the Madrid night as her friend cuts the umbilical cord with her teeth.

Twenty years later, Cruz plays a different mother in another of Almodóvar’s films — this one older, wiser and more self-possessed.

As she gives birth under bright hospital lights, Janis does not cling to helplessness like Isabel. However, the scenes to come will strain her sense of self-possession as a woman and simultaneously place her on the path to reclaiming it.

“Parallel Mothers” is tender and intimate in its reflections on motherhood. In the film, both women are defined by their strained relationships with their mothers. Janis was the child of a free spirit who died of an overdose at 27. Ana was the child of a suave actress who abandoned her to pursue the stage, a mother who even calls herself “the worst mother in the world” in one scene. These relationships subtly and not-so-subtly shape how the women raise their own daughters and how they bond as friends (and eventually lovers).

The realism and depth of emotion with which Almodóvar captures these experiences reflects how films on motherhood are holy ground for the director. They are a space in which he has honed his craft and produced some of his most touching work.

This film is gentle while pulling you in. It is also far more toned down and sober than most of Almodóvar’s work. It does not delve into the campy satire and soapy violence that defined earlier, blood-soaked films such as “Matador” or “Law of Desire.” However, it lacks the completeness of “Pain and Glory,” Almodóvar’s 2019 feature, which stars Antonio Banderas (another Almodóvar regular) as an aging Almodóvar-esque film director reflecting on his past

and present.

In spite of these differences, though, both “Parallel Mothers” and “Pain and Glory” mark a new era for Almodóvar.

They are refreshingly grounded in their explorations of classic Almodóvarian themes such as motherhood, sexual violence and intergenerational trauma.

Another sign of this new era is a subplot of the film that focuses on the real-life campaign of Spanish citizens to excavate the unmarked, mass graves of those killed by the regime of dictator Francisco Franco decades before. While Almodóvar’s earlier films ignored Spain’s brutal past and the legacy of its political violence, this film leans into it.

Janis is a photographer shooting a forensic anthropologist named Arturo (Israel Elejalde) for a magazine spread. She asks him to help in the investigation to excavate the grave of her great-grandfather, who was killed during the Franco regime, and seeks to uncover her family’s lost history over the course of the film.

In showing how Janis’ personal history ties into a national history, Almodóvar pushes you to slip into a world that mirrors and channels the traumatic reality for generations of Spaniards who are still experiencing the effects of their country’s shaky transition from dictatorship to democracy.

“Parallel Mothers” is an ideal film to go into knowing very little. Its plot is dense and intricate, and it is best to experience Almodóvar in this way: embracing the bluntness of the brutal, beautiful world he breathes into existence. Almodóvar seems distinctly aware of the dangers of a ‘documentary’ or overly realistic approach — of trying to ease his characters to the events unfolding around them rather than letting them emerge on their own, letting them surprise and disturb you. This aura of abandon is captured in an interview with Frédéric Strauss for the book “Almodóvar on Almodóvar,” in which the director explains, “I only know how to work by becoming the victim of my passion for it.”

FEbruAry 25, 2022

At a Super Bowl party, waiting to flip our Impossible burgers, my grill mate told me about their friend’s new diet: “He’s vegetarian, except for Raising Cane’s chicken!”

Some of the group around us laughed, myself included, but the consensus was overall supportive. Raising Cane’s is really good, and vegetarian-except-for-Cane’s is better than never practicing vegetarianism at all.

In an era plagued by fad diets, it’s time to lean into more forgiving outlooks on dieting and self-care. Simultaneously, it’s important to remain aware of how our dietary choices affect the planet, as well as animal and human lives. Enter vegetarianism-except-for-Cane’s, or rather flexitarianism! A happy medium between the gentle philosophy of intuitive eating and the ethical appeal of veganism, flexitarianism isn’t just “lazy vegetarianism.”

In case you’re unfamiliar, flexitarianism is a portmanteau of the words “flexible” and “vegetarianism.” The beauty of flexitarianism is that its ‘flexible’ aspect allows one to practice vegetarianism on one’s own terms. The rigidity of veganism and vegetarianism is often a deterrent for those interested in adopting a plant-based diet. For college students — many of whom primarily eat at campus dining halls — avoiding all animal products seems all the more implausible. That being said, young adulthood is when the time is ripe to rethink our dietary preferences before entering the real world.

The underlying myth that fuels the diet and health food

industry is the concept that what we eat is inextricably linked to our morals and our worth.

Cleanses and detoxes rely on consumers’ (mis)understanding that there are evils lurking in our bodies that must be flushed away by a steady diet of verdant cold-pressed juices. They encourage the idea that we can, and should, derive self-satisfaction from self-deprivation.

Weight Watchers’ infamous point system, which assigns numerical values to food based on various nutritional factors, is a clear and concrete manifestation of this mindset. The food pyramid, though horrendously outdated and misleading, is another popular way that Americans internalize the relationship between food and moral values.

So how do we rid ourselves of these dangerous attitudes toward food? The dietary philosophy of intuitive eating was created to address this very concern.

Based on the understanding that your body knows what’s best for you, intuitive eating encourages eaters to forget food rules. Most nutritionists can agree on one thing: we bestow far too much power on food. Intuitive eating effectively transfers power back from food into the hands of the eater, a direct and powerful response to the power imbalance perpetuated by diet culture.

But this correlation between food, morals and power isn’t entirely unsound. When it comes to eating animal products, there does in fact exist an intersection between eating and ethics. It’s pretty hard to argue with the facts: the animal product industry creates devastating environmental effects. Study after study reveals that plant-based diets are by far the most beneficial for the environment. Cutting out meat

Hannah Eliot SC ’24 is from San Francisco, California. She is currently taking a film class at Scripps called The Spanish Transition Through the Lens of Pedro Almodóvar.

is a more effective way to benefit the environment than eliminating driving and showering. While nobody should feel that the fate of the planet depends on what they eat, it’s crucial to remain conscientious of the habits we form and the residual effects they have.

With all this in mind, the flexitarian diet sounds pretty promising. We can all do our part to normalize plant-based eating while enjoying a diet that suits our unique lifestyles. I’m far from a dietician, but if you’re interested, here are the flexitarian guidelines that I’ve come up with: 1. Let saving animal lives and the planet bring you joy.

2. Eat what brings you joy.

The food that brings you joy can be a plant-based dinner on a Meatless Monday or your favorite sushi that you have on special occasions. It doesn’t matter, as long as there’s balance. As they say at Bon Appetit magazine, eat how you want to feel.

When I enter a McDonald’s, the first thing I crave is a Filet-OFish. As controversial as I’ve discovered my preference is, it’s my go-to because I grew up watching my mother savor it and an act as simple as choosing her favorite menu item makes me feel closer to her. When my roommate takes us to Del Taco, we order two tacos with Beyond meat (I promise my diet consists of more than $3 fast food). It probably isn’t the most appealing option either, but I love sitting in her car and sharing her favorite low-grade Mexican food.

The bottom line is: don’t let food rules steal the joy that eating is supposed to bring. Try a flexitarian diet, you might like it!

Sadie Matz SC ’24 is a flexitarian from Brooklyn, New York. She cannot drive and will not take questions regarding the matter.

SEOHyEON LEE • THE STuDENT LIFE

Pomona theater department’s ‘The Last, Best Small Town’ centers Latinx narratives in Southern California INDIA CLAUDY Hinting at themes of division, loyalty and the American Dream, posters for the Pomona theater department’s upcoming production are split into two parts vertically with a couch. On one side, symbols of a cross and family photograph; on the other, the American flag and the Statue of Liberty in a birdcage.

“The Last, Best Small Town” will run from March 3 through March 6. Telling the story of neighboring households in Southern California, the play follows these two families as they navigate aging, love, loss and finding their place in the world.

The play is directed by Ernie

Gonzalez Jr., a visiting guest lecturer at Pomona. Gonzalez has taught introductory acting courses and improvisation at the college, and he is also a teaching artist, producer and actor himself, recently appearing as a vice principal in HBO’s popular series, “Euphoria.”

Gonzalez compared “The Last, Best Small Town” to a different play that is a staple of American theater — but one which a more diverse audience, himself included, can relate to.

“This show, and our production of it, is heavily influenced and inspired by Thorton Wilder’s seminal theatre piece ‘Our Town,’”

COurTESy: KENDALL PACKMAN

“The Last, best Small Town” will run from March 3 to March 6 at the Seaver Theatre.

he said via email. “I know ‘Our Town,’ I’ve seen ‘Our Town,’ I’ve studied ‘Our Town’ — but I could not relate to ‘Our Town.’ It didn’t speak to my identity, culture or background. However, now, this is my ‘Our Town.’”

The play, which first premiered in July 2021, cements its modernity and difference from other theater classics through its many salient themes: culture, ethnicity, privilege, microaggressions, the weight of family expectations and the loss of the American Dream.

Theater major Mark Diaz PO ’22 read “The Last, Best Small Town” and said he quickly appreciated the authenticity of its narrative and messaging. He brought it to the attention of the theater department’s selection committee –– a group of theater faculty, theater majors and non-majors passionate about theater –– in hopes that Pomona would put on the show. “[The playwright] is a Mexican American person from Los Angeles, writing about the Mexican American experience in Los Angeles,” Diaz said. “I had never seen a story that was just so honest, and so rich…because it’s coming from him, as opposed to somebody else putting on, it just feels so much more real.”

Celia Parry PO ’23 also appreciated playwright John Guerra’s talent for authenticity in how he builds his characters.

“Acting often reminds me of the complexity of humans,” Parry said via email. “People don’t tend to be all good or all bad, and the way John Guerra wrote ‘The Last, Best Small Town’ reflects this nuance.”

The rehearsal process for the show was a quick affair. The de-

partment held virtual auditions the first week of the spring semester, and, with the beginning of the semester online, the cast effectively lost those two weeks for preparation of the show. Then finding an actor to fit the character of Benito Gonzalez further pushed back production.

Diaz, cast as Elliot Gonzalez, was one of two Latinx actors to audition for the show. The other was his younger brother, Ethan Diaz PO ’24, who, ironically, will play Diaz’s grandfather in the play. However, the task of casting Diaz’s father remained. The team reached out to Chicano Latino Student Affairs in hopes of recruiting another Latinx actor, but were instead faced with another roadblock to production.

Rather than cast a non-Latinx student, the theater department opted to hire Pablo Cuen, an actor from Los Angeles to play the role.

“I wish we could have another student,” Diaz said. “[However], it was more important for us to get a Latinx actor to be in the story than just putting some other [student] in … And it just wouldn’t represent this narrative, which is really close to a certain portion of our population here. So, I feel like we’re telling a very authentic story in that way.”

To make up for the lost time, the cast has been practicing six days a week, sometimes for up to four hours at a time. With this kind of time commitment, they’ve been able to really grapple with their characters — and how they might connect to them.

“The thing about the Mexican American experience is that it really is different for everybody,” Diaz said. “There are the kind of rela-

tionships that they have with their parents, the way that the character carries themselves, there’s a certain pressure and burden that I’ve never really seen written so clearly as is in this show … On those levels, I really can connect to this character.”

As often occurs in a residential education community like the 5Cs, some cast members have found connections between “The Last, Best Small Town” and their coursework.

“I took a course last semester called American Political Thought,” Parry said via email, “and one of the themes I was particularly interested in was the failure of the American Dream and how its unattainability leads to a culture of striving in the United States. It’s been interesting to see that play out in this show, which is in many ways a story about the conditions of the American Dream.”

Keeping in mind these kinds of extensions beyond the stage, the theater department aims to continue selecting plays which speak to its diverse student body.

“It’s really important as an academic institution that they’re really putting these kinds of stories at the forefront,” Diaz said. “We’re not just doing Shakespeare, we’re not just doing Chekov. We’re doing things which are really modern and really connected to our current demographic of students that shows that when we get into the real world, these are the things that we’re going to be engaging with.”

“The Last, Best Small Town” will run Thursday, March 3 at 8 p.m., Friday, March 4 at 8 p.m., Saturday, March 5 at 2 p.m. with an ASL interpreter and at 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 6 at 2 p.m.

Student tickets can be purchased online or at the Seaver Theatre Box Office.

FEbruAry 25, 2022

Arts & Culture

PAGE 3

LITErAry WANDErINGS

Humor holds David Sedaris accountable in ‘The Best of Me’ RYAN LILLESTRAND CW: The following article contains discussions of mental illness and suicide.

Humor is a distinctly underappreciated talent in the writing world — both in that it is not used nearly enough, and that it is exceedingly difficult to do well. The ability to make readers laugh out loud is one of the most admirable skills a writer can master.

Late last year, I realized that I wasn’t laughing out loud very often — at least not while reading.

And so began my search for funny books.

In such a search, one can’t help but come across David Sedaris. A recognized author and comedian, Sedaris has established a career by bringing humor to the pages of The New Yorker and to his many books. Beyond chasing quick laughs, his writing is biting and powerful. His pieces often delve into challenging topics or heartfelt moments, and yet still never fail to make the reader laugh out loud on nearly every page. He is a master of his craft.

“The Best of Me,” as the name implies, steals from all of Sedaris’ previous collections, gathering together his best essays, personal narratives and fiction into a single book. It bursts with a cacophony of voices, ranging from Sedaris’ own personal narratives to a fictional conversation between a baboon and a cat at a hair salon.

I started reading it early Christmas morning while the rest of the family was still asleep.

Two chapters in, and after presents had been opened, I told my family that I had to read one out loud. That is one of the beautiful things about funny books — they demand to be shared.

While I typically read all the

books that I review, this time I chose to listen to the audiobook.

This decision, I believe, greatly enhanced the experience. Sedaris’ distinctly high-pitched voice, mixed with his library of humorous accents and a knack for timing, makes the experience of hearing “The Best of Me” all the better. Sedaris is funny on the page, but he’s even funnier in his delivery.

But like any good book, it also left me with questions.

In particular, it made me wonder about the relational implications of his relentlessly honest personal narratives. “The Best of Me” is full of family stories, and no one is spared from the limelight.

He is certainly not lacking in material. The Sedarises — David, his mother, father, and five siblings — are a boisterous group.

In the pages of his book, he explores everything from sultry North Carolina summers at the neighborhood swimming pool, his sister’s suicide and the time his father ran around the house in his underwear while yelling at David and his sister to stop singing so he could watch “the game.” Sedaris makes it clear that his Dad considered him a ‘lemon’ — directionless, unathletic, unpromising — when he was growing up. His siblings’ paths diverge and converge over the years, they fall in and out of each other‘s lives, make mistakes.

In these windows into his family, he seems to leave out nothing. Readers are fully brought into the ever-evolving world of their lives together.

This left me with a question: Is this ok?

It is a question I have come up against time and time again

LuCIA MArQuEZ-uPPMAN • THE STuDENT LIFE

with any work of personal narrative or memoir. How does the writer tell their story, which inevitably intimately involves others, without reducing those closest to them to mere characters, without completely stripping them of their ability to speak for themselves?

At times, it can almost feel like Sedaris is a traitor in their midst. He writes at one point that, while having a conversation with one of his sisters in the car, she finishes her story by saying “you cannot use this in one

‘Create something game-changing’: Pomona Ventures’ upcoming sagetank helps students and alums boost entrepreneurship

of your books.”

Based on the stories, however, it also seems that he has retained a good relationship with his family. They all share a beach house on the coast, and he even goes on trips to Japan with his sisters.

While Sedaris is bitingly critical of his father and frequently pokes fun at his siblings, he is even more open about his own comical blunders and inexplicable idiosyncrasies. The answer, it seems, is empathy. He is able to turn the same critical and hu-

COurTESy: POMONA VENTurES

VIDUSSHI HINGAD Known as a “startup ecosystem” which provides students a platform to collaborate, learn and dream, Pomona Ventures’ keystone event — known as SageTank — will be held on April 30.

SageTank is an entrepreneurial opportunity that allows creatives to dream and work to make their visions come true.

The annual event, inspired by the TV series Shark Tank, offers students the chance to pitch startups to a panel of judges to create business opportunities for both startup founders and investors.

The club’s mission is to provide students with a platform where they can “learn from founders, support founders, become founders and find their co-founders,” according to its website.

Pomona Ventures not only spotlights student founders’ innovative ideas but helps its team members realize their own personal strengths by encouraging creative innovation.

“Over the past year, we fostered a club culture that takes away imposter syndrome,” co-president Nanea Haynes PO ’22 said.

“There was a point where Pomona Ventures felt a little hierarchical, and when [my co-president and I] started leading together, we took the time to get to know everyone’s creative vision and create a much more democratic system.”

Haynes’ co-president is Shreya Kamra PO ’23, who credits Pomona Ventures with teaching her the art of networking and building connections.

“It’s just been an opportunity for me to create something game-changing,” Kamra said.

“I’m just creating a space for entrepreneurs that has never been there.”

The co-presidents believe that collaboration is the key to inno-

vation but also acknowledge the significance of diversity and leadership. The co-presidents, vice president and CFO of Pomona Ventures all identify as female, and the club has strong international representation, with members hailing from India, Kenya, London, Japan, Myanmar and Ecuador.

“We all come with different experiences and perspectives [and] objectives, and we all meet in a place with empathy and an open mind,” Kamra said.

The team members of Pomona Ventures echo this feeling of unity through diversity.

“I am so fortunate to work with the most supportive, kind-hearted and genuine people,” said Suhasini Singh PO ’25, a team member who is responsible for the media marketing of SageTank.

The club welcomes members of varying years and experience levels and provides a healthy social environment.

“I think that it’s really helped me as a freshman,” Rishnav Thadani PO ’25 said. “I have found such an amazing cohort of friends and have really made some wonderful relationships.”

This year, Pomona Ventures is organizing a venture capital entrepreneurship event that is bigger and better than any of its previous competitions.

“SageTank is different this year because we are now accepting both current students at the Claremont Colleges and alumni at the Claremont Colleges,” Haynes said.

In light of this change, the only requirement the club now has is that the startup must have an operating history of fewer than three years.

“This will allow current students to learn about former students and their paths and see

the products of innovation,” Kamra said. “We’re trying to connect students who want to run startups with one another with mentors who can guide them in the process. SageTank offers an opportunity [for] connections.”

Alumni are highly encouraged to apply for a multitude of reasons.

“Firstly, it’s a great expression of gratitude for what the 5Cs have to offer — you can give back,” Kamra said. “You can also be part of a lot of meaningful relationships that are at the forefront of society when you’re creating something.”

Former participant Ruben Pachecho-Caldera PO ’21 said the opportunity “demystified the fundraising process.”

“From curating a team of experts to pitching your idea to investors… It was amazing to have that experience in college,” said Pachecho-Caldera, who helped with the pitch for Yoodli, serving as a software engineer.

Pomona Ventures has already connected with Contrary, Crescent Funds and Kravis Lab, all organizations whom are either donating or providing services to the club and the winners of SageTank.

While the prize money is certainly an incentive, the club says that the experiential exposure the competition offers is the real value.

Applications opened for all 5C students on Feb. 19 and will remain open until March 20. The team urges all those interested to become a part of their family and join their ecosystem.

“Just because the path is unknown doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Kamra said.

Ryan Lillestrand PZ ’23 is a book columnist for TSL. He is still on the search for more funny books.

SELECTED AMbIENT WOrKS

Dream-pop legends Beach House deliver on ‘Once Twice Melody’ NICHOLAS BLACK

SageTank is inspired by the TV series Shark Tank and will be held on April 30.

morous eye on himself.

This gives his work a different character — rather than exploitative, it is honest and endearing.

Some scenes still feel especially bold, but if you read the entire collection, you will see that they do not come from a place of malice or ill-intent, but rather from a heart filled with laughter, care and, often, self-deprecating humor.

In 2004, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally entered the rockheavy, male-dominated indie space and began releasing music as Beach House. 12 years later, they have outlasted a great number of their indie peers, releasing what is arguably their best work on “Once Twice Melody.”

“Once Twice Melody” is the duo’s eighth studio album, released in four chapters over the course of four months. Upon first listen, the album won’t shock long-time fans of Beach House — the duo’s sound has remained consistent over the course of their career, and “Once Twice Melody” is no different, relying on dazzling shoegaze and silky, ethereal vocals to draw in listeners.

In typical Beach House fashion, the album’s title track opens with a gorgeous chord progression that instantly puts listeners into a trance. And yet, the album doesn’t stay predictable for long, as the true mastery of Beach House lies in their ability to remain so consistent without ever becoming stale.

As with their other records, “Once Twice Melody” contains just the right amount of experimentation. This is heard clearly on tracks like “Superstar,” which features climbing synths and cascading, layered vocals. The elegance and grandeur of this track stands among some of the best work Beach House has ever put out. Elsewhere, “Hurts to Love” stands out with a layered organ and glowing reverb.

More surprises can be found on tracks like the massive outro, “Modern Love Stories,” bringing a certain rare darkness to the album.

The track can be split into two, beginning with dense, chilling shoegaze and closing with a gorgeous, acoustic outro that recalls the folksy prowess of indie contemporary Weyes Blood.

No matter which direction the duo turns with each new release, their gleaming dream-pop has kept fans listening for over ten

years, with no clear signs of fading. In a way, Beach House has won the test of time: As many of their 2000s indie peers have had to undergo numerous sonic transformations, often unsuccessfully, Scally and Legrand have persisted. In an interview with NME, the duo attests their success to hard work, good decision making and a measure of fortune, surviving an era in which “every band was still just dudes,” a special feat given Legrand’s status as lead vocalist, songwriter and keyboardist.

All of these elements have added up to decades of consistent creativity, manifesting itself in a certain magic of Beach House’s music — you can see it even in their YouTube comments.

Under the comment section of their most popular song, “Space Song,” you’ll find tens of thousands of people sharing old memories and remarking on how the song comforts them. By design, Scally and Legrand create music that allows for our dayto-day troubles to wash away from us. Legrand has clarified that she doesn’t view it as escapism: “I think there’s a connotation that you’re not dealing with reality. I think there are times when fantasy is the best way to deal with reality.” And fantasy is truly the perfect word to describe feelings evoked by Beach House.

With yet another fantastical body of work that’s more than capable of providing solace to its listeners, Beach House has affirmed their status as indie legends. “Once Twice Melody” joins the duo’s seven other studio albums to form a consistently excellent and highly acclaimed catalog, providing a model for other indie artists for how to grow while staying true to their unique sounds. “Once Twice Melody” remains an intoxicating work of dream-pop, but its experimental elements keep long-time fans on their toes. This corresponds nicely with the ethos of Beach House: never shocking or over the top, but, rather, quietly and beautifully consistent.

Nicholas Black PO ’24 is from Rochester, New York. Though he generally opposes the use of the word ‘ethereal,’ he grants exceptions when describing Beach House.

NANAKO NODA • THE STuDENT LIFE

“Once Twice Melody” is indie standout beach House’s latest release.

OpiniOns

PAGE 4

FEbruAry 25, 2022

Forcing unvaccinated students to Oasis endangers public health GABE SCHUHL The Pomona College administration is skirting basic public health guidance by forcing students with exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine(s) to move to the Oasis apartments. Dean of Students Avis Hinkson’s update on Jan. 24 contained the first brief mention of the policy, stating that “students with exemptions will have their rooms changed as students who are not up to date on their vaccines are housed together.” This statement revealed the Pomona administration’s stance that the virus spreads less easily if all unvaccinated students are housed together.

For many, medical exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine are not intuitive. In the midst of ideological misinformation that discourages receiving a vaccine, it’s easy to dismiss the decision not to get one. In reality, however, legitimate medical exemptions do exist. I learned this the hard way.

On April 14, 2021, I received my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Two days later, I woke up to unbearable chest pain which quickly spread over to my left arm. Since I had a decent idea of where my heart was located, and this pain seemed to be coming from that location, I immediately drove myself to the nearest emergency room.

There, a fairly perplexed assortment of medical personnel ruled out a heart attack and cocaine usage and instead diagnosed me with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. I spent four days in the hospital, where a mix of cardiologists confirmed that this was an extremely rare form of myocarditis directly induced by the COVID-19 vaccine. Out of every medical study, meta-analysis and news report the doctors and my family could scour, we found a single case of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis from a 19-year-old in Israel. I was, presumably, the first known case in the U.S. As soon as Pomona announced its decision to mandate booster shots, I sent an email to Hinkson along with a letter from my cardiologist, explaining my situation and asking her for any information about what my semester might look

like. I sent my email on Jan. 3, but I didn’t get a direct response from Hinkson until Feb. 1, when she responded that unvaccinated students were being moved to Oasis due to “shared bathrooms, common spaces, etc.” I asked for a personal meeting with Hinkson, where she scheduled a Zoom call to explain that the decision was motivated by the risk of exposure in shared bathrooms. When I mentioned how this might affect my relationships and residential experience at Pomona, she responded that the college didn’t see it as a punishment — just a switch in housing.

In my meeting with Hinkson, I listed a long list of concerns I had with the policy—the vast majority of which went unresponded to.

First, the Oasis apartments have a higher risk of exposure than Wig Hall, my current housing, as well as every other Pomona dormitory due to a larger number of common spaces, more residents and their vaccination statuses

Pomona is discarding basic public health by bundling students with exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine(s) in Oasis, writes guest writer Gabe Schuhl PO ‘25.

JASPEr DAVIDOFF • THE STuDENT LIFE

DOWN 1. Late SCOTUS heavyweight 2. Crumbling of rock or trust 3. T-shirt for an insecure parent 4. “Sup, ____?”

5. Yellowfin tuna 6. _____ Lama 7. More competent

al protection for the unvaccinated.”

As an alternative to the Oasis apartments, I offered a policy that would require me to get tested five days a week, and house me in an on-campus single located near a single-use bathroom. The same cleaning procedures that mitigate risk in all our shared bathrooms would minimize exposure, and there would be no risk of being in a bathroom unmasked with other vaccinated students. It hardly seemed like the risk of exposure in a shared, single-use bathroom should outweigh the risks of unvaccinated residents sharing common spaces, hallways and a shuttle. Unvaccinated students are at a far higher risk of severe infection, and bundling them together clearly ignores their health. Nonetheless, the administration appeared dead-set on housing unvaccinated students in the same building.

Perhaps of least concern to the administration was how this would affect my residential expe-

HuXLEyANN HuEFNEr • THE STuDENT LIFE

Jasper’s Crossword: Done deals

ACROSS 1. Kind of letter for a college app 4. Duchamp’s movement 8. Hawaiian “thanks” 14. “Dude” 15. Captain in Moby-Dick 16. Profile picture 17. *Place for things people are done with 19. Inside Out and Sense8 main characters 20. Trudge 21. Kind of flip or shot 23. Generic dog’s name 24. *What certain people who are done for might hear 28. Let borrow 30. “Clear _______” (police instruction) 31. Briefs or boxers 34. Gang-backed candidate, once upon a time?

35. *Attitude towards people you’re done with 38. Danica who’s the first transgender state legislator 42. Complaining about 47. Iannucci who created Veep 50. Canadian dollar coin 51. *Commentator who’s famously done with the Republican Party 54. Go backpacking 55. Get into a shoving match 56. Dorothy’s dog 57. Steak whose name has two body parts 60. *List of people who are done for ... or a characteristic of each theme answer?

63. Season’s first game 64. Like an overcast sky 65. Roadside help org.

66. “She ______ even go here!”

67. Law school starter 68. Sass

They have a common BBQ area, pool area, fitness center, study spaces and an indoor lobby that occasionally holds indoor events and gatherings. One of the main ways to reach the apartments is also via a shuttle that requires residents to enter close quarters.

These common spaces are widely used by 419 residents of the Oasis apartments, whereas Wig Hall has only 113. To make things worse, a receptionist informed me that residents frequently do not wear masks in hallways.

This policy functions more as a cognitive reprieve than as a rational public health protocol; in fact, it directly contradicts Los Angeles County’s public health guidance from Jan. 7, which explicitly notes: “It is safer to place individual unvaccinated students with roommates or suitemates who are fully vaccinated, rather than to cohort unvaccinated students together.

Surrounding unvaccinated persons with vaccinated individuals provides some degree of addition-

8. Carey who sings “Make my wish come true” 9. Fly 10. School locker location 11. Chowed down 12. Set down 13. Some docs’ spots 18. Lorna _____ (cookies) 22. Cut again, as a hedge 23. H1N1, e.g.

24. Juvenile genius Artemis 25. This American Life’s Glass 26. Dancing With The Stars’ Goodman 27. Video game speed issue 29. State or city prefix 32. Parts to keep off the table 33. Shock partner 36. Recline 37. Language related to Thai 38. Kitchen spill sopper-upper 39. Mine product 40. Fall Out Boy genre 41. Doc ______ (boots) 43. What some add to “no way” 44. Beginning 45. Composer Rimsky- Korsakov 46. “Whoa!”

48. Novelist Viet Thanh 49. Death Valley biome 52. “How Far _____” (Moana tune) 53. Pick up, as a skill 56. Bye 4 now 57. Dowel 58. Corp. debut of sorts 59. Honey producer 61. Observe 62. Place to request things from Santa LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

rience. Residential life as a first-year was marketed as one of the top reasons to go to Pomona. On its website, the college takes “pride in being a residential college where the line between living and learning is practically non-existent.” This policy had no room to consider how I might have to move out mid-semester and leave my sponsor group, residential connections and most peers in my class year.

More than a week after my meeting with Hinkson, I received a bizarre email: I was being assigned a roommate. Frank Bedoya, Pomona’s director of housing and operations, sent an email to my new roommate before informing me of the situation. The email noted that I was “vaccinated so there should be no concern.” Not only is this blatantly misleading information about my medical situation, but it reflects the Pomona administration’s refusal to consistently explain their COVID policies. If there was genuinely no concern, then I’d still be living in Wig, with 300 fewer residents and the protection of herd immunity from my vaccinated peers. Luckily, an effort of emails and a phone call with Hinkson convinced administrators to allow me a single apartment in Oasis, but they refused to allow me to remain in on-campus housing.

Public health vaccination strategy entails more than just encouraging vaccinations—it also means protecting the populations who are medically ineligible for them. These students rely on the protection of being surrounded by vaccinated individuals. Rather than seeking protective solutions for populations ineligible for vaccination, Pomona’s administration is arbitrarily punishing them. As long as Pomona continues to concentrate students ineligible for vaccination at the Oasis apartments, it is jeopardizing the health of our community and succumbing to heuristics before compassion. Meanwhile, cross-campus dining and 5C parties are apparently considered a risk worth taking.

Guest columnist Gabe Schuhl PO ’25 is from Charlotte, North Carolina. He spends a lot of time spinning the cups from Frary Dining Hall.

Tolkien ‘Race swapping’ backlash is misplaced YIFEI CHENG The contemporary fantasy genre owes its existence to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” In it, Tolkien consolidated and popularized the various fantastical archetypes — like elves, dwarves and the dark lord — that have since ingrained themselves into humanity’s collective cultural psyche.

The cinematic adaptation of LOTR matches the legendary renown of the original trilogy, with “The Return of the King,” the final installment, making an unprecedented $1.1+ billion at the box office. “The Hobbit” series, despite its unfavorable critical reception, remained on par with its predecessor in terms of popularity and financial success.

This fall, another mega-project will join the Tolkien cinematic universe. “The Rings of Power,” Amazon’s latest television adaptation of Tolkien’s mythopoetic legendarium, is set to chronicle the events in Arda (the franchise’s universe) thousands of years before the original trilogy.

With a five-season budget estimated to exceed $1 billion, this show might become the most expensive television production in history.

While the upcoming Amazon series has sparked considerable excitement from fans and critics alike, its most recent announcement elicited a massive controversy within and beyond the LOTR fandom over the show’s multiethnic cast. “The Rings of Power” marks the first time non-white actors will portray prominent characters in Tolkien cinematic adaptations: Arondir and Disa, played respectively by Ismael Cruz Córdova and Sophia Nomvete, will be the first nonwhite elf and dwarf on screen.

This casting decision, however, has antagonized many LOTR fans who argue that this act of “race swapping” undermines the authenticity of the adaptation.

Beyond simple Internet rage, the backlash has become a consolidated phenomenon prevailing on almost all major platforms.

YouTube comments under the teaser trailer lament the supposed destruction of the Tolkien classic at the hand of the “woke social justice warrior garbage of a film.” Thousands vented their frustration by reposting an ironically misattributed Tolkien quote, “Evil cannot create anything new, it can only spoil and destroy what good forces have invented and created.”

For them, the inclusion of a multiethnic cast seems quite analogous to the atrocious deeds of Sauron. Unsurprisingly, the most-viewed trailer reaction videos from independent YouTube channels almost unanimously decry the casting decision, their bitterness matched only by the

overwhelming unison of disapproval in their comment section.

This collective frustration towards “The Rings of Power’’ reflects a misinterpretation of Tolkien that, if left unchecked, gatekeeps the fantasy classic within a stringently racialized framework. This implication becomes clear when we examine what such arguments contain. Those lamenting the supposed “race swapping” decision follow a similar thread.

They often begin their polemic by pointing out that LOTR and other source materials composed by Tolkien contain occasional references to the pale skin tone of elven and Númenórean (ancient human) characters.

Furthermore, they claim that Tolkien intended his legendarium to become the Anglo-Saxon national mythology (this veracity of this claim is dubious), and hence its protagonists must be white.

Casting non-white actors as protagonists, the argument goes, risks turning the series into an inauthentic bastardization that breaks the world-building tenets of the source material. In essence, those decrying the upcoming show see the homogenous skin pigmentation of its characters as a musthave for all Tolkien adaptations, and when challenged, back up their arguments with different versions of “because Tolkien said so.”

But did Tolkien really intend this? The answer is a resounding no. From a technical standpoint, sporadic references to certain fair-skinned characters cannot preclude the possibility that nonwhite characters exist. This applies especially to Arondir and Disa, who the show created and do not appear in Tolkien’s original work.

Technicalities aside, characters’ skin color does not play an integral role in Tolkien’s narratives in the first place. “LOTR” and the broader legendarium tells stories of friendship, conviction and courage in the face of despair. Facing incredible odds, the distrusting kingdoms of humans, elves and dwarves must overcome their past grudges and collaborate with open arms to vanquish the dark lord.

The downfall of Sauron is not precipitated by indomitable armies or mighty heroes, but rather by the simple yet unbreakable bond between Sam and Frodo. The work certainly champions a pluralistic worldview, as without the cooperation and understanding between different races, the Middle Earth would forever fall into Sauron’s thralldom.

So we see how absurd the backlash against “The Rings of Power” truly is: it pretends that racial uniformity — an unimportant detail at best and a nonexistent imagination at worst — is an indispensable part of Tolkien’s works. Despite Tolkien’s vehement opposition to racism, as demonstrated by his “hatred of apartheid in [his] bones”, these critics still view race as the sole disqualifying factor that bars actors from becoming involved in Tolkien’s universe. More ironically, they issue such absurdities while proclaiming themselves as the defenders of Tolkien’s literary legacy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tolkien’s works are complex, particularly when it comes to their relationship with racism. While the author repeatedly expressed his opposition to racism in various letters and addresses, certain elements in his writing, such as the depiction of the orcs — a race of humanoid brutes — as irredeemably evil can be construed to signify racial determinism. While it is arguably impossible to pinpoint where the legendarium stands on the political spectrum, Tolkien’s works can be and have already been exploited by extremist forces for sinister ends. Far-right groups like the British National Party, for instance, have appropriated the trilogy and its movie adaptations to promote recruitment.

This is why we must be wary of the anti-“race swapping” tide that swept parts of the Internet in the aftermath of casting announcement: Beneath the façade of preserving authenticity lies a dangerous misinterpretation of Tolkien that carries real-world significance.

Yifei Cheng PO ’24 is from Nanjing, China. He enjoys hiking, reading (especially fantasy literature), and playing Starcraft 2.

COurTESy: MAXPIXEL

backlash against ‘race swapping’ in Tolkien-inspired ”The rings of Power” gatekeeps the fantasy classic “The Lord of the rings” within a racialized framework, argues yifei Cheng PO ‘24.

OpiniOns

FEbruAry 25, 2022

THE

CLARGUMENT Are you looking forward to cross-campus dining?

We ask TSL’s Instagram followers a question every Monday and share their responses here.

yes but i don’t want to see men at malott on Saturday morning when I’m dirty and hungover @kaitlynchhen

YESSSS I missed so many mentor hours @hoa.ng01

No. Now folks will insist on getting Hoch meals and make me walk 15 minutes. Ridiculous. @jaysonyas

YES very much so, Malott is repetitive and I miss Frary tortellini @ingridbergill

It came too late for me! I already left the meal plan due to being unable to eat w/ my allergies without cross-campus dining options. @a.suzette.c Indifferent. I like the mudd dining hall but excited to branch out @paco_853_

i’m scared of lines :(( @hannazoeporter

So excited. School has never felt the same since it ended. I chose Claremont schools for it @laura_w

To weigh in on next week’s question, follow us on Instagram @TSLnews and keep an eye on our story on Monday!

If you have a suggestion for a future question, send us an email: opinions@tsl.news.

PAGE 5

It’s ok to talk about bodyfocused repetitive behaviors MADDY MCCUE CW: This article pertains to mental health and bodily harm.

When I was young, as long as I can remember, I would pick my fingernails into non-existence. When middle school hit, and with it acne, I would sit in front of the mirror and pick my skin until it scarred. In high school, I began pulling out hair on my head, eventually leaving a visible bald spot. I couldn’t explain why I did it, other than the fact that it provided me with a strange sense of relief from everyday stress.

“Body-focused repetitive behavior” is the general term that encompasses this set of habits. The most common include trichotillomania (hair pulling), dermatillomania (skin picking) and onychophagia (nail biting), while other behaviors include cheek biting, lip biting and nail picking. At least 3 percent of the US population is living with a BFRB, with some studies showing over 10 percent, and yet they are rarely talked about. Many people don’t even know that a term exists for the behavior they engage in.

It is unknown what exactly causes body-focused repetitive behaviors, but they often co-occur with other mental health conditions like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, some BFRBs are currently categorized under ‘obsessive compulsive and related disorders’ due to the compulsivity of the behavior, but they are not the same as OCD. BFRBs are also not considered a self-harm behavior because most of the time the behavior is done without much conscious awareness, and the intention is not to harm the body but to soothe oneself or reduce anxiety. Interestingly, there is believed to be a genetic component for BFRBs, as they often run in families. Though they are found in both genders, it is reported that around 90 percent of people presenting with BFRBs are assigned female at birth.

BFRBs are complicated, and the lack of public discussion around these disorders often leave people feeling hopeless and embarrassed. They can significantly impact an individual’s self-esteem, especially when they result in noticeable hair loss or scarring of the skin. Because they are rarely discussed openly, many people feel the need to keep the disorder a secret, which only results in more anxiety and shame. I can personally remember being afraid to disclose my behaviors to a therapist because I had never even heard a mental health provider discuss BFRBs openly.

BFRBs are also complicated because there is no definitive treatment, and research has been minimal until recent years.

Therapy, behavior replacement

and certain medications have shown mild success, but there is no effective cure-all yet. Many people with BFRBs use fidget toys to keep their hands occupied, or wear gloves, bandaids on the fingers and hats to prevent the ability to pick or pull.

It is unfortunate how little BFRBs are discussed in our society, and how poorly they are understood. Phrases like “I’m so stressed I could rip my hair out” are commonplace, and completely invalidate the fact that people actually experience such behaviors. The longer we collectively disregard this class of disorders, the more embarrassment and shame they are going to cause for ourselves and future generations. If you are struggling with a BFRB, know that you are not alone. There are many others who are experiencing the same thing, but might not feel comfortable talking about it yet. There are also many strategies you can use to help reduce your behavior.

Some of the strategies I have found to be most helpful include using fidget toys, getting rid of tweezers that can be used to pull eyebrows or eyelashes, crafts like crocheting and needlepointing and asking someone I trust to help hold me accountable when I engage in a behavior without awareness.

If you have not experienced a BFRB, I thank you for taking the time to read this article. Education is the first step towards opening the conversation for others. Writing this article was terrifying for me because it means others will know that I have BFRBs, but I only hope I can inspire others with my openness. As a community, one thing we should be aware of is how we talk about others’ appearances. Be conscious of how you are talking about someone’s hair, skin, makeup, wigs or nails because you never know if someone is hiding noticeable marks from a BFRB. And if someone comes to you and tells you that they are experiencing a BFRB, listen with compassion. It is not an easy thing to experience, but having support can make all the difference in the world.

Guest columnist Maddy McCue CM ’23 is studying psychology. She is passionate about increasing education surrounding mental health.

HuXLEyANN HuEFNEr • THE STuDENT LIFE

We must break the silence around body-focused repetitive behaviors, writes guest columnist Maddy McCue CM ‘23.

5C students should not be subject to regressive ideas of modesty ESHANYA AGRAWAL I come from a country where writing poetry about bisexuality almost got me suspended from high school. During our senior farewell, our principal did not let three girls attend because the saris they wore were backless. Even at home, it is considered a normal occurrence for parents to police their daughters’ clothing.

I chose Pomona College hoping for an experience that was liberal in the truest sense. However, recent instances make me doubt the ideals that liberal arts institutions claim to uphold. I’ve been forced to follow the same regressive misogynistic stereotypes that have been ever-present my entire life. In reality, institutions exhibit biases that lead them to promote societal norms that are backward and disrespectful to their student body. As a student who stands in opposition to these norms, I wrote this article because I believe it is my duty to constantly push society into doing better.

On Jan. 20, I was asked by the Office of Communications to do an Instagram takeover about a day in my life as a student on Pomona’s official page. When I first emailed the office my picture and bio for the introductory post, this was the reply I received: “One thing, do you have any other photos? It would be great to have a few to select from for the initial post. Just a reminder this post, and your stories will be shared with our 14k followers. Thanks!”

In response, I sent five more images in the same outfit, intending to challenge them to express their issue with my picture. Instead, I received a short thank you from the individual who I’d been emailing with. The next day, my bio and a zoomed in, poor quality, cropped headshot was

COurTESy: ESHANyA AGrAWAL

The Pomona Office of Communications censored this photo of the author after she submitted it as part of an Instagram takeover, writes guest columnist Eshanya Agrawal PO ‘25.

up on Pomona’s official Instagram.

Frustrated, I wrote another email expressing my concerns about the cropped picture. In response, the individual wrote: “I honestly was not sure how to talk with you about the photos you sent, because I understand you are an adult and clothing is an important form of self-expression. But I was unable to post the whole photo because it looked like your undergarments were showing and we did not think it was appropriate to share on the College’s official Instagram.”

“You can send me a selfie, or another photo and I will see if

we can post that.”

“Thank you.”

At this time, I decided to end my Instagram takeover. I informed the department that I would not partake in a misrepresentation of the Pomona student body, and that, as I wrote to the Office of Communications, “I [would] not stand by censoring my clothes …simply to uphold a misguided reputation for this institution.” When they cropped my image, it was not just modifying my picture; they cropped my identity and they shunned what I am comfortable with. My unique identity, instead of being acknowledged and accepted, as the

Instagram takeover claimed to do, was being censored; and I was not going to condone it.

The department explained that even though the sentiments relayed to me over email were “expressed badly, the communications department stood by their sentiment” which was apparently to “protect me from [their] 14k viewers.” This exculpatory statement is a cover-up using victim blaming to justify their actions.

Afterward, I went completely numb. If not for my friends, I would not even have realized what happened was so unacceptable because of the extreme policing I have had to deal with for 19 years.

I felt like I was back in high school, where every in-house publication circulated around our campus went through regressive checks for political or social critiques, and anyone who dared to cross them was punished. News reports about esteemed politicians making horrific statements like “women who wear ripped jeans should not be allowed to be mothers” were so common that most days there was this constant gut-wrenching feeling of helplessness at the pit of my stomach.

This pit was back, and it made me realize just how deep the roots of misogyny have to be in society for women to perpetuate these sexist norms on women themselves at a place like this.

These reflections were central in spurring my actions. I decided to end the takeover so as to not participate in promoting an institution that makes its students question their judgment and clothing because unlike Pomona College, my appearance is concordant with my value

system. It was an unfortunate realization that I am in fact part of an institution that is liberal merely in pretentious performativity.

The department’s actions should not set a precedent, and I can only hope that the department realizes that victim blaming does not validate what is fundamentally sexist, backward and hurtful. This is not the Pomona that I aspire to attend.

So many universities and firms across America pride themselves over their diverse student body or workforce, burnishing their image as institutions that value individuality and differences. In reality, most fall short on their promises of upholding standards that promote an environment that is truly free from bias. The brochures are misleading, because the fine print (as seen through the emails quoted above) spells out double standards that are not representative and promote censorship under the false pretense of “protection.”

My experience made me realize that censorship is truly inescapable unless there is real systemic change, which is only possible if people are called out for their biases and pushed to rectify the harms they cause. I am choosing to articulate my lived experience because I hope that the aforementioned practices are discontinued, while the administration takes the time to reflect on their actions and move forward with the right intent. I also hope more people speak up when institutions or individuals force them to conform to certain standards that do not reflect their identity, so that this pit of helplessness can disappear, for good.

Guest columnist Eshanya Agrawal PO ’25 is from Raipur, India. She enjoys poetry, hikes and being able to wear what she wants.

5C BlaCk legaCies 1900s

PAGE 6

FEbruAry 25, 2022

A note from the editors

1904

1910s

Winston MC Dickson PO ’1904, the first Black student at the 5Cs, earned his degree from Pomona College.

1919

1940s

Arthur Williams PO ‘1919 graduated almost two decades after Dickson’s arrival.

We can’t speak for everyone, but you might be hard-pressed to find many students who recognize the name John Payton PO ’73 on campus, despite the impact he made here in Claremont and the critical civil rights work he did after he graduated. What about Danny Wilks PO ‘71, who founded the intercollegiate Black Student Union? Or Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ‘69, whose many contributions to academia started with her work as director of Black student admissions after graduation?

Some might vaguely know about the 1969 bombing of Carnegie Hall at Pomona College and Balch Hall at Scripps College the day 5C presidents were set to vote on the establishment of the Black Studies Center. But what about the boycott of classes that followed? Or the local KKK group that would show up on campus at the time whenever they felt Black students were getting too far ahead?

To contribute to Black History Month this year, TSL is doing what we do best: bringing stories into the light. In this case, our news team has spent weeks and, in some cases, months, trawling through archives at Honnold Mudd and Denison libraries, examining old copies of TSL and the Claremont Collegian and gathering oral accounts from alumni who were on campus throughout pivotal parts of the struggle for justice, representation and equity.

The goal? Making accessible a more comprehensive version of Black history at the 5Cs than has been available in the past. The Black Student Union and the Black Studies Center — later the Office of Black Student Affairs and the intercollegiate department of Africana Studies — didn’t just materialize. We can learn so much from the twists and turns that pioneering students and faculty took to get where we are. And as many of these leaders are quick to remind us, history repeats itself.

To be clear, our reporters are in no way the first ones to do this work. The project benefited from the dedicated labor of previous archival projects, student journalism and academic theses. But that’s just the thing: there was so much to find. Archives across the 5Cs are in vastly disparate states of organization, and those searching for these stories will have a long way to go.

In addition to a four-page feature in our Feb. 25 print edition, readers can explore even more archival material, narratives and research in an interactive format on our website, tsl.news.

Rather than serving as an authoritative source on Black history here in Claremont, we hope this project builds on past efforts to encourage even more attention to the stories that haven’t been told enough. When these histories are squirreled away in books, file boxes and academic texts, they don’t help us learn from the conflicts and victories that shaped the past and present. They don’t properly acknowledge the tireless activists who got us where we are.

It’s our hope that, as with everything we do, elevating this knowledge makes us all more informed, more thoughtful and better equipped to use the facts to make our community more just for everyone.

Before Inside-Out and PAYS, Danny Wilks PO ’71 brought activism into the community

1950s

1948

The next known Black Student to attend the 5Cs was Williams’s daughter Eileen Williams PO ‘48.

1958

1960s

The first two Black students to attend Scripps College enrolled in 1958 but transferred after one year.

1962

More Black students began to roll back into Claremont by 1958, starting with Willie Benton Boone PO ‘62.

Spring 1967

First intercollegiate BSU founded by Danny Wilks PO ’71.

May 1, 1968

BSU presented 10-point demands to the presidents of the 5Cs.

May 30, 1968

June 1968

Administrative Council Committee on Minority Student Relations created to implement diversity pledge and three sub-committees focusing on admissions, housing and curriculum.

Nov. 5, 1968

CMC approved a $2 tuition increase to fund a scholarship centered on minority students.

5C presidents responded to BSU, offering a pledge to increase diversity efforts.

Aug. 27, 1968

BSU demanded additional language in housing policy to prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of “race, creed or national origin.”

Nov. 6, 1968

BSU held a “funeral” march, sit-in demonstration.

Dec. 10, 1968

Black Panther cofounder and activist Bobby Seale spoke at Bridges Auditorium.

VALERIE BRAYLOVSKIY, MARIANA DURAN & JENNA MCMURTRY

way students could understand and that related more directly to ways people learned in the Black community,” Ross said.

Teaching partnerships between incarcerated peoAt its peak, the school became a five-day-a-week ple in California and the 5Cs might seem like a recent school and classes were held for at least six weeks development. But in the late 1960s, student members during the summer of 1970. of Pomona College’s Black Studies Center developed The day school was a “multi-layered process,” Eian educational program for prisoners in Chino, led by leen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ’69 said, in which college BSU founder Danny Wilks PO ’71. students worked with high school students who in Wilks, who enrolled at Pomona in the fall of 1967, turn would mentor the next generation of incoming was considered a courageous and fiery leader with a students below them. great fashion sense by his peers. Sue Ross PO ’72, a forAnother one of Wilks’ friends, Valerie Coachman mer classmate of Wilks, remembered him by his mem- Moore PO ’74, spoke highly of his contributions and orable persona. ambitions. Wilks’ dedication and passion for his edu“He was one of our key leaders, a skinny guy with a cation programs inspired other students to think about huge afro,” Ross said. “But [he was] a sharp mind, who the significance of what they could contribute to their was willing to speak out.” communities, she said.

As a student, Wilks played a crucial role in laying “[Wilks] was instrumental in helping us understand the groundwork to establish the intercollegiate Black that the work on campus mattered outside of campus Student Union and served as its first president. Wilks as well,” Coachman Moore said. “[He helped us unwas also substantially involved in advocating for the derstand] that we were talented enough to be able to establishment of the Black Studies Center, which was support students.” finally implemented in the fall of his junior year.

Taylor also attributed his success at Pomona to stuTo other Black students studying at the 5Cs at the dent leaders like Wilks and Payton. time, after their creation, the BSU and the Black Stud“Having upperclassmen like Danny and John made ies Center quickly became safe spaces and sources of a huge difference in terms of my feeling that the encommunity. vironment was safe for me and that it was possible to William Taylor PO ’73 recalled that during his time succeed at Pomona,” Taylor said. “They were sort of at Pomona, he didn’t feel that Black students and their proof that it was possible to succeed and thrive.” culture were accepted and that he often felt disconMuch like Wilks was an inspiring figure to other 5C nected from reality. To him, the two organizations that students, Wilks’ mother Gertude Dyer Wilks was an Wilks helped create were an antidote to these feelings inspiration to him and his projects. A lifelong activist of alienation. in East Palo Alto, she founded the Nairobi Day School “The BSU and the Black Studies Center physically in 1966 and expanded it into a K-12 program that inbecame like a home away from home,” Taylor said. “It corporated classes on Black history and culture. Taylor was called the Black house and we would go there and added that inspiration for the day school’s vision can be sometimes eat, go to events together like anti-war pro- traced back to Wilks’ mother. tests or other protests in LA. That was our safe place.”

Today, the legacy of Wilks’ work is found in many In addition to his work at the Claremont Colleges, places on campus. The BSU, which Wilks helped estabWilks believed in activism that could transcend the lish, continues to be a source of community and supclassroom and continuously sought ways to give back port for students. Meanwhile, the Black Studies Center to the broader community. shifted into the intercollegiate department of Africana Working with John Payton PO ’73 and other mem- Studies and the Office of Black Student Affairs in 1979. bers of the BSU, Wilks created the Chino Institution More indirectly, Pomona’s Draper Center, Harvey Project in the fall of 1969. Wilks and his peers formulat- Mudd College’s Upward Bound Tutoring program, ed a cohesive educational program for convicts at the and Pitzer College’s Inside-Out program are contemChino Institution for Men,now known as the California poraries of the Pomona Day School and Chino InstituInstitution for Men. tion project.

Their program offered courses to more than 200 These projects are based on the same principles that inmates to help them fulfill their General Education inspired Wilks back in the late 1960s, which were, acDegree requirements and learn about the Black experi- cording to Wilson-Oleyaran, that “the intellectual work ence in the United States. 5C students, BSC faculty and needed to be informed and grounded by experience in guest lecturers taught these courses to the incarcerated. the communities.”

The Chino Institution Project, however, was just one Ross emphasized that it was important for current the various undertakings Wilks was involved in. Some 5C students to continue embodying the activist spirof his best known contribuit that Wilks and his peers tions to communities within channeled. the Inland Empire are also “There’s a flexibility you found in the Pomona Day have as a student that you’re School— a collaborative efnot going to have for the fort modeled on the freedom rest of your life,” Ross said. schools that were springing “There’s an ability to to raise up in the South— according issues and protests without to his classmate and peer the kinds of incriminations Brenda Jones PO ’73. that will happen later in life, The Pomona Day School as you get tied into other big consisted of academic preinstitutions.” paratory programs for local Ross urged students to youth through weekend and keep advocating that instiafter-school support protutions present a diverse grams led by Wilks and his curriculum to ensure that peers at BSU. The school’s the U.S. doesn’t fall back mission was to further the into repression and racism notion that Black narratives through recently proposed belonged in class curricueducational bans. lums, and the BSC funded “Draw on the lessons of the Saturday trips to Pomothe past, look at what we did na city schools. and how we did, and go on COurTESy: CLArEMONT COLLEGIAN “We wanted to do things and do it better,” Ross said. like teach Black history and Danny Wilks PO ‘71 at a protest in Claremont in “You can do it better and find innovative ways of Nov. 1968 in opposition of the national presidential make this country a better teaching basic concepts in a candidates. place.”

Jan. 1969

Ethnic Studies Center alternative to BSC proposed by PZ Dean of Faculty John Rodman.

Feb. 1969

CMC professors Harry, Fisk and Jaffa rejected the Black Studies Center in favor of a proposal that offered a Black-American studies minor and hired one additional Black professor.

Feb. 18, 1969

BSU members Eileen Wilson PO ‘69, Danny Wilks PO ‘71 and John Payton PO ‘73 attended an open faculty meeting to voice their grievances over faculty inaction and the delay of the BSC.

Jan. 1, 1969

5C Provost Mark Curtis announced a ten course Black studies program, doubling to eight Black faculty, and Center for Education Opportunity to increase POC student admissions at 5Cs.

The Black Student Union proposed the autonomous Black Studies Center to bolster Black enrollment, staff employment and curriculum.

Jan. 27, 1969

Trustees at the Colleges approved the creation of the Human Resource Institute, which would include a Black Studies Center and a Center for Mexican American Studies. A center for urban studies was proposed as well.

Feb. 1969

Scripps College President and faculty offered emphatic support of BSU’s Black Studies Center proposal and supported its immediate construction.

Feb. 14, 1969

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FEbruAry 25, 2022

‘Faculty and student silence means nothing less than passive consent’: Chronicling the fight for a Black Studies Center in Claremont

COurTESy: ELLA STrONG DENISON LIbrAry

Students at Scripps College marched in support of the creation of the bSC.

AVERI SULLIVAN The 1960s were an eventful time for Black students at the 5Cs. Until 1967, they didn’t have a Black Student Union, which eventually came to fruition largely because of the efforts of Eileen Wilson Oyelaran PO ’69, John Payton PO ’73 and Danny Wilks PO ’71.

But the formation of the BSU was just the first hurdle the trio got over. Advocating for a Black Studies Center was an arduous process that brought on more opposition than support throughout the struggle.

The BSU submitted its proposal for an autonomous BSC on Jan. 27, 1969. The group also proposed a curriculum offering 33 courses across literature, history, art, Black studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology and anthropology, and pushed for the first Black studies major at the 5Cs. The proposal included a list of necessary staff to be appointed by members of the BSU to ensure diversity and plans to completely restructure admissions at the 5Cs to recruit more Black students.

“The BSU of the Claremont Colleges was created to meet the needs and express the desires of Black students at these colleges,” the BSU stated in its proposal for the BSC. “It will be a function of the Center to deal with any problems Black students might incur during their attendance at the Claremont Colleges, includ[ing] discrimination in housing or employment, and academic difficulties requiring tutoring or counseling.”

During the course of faculty deliberation between the presidents of the 5Cs, the BSU was not consulted or invited entry.

On Feb. 10, 1969, the 5C Independent Faculty Senate held a private meeting to discuss the Black Student Union’s proposal for the first Black Studies Center.

From the start, several members of the 5C Independent Faculty Senate were opposed to the creation of a Black Studies Center and had alternate ideas. On Feb. 19, 1969, the Office of the Provost stated that instead of creating a Black Studies Center, they would institute a committee consisting of 11 to 15 members, including the provost and chairman of the Board of Fellows.

The aim of the committee would be to explore alternative long term solutions for the 5Cs in providing for Black and Mexican American students, to report back to the 5C presidents in April 1969.

“After 200 hours of meeting with faculty support, on the verge of making [BSU’s] dream visible, the entire effort was crushed,” a statement on behalf of the BSU said after Curtis’s announcement. “By preventing a yes, they can only be saying no: No n—— allowed. Faculty and student silence means nothing less than passive consent. No n—— allowed. Is it unanimous?”

The provost’s rejection of the BSC was a setback to the BSU’s progress. Earlier in May 1968, the BSU had proposed 10 demands to administrators to increase Black student enrollment, academic curriculum and integrate the student body, which administrators responded to by creating the Administrative Council Committee on Minority Student Relations in June 1968.

The BSU envisioned the BSC being an academic and social space to introduce a Black studies curriculum taught by Black professors, maintained by Black administrators and enjoyed by Black students.

Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ’69 recalled in an interview with TSL that while awaiting the Provost’s decision, the BSU remained adamant in convincing 5C faculty.

“We went to each of those campuses to present [the Black Studies Center] and the faculties were culturally very different,” she said. “We were really strategic about who spoke on what and on what campuses. What we had put together had to be intellectually solid.”

Throughout February of 1969, the BSU presented their proposal to each 5C President, various student clubs and independent faculty committees to earn their support. The United Council of the Claremont Colleges, Scripps faculty and the Independent Faculty Senate sent letters of recommendation to the Of-

fice of the Provost.

“We, the faculty of Scripps College, recommend that an autonomous Center for Black Studies be established in the Claremont Colleges as soon as possible,” Scripps College faculty stated in their recommendation addressed to the Provost Feb. 14, 1969.

For members of the BSU, their own words needed to be heard by the Claremont community.

“The white myth of integration is a nasty and vicious,” John Payton PO ’73, a founding member of the BSU, said in a Feb. 18, 1969 TSL article. “The values of society are white. [Pomona] was a white institution made to train white people for a white world. We’re not just going to go along with that and try to force Black people into that mold. Much must change to make life at Claremont relevant to the Black students attending school here.”

Danny Wilks PO ’71, BSU’s president at the time, echoed Payton’s support for the necessity of a Black Student Center at the 5Cs, according to the same TSL article.

“I do not feel a part of Pomona College because there’s nothing here that relates to me. Students stiffen in Frary Hall as Black students walk in,” Wilks said. “[But] every time we look around there’s a new building going up. It is not a question of money, but rather priority. How important is Black education to you?”

While the idea of a BSC was being rejected by some groups across the 5Cs, faculty at Pitzer College and Claremont McKenna College proposed alternate plans to the Office of the Provost as Independent Faculty Senate meetings continued through Feb. 1969.

Pitzer Dean of Faculty John Rodman wanted to address issues of racial inequity at the 5Cs by introducing an Ethnic Studies Center. He explained how an Ethnic Studies Center could mitigate the alleged negative effects an autonomous BSC could have in alienating students who were not Black.

“This kind of separation of a [Black Studies Center is] ultimately undesirable,” Rodman said in his Ethnic Studies Center proposal. “The long run cost [is] neglecting to educate whites [and it is] unscholarly one sided. The goal of the Ethnic Studies is to convey a more realistic view of what American society is.”

Claremont McKenna College professors Martin Diamond, Mills Fisk and Harry Jaffa had yet another idea. The Diamond-Fisk-Jaffa proposal recommended developing a Black-American studies program which offered students the opportunity to take individual courses, minor in Black-American studies, or in special cases, major in Black-American studies in addition to a “regular discipline.”

Under the Diamond-Fisk-Jaffa proposal, the Black-American studies program would appoint one new Black-American scholar as dean of Black-American studies.

“We reject the concept of a peculiarly autonomous Center for Black Studies,” the Diamond-Fisk-Jaffa proposal stated. “We recommend that an intercollegiate program of Black-American Studies be established. All courses and appointments connected with the Black-American studies program shall be devised and made [...] under the regular procedures of the Claremont Colleges.”

After intense pressure and activism from students and faculty, Provost Mark Curtis reversed course and announced plans to launch the first Black studies program in February 1969, introducing eight courses in literature, economics, art and history.

“The presidents recognize that the planning for a center of Black Studies must be carried on in cooperation with the Black Student Union,” Curtis said. “[The Presidents] are anxious to find ways that the BSU and the colleges can work at this task together.”

The colleges planned to appoint four more Black faculty, adding to the 5Cs’ existing four Black professors, and expand Black history collections at Honnold Library, now known as the Honnold Mudd Library.

“As Provost of the Colleges this year, I am pleased to make this announcement on behalf of the colleges to intensify their efforts to increase enrollment of minority students,” Curtis said in his letter. “A major effort to attract larger numbers of black students to Claremont has begun to show results.”

PAGE 7

What comes next?

When it comes to what can be attributed to the success of the movement, Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO w’69 said it stemmed from necessity. “[We did it] because we damn had to.” However, Wilson-Oyelaran added that it often takes a “crack … [or] … paradigm shift” to create the space where such progressive changes can flourish.

Pomona emeritus professor of politics Lorn Foster, who began his tenure teaching at Pomona in 1978, recalled how the previously divided campuses coalesced into a unified identity under the BSC, as it became a safe space some students identified with more than their home college.

“A number of students found themselves not really incorporated into their particular college setting and more of an identity toward the study center than than their home institution,” Foster said.

Brenda Jones PO ’73 underscored the important aspect of how, for many students, the BSC became the first time they saw themselves represented in the field. She added that if it were not for having been taught by a Black media studies professor, she might never have pursued a career in journalism.

After being awarded the prestigious Watson fellowship, Payton worked his way to lead the NAACP LDF, while Wilson-Oyelaran worked her way into academia and Jones established herself in a decadeslong career as a journalist.

In a 2009 speech Payton gave on whether the US has become a “post-racial society,” Payton touched on the existence of educational inequities to explain that the country has not, demonstrating the significance of the work BSU started when they tackled reforming the education system at the 5Cs. Valerie Coachman Moore PO ’74 emphasized that many of these resources that students benefit from today, like OBSA, did not come out of thin air. Instead, they were created by students who had to seek them out, oftentimes completely on their own.

“I had to find my studies,” Coachman Moore said. “I had to create those components that were germane to all of the other programs in terms of who I would be studying with.”

For more, visit the interactive story at tsl.news.

In collaboration with the 5C Faculty, the construction of Black Student Union’s autonomous Black Studies Center is completed.

The Intercollegiate Committee announced an action plan of the BSC to increase enrollment, reallocate housing, and develop Black Studies curriculum.

Sept. 1969

Apr. 3, 1969

A committee of BSUappointed students, as well as faculty and administration is formed to begin planning the implementation of the Black Studies Center.

Week of Mar. 9, 1969 Faculty and Students Together (FAST) hold their first meeting in Walker Lounge on how to support the Black Studies Center.

Mar. 7, 1969

500 students storm the office of Scripps College President and Provost of the Colleges Dr. Mark Curtis in protest of his objections to the demands for an autonomous BSC.

Mar. 4, 1969

A Scripps student and faculty member announced a picket line demonstration in support of the BSU policy statement for the construction of the BSC.

Mar. 6, 1969

BSU organized a boycott against the Office of the Provost to protest faculty delay in implementing Black Studies Center.

Mar. 4, 1969

Feb. 21, 1969

Feb. 25, 1969

Eight BSU members stormed out of Provost’s office in protest of the Provost’s committee resolution.

5C Provost released a faculty resolution that created a studentfaculty advisory committee to address student grievances and find alternatives to the BSC to present in April 1969.

Feb. 19, 1969

Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona and CMC faculty issued individual letters of recommendation in support of the Black Studies Center Proposal.

Feb. 26, 1969

The 5C administration and Provost unanimously approved the Black Studies Center.

BSU released a policy statement calling for the autonomy in the management of the BSC.

Feb. 28, 1969

Anonymous letter released to condemn the Provost’s committee creation as a blatant rejection of 5C Black students.

Feb. 21-25, 1969

Pomona’s Carnegie Hall and Scripp’s Balch Hall are bombed by an unknown perpetrator. 5C administration moved 65 Black and Latinx students off campus to protect students from being falsely accused and for fear of possible retaliation.

Feb. 25, 1969

Provost retracted a special advisory committee created to find solutions to increase enrollment and enhance Black and Latinx student experience at 5Cs.

Feb. 26, 1969

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From Black student admissions to Black-centered curriculum, Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ‘69 paved the way AVERI SULLIVAN From Compton to Claremont to Kalamazoo, Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ’69 has been a trailblazer in the field of education her entire life. What started as activism in her teenage years only grew stronger as an undergraduate at Pomona College, carrying through in her years in Nigeria and as president of Kalamazoo College.

The impact of her work continues to reverberate through Claremont more than 50 years after she graduated. Alongside John Payton PO ’73 and Danny Wilks PO ’71, she made it possible that the Black Studies Center came into existence in 1969.

The journey getting to this point was a long one riddled with opposition, and it came to fruition the September after Wilson-Oyelaran graduated. But she didn’t stop there.

‘A base of power for Black students’ In 1967, Wilson-Oyelaran was one of the founding members of the first Black Student Union at the 5Cs alongside John Payton PO ’73 and Danny Wilks PO ’71. She was also one of only two female students involved in the founding.

“I was so mesmerized,” Wilson-Oyelaran told TSL, recalling her attendance at Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” conference at the University of California, Berkeley Oct. 29, 1966.

“After coming back from that, it felt like it was essential to work with the Pomona dean of admissions to talk about the challenges around the recruitment of students of color. It was critically important, not just for the college, but for the nation.”

Since then, core BSU members like Wilson-Oyelaran, Payton and Wilks advocated for a more inclusive environment at the 5Cs for current and incoming Black students.

The trio delivered a list of 10 demands on behalf of the BSU May 1, 1968. Among the demands was the creation of a committee for minority student admissions, investment in Black literature at the Huntley Bookstore and the institution of the first Black Studies curriculum at the 5Cs. Within one month, the administration created the Administrative Council Committee on Minority Student Relations to

address BSU’s housing and education concerns. But this was just the beginning of the fight for racial equity at the 5Cs. On Jan. 27, 1969, the BSU submitted its first proposal for the creation of the Black Studies Center to the Office of the Provost.

“Many Black students feel they have nowhere to go. [The BSC will be] a base of power for black students [and] black faculty,” Wilson-Oyelaran said at the meeting, according to a TSL article from Feb. 18, 1969.

BSU’s proposal included implementing a Black studies curriculum ranging from Swahili language learning to “The Economic History of Africa,” to be taught by Black professors and maintained by Black staff.

“One of the major issues involved in the [BSC] is whether the Pomona faculty trusts their Black colleagues,” Wilson-Oyelaran said in the 1969 article. “The models of other courses are inadequate if one expects to relate to Black students. Claremont has never had to deal with Black people, and we are not nice little models, as you know.”

While awaiting a response from administrators, the BSU faced faculty opposition to implementing the BSC. “We went to each of those campuses to present [the BSC plan] and the faculties were culturally very different,” Wilson-Oyelaran said. “We were really strategic about who spoke on what, and on what campuses. We had to think about where our allies were and what kind of power they had.”

Pitzer College’s Dean of Faculty John Rodman was one individual supporting the BSU’s proposal. While awaiting a response from the provost, he drafted an alternative proposal for the future of Black education at the 5Cs. “This kind of separation of a [Black Studies Center is] ultimately undesirable,” Rodman said in his Ethnic Studies Center proposal January 1969. “The long run cost [is] neglecting to educate whites [and it is] unscholarly one sided.”

In February 1969, the Board of Trustees of the Claremont Colleges voted against the proposal to create the BSC. But that wasn’t the end of the fight.

Several 5C student associations and faculty from across the consortium sent letters of support to the Office of the Pro-

COurTESy: HErALD-EXAMINEr JOE MESSINGEr

Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ‘69, third from left, stands on stage at a black Student union press conference in 1969.

vost, eventually changing the decision in favor of the BSU’s proposal. The BSC was eventually approved in March and built in September.

Wilson-Oyelaran further campaigned to establish the first curriculum — both a major and minor — for what would later become the current Africana Studies department.

She emphasized how much of what she accomplished was a collaborative effort between her, Payton and Wilks.

“The change we were trying to make had to be grounded in a strong intellectual formation,” she said. “John was an amazing writer and an incredibly deep thinker.

Danny was an outstanding speaker who could galvanize a crowd. He had incredible charisma. I was the bridge. John, Danny and I recognized each other’s strengths and each other’s weaknesses, and we worked together as an amazing team who grew very close.”

Where it all started Despite being only 19 years of age when the intercollegiate BSU came into existence, Wilson-Oyelaran wasn’t new to carrying the torch for the Civil Rights Movement.

Raised in Compton, California, she felt destined to follow her parents’ footsteps — both were Black student activists in the 1930s.

“My parents’ generation were who are historically referred to as ‘race people,’ meaning that they were groomed to take responsibility to make things better. That was not labor, that was your damn responsibility,” she said. “I, and many of my peers, came out of those kinds of families — that’s who we were. We didn’t know how not to be. It’s a whole different mindset.”

Wilson-Oyelaran became an active member of the youth group of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People while in high school. At 16, she joined Compton’s Council of Human Relations, volunteering in community service, organizing Black socials and picketing in front of Compton’s Woolworth to express solidarity with the desegregation movement in the Southern United States.

“At that time, [the youth NAACP] was trying to bridge young people in the community with kids from all three of the high schools in Compton. Dominguez High School was still solidly white, Centennial High School was significantly African American and Compton High School was the only school that was 50-50,” she said.

To Nigeria and back to Claremont Right after graduation, Wilson-Oyelaran spent 18 months in Africa. She had been awarded the Watson fellowship to study in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania and compile curriculum materials for students in the U.S. “It was a very transformative experience. We lived in an international student hostel with African students from all over.

Within three weeks, I met three other women and the four of us are thick as thieves 52 years later,” she said.

“I was really fortunate. I think the opportunities that I had to step away from the psychological challenges that are deeply embedded in institutional racism in the U.S., have been really important for my psyche. I think I’ve been able to step out in ways that saved my sanity.”

But just as soon as she had left Claremont, she found herself back at her alma mater soon enough.

Payton had called her in 1973 while she was still in Africa, asking her to take up the position of director of Black admissions at the Black Studies Center. She promptly took up the offer.

“We had worked so hard to get some of those things institutionalized, just trying to fix the place,” Wilson-Oyelaran said.

“There’s a sense in which it’s incredibly gratifying to see some of the students we were able to recruit and what they’ve accomplished.”

After working alongside Payton in admissions for four years, she noticed a decline in the appetite for social change at the 5Cs. “By the mid ‘70s, there were ways in which the colleges were pulling back from the commitments they had made to us for recruitment in the late ‘60s,” she said. “We had a very successful pre-freshman summer program for Black and brown students, but the college wanted to pull back on its commitment, despite the clear evidence of its success.”

“But this work, as my dad used to say, is cyclical — like an inchworm — one step forward and two steps back.”

Shortly thereafter, Wilson-Oyelaran moved back to Nigeria in 1977 to pursue a career in teaching at the University of Ife, where she stayed for 14 years. She served as chair of the Psychology Department and worked with UNICEF as a consultant for early childhood development. All the while, she was parenting four children with her husband Olasope Oyelaran.

Wilson-Oyelaran returned to the U.S. in 1988 to become an administrator at North Carolina Wesleyan College, after which she joined Winston-Salem State University, and finally Kalamazoo College.

Her ties to Pomona are still strong, and as a member of Pomona’s Board of Trustees she remains active in the development of the Black community at the 5Cs. She still believes there is much more work left to be done.

“When you read the concerns of current students, yeah, it almost reads like a document we wrote,” Wilson-Oyelaran said.

“On one hand, we had no faculty who looked like us, there was no curriculum for us to study that looked like us in the curriculum and concepts like allyship simply didn’t exist. We were doing the work and in the absence of any of the theoretical frameworks that you all have now.”

“So, I know what Claremont was like in 1969, and concretely, it is so much better [today]. Yet on the other hand, the sense of not feeling at the core of institutions … still prevails. We’re still not there yet, and that’s what makes it so cyclical,” she concluded.

Inside the archives: 1968-1969

Written by Danny Wilks on behalf of the Black Student Union on May 1, 1968, proceeding the BSU’s 10 demands for 5C Faculty.

John Rodman, Pitzer Dean of Faculty, presented the American Ethnic Studies Center as an alternative to the Black Studies Center in Jan. 1969.

On Feb. 10 1969, Independent Faculty Senate of the Claremont Colleges deliberated between opposing American Ethnic Studies and Black Student Center proposals.

BSU proposal for the Black Studies Center, submitted to the Office of the Provost on Jan. 27, 1969.

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From Claremont to the Supreme Court: John Payton’s PO ’73 search for knowledge and justice ELINA LINGAPPA, MAXINE DAVEY & JENNA MCMURTRY Well before he was tackling some of the most monumental affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court, John Payton PO ’73 was advocating for the rights of Black students at the 5Cs. Highly acclaimed for his contributions to civil rights law, the late Pomona College alumnus is known for his time as the lead counsel for the University of Michigan in two landmark Supreme Court cases regarding protections for affirmative action in higher education.

Payton also succeeded former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, among a few others, in leading the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he defended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when it was brought back to the highest court in 2008/9.

While every phase of his life was dedicated to furthering social justice, Payton’s efforts seemed to circle back to the Claremont community.

No matter the role he played at Pomona, whether it be as student, admissions recruiter, trustee or board member, the many stages of Payton’s life were dedicated to improving the institutions students benefit from today at the 5Cs. When Payton settled into Claremont on the eve of the 1965 Watts Rebellion in nearby Los Angeles, the background that set the scene for Payton’s early undergraduate years was one consumed by what Jones described as an “extremely political time.”

According to Brenda Jones PO ’73, who was briefly married to Payton following graduation, he “came to Pomona [as] just a smart kid,” but by the time he graduated, he had become “more politicized.”

Many of Payton’s advocacy efforts in Claremont stemmed from his involvement in the BSU and the collective effort to establish the Black Studies Center. The skills he learned in Claremont, Jones added, assisted Payton in his endeavors as civil rights attorney in the years that followed.

Although Payton worked with several other BSU members along the way, Danny Wilks PO ’71 was a peer who ended up becoming a lifelong friend.

William Taylor PO ’73, who was involved with the BSU himself, remembered fond memories from the dynamic duo’s time at Pomona.

“I remember Danny and John as sort of a yin and yang when it came to the BSU activities. Danny was more of a fiery influence and John was the voice of reason,” Taylor told TSL, remembering Payton’s composed demeanor fondly.

“John Payton was [a] quieter, more responsible type of person,” and served as the grounding presence between the two, Taylor said. “One of my good memories of him is that I was an avid tropical fish collector. When I went on vacation, John would take care of my fish because I felt like he was the only person responsible enough to take care of them.”

Even as a student, Payton was already

giving back to Claremont. As a recruiter for Black student admissions, Payton’s efforts helped usher in a surge of Black student enrollment, bringing in record numbers that had not yet been seen.

Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ’69, one of his BSU contemporaries who worked alongside him in Black student admissions, said that his thirst for knowledge was “probably part of why the work we did [as a BSU chapter] was so good.”

When responding to the hurdles the BSU faced in establishing the BSC, Wilson-Oyelaran said, Payton “brought a capacity to conceptualize that it made it very difficult for faculty who come with all their capacity for criticism to tear apart.”

Wilson-Oyelaran also remembers Payton as “an intellectual giant.”

“He could not figure out what to major in, so he majored in almost everything which was part of what made him such an incredible attorney,” Wilson-Oyelaran said. “… He was so liberally educated in the very sense of the word. He was going to major in physics, then he was going to major in mathematics. And then I think his thesis was on the Harlem Renaissance.”

Payton ultimately settled on a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and eventually graduated from Pomona in 1973, after several years of studying off and on through advocacy and admissions work and battling health issues. He went on to earn a Harvard law degree cum laude before becoming a partner with WilmerHale Washington, DC. By the time he counseled Michigan in the monumental affirmative action case, Payton already had gathered a whole array of accolades winning past civil rights cases.

To name a few, Payton had significant leadership roles assisting the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Southern Africa Legal Support, Leal Education Production and the Free South Africa movement, of which he served as chief counsel.

Kern Reese PO ’74 spoke highly of Payton as a leader and a friend.

“John was well liked by everybody. I think the only people who didn’t like him were the people who would try to run schemes and games, because he had very little tolerance for that. He would tell the unvarnished truth … John was well respected universally, pretty much.”

Reese remembered the dynamic nature of the time, a period where everybody “wanted to be engaged with something,” and that the campus witnessed everything from visits from The Black Panthers to demonstrations against the Vietnam war.

“We spoke truth to power when we were there,” Valerie Coachman Moore PO ’75 said. “Speaking truth to power was really a galvanizing, invigorating experience, and we were all smart, intellectual people debating things all the time.”

Pomona politics professor Lorn Foster recalled a strong sense of wit and passion when remembering Payton.

“John had a really keen intellect. His

mind was incredibly analytical. And he of you can make an impact,” he said. “It’s also was a really dynamic advocate. He your turn. Make us proud.” could expound on a whole lot of different Three years before he passed, Payton topics,” Foster said. “When I got to Clare- made another speech at Pomona at the mont [in 1978], the Black population was dedication of the Draper Center for Comabout 300 out of 5,000,” but before Payton’s munity Partnerships, a current service at recruitment efforts commenced, Black stu- the 5Cs that implements much of the comdent representation had been in the sin- munity work that Payton and his BSU congle-digits just 14 temporaries instigatyears earlier. ed during the sixties.

Following gradIn his speech, he uation in 1973, outlined the legacy Payton was awardof U.S. civil rights ed the Watson law, one that his fellowship which contributions have he used to spend been recognized in a year abroad in defining, with the West Africa before five cases he defendheading to Hared at the Supreme vard Law School.

Court. He also called Throughout “community the key and after law to democracy,” and school, Payton called on students to took his advocacy extend the notion of to new levels. He community efforts worked in collabobeyond the confines ration as a Harvard of campus. student with the Since 2017, PoAmerican Indian mona has honored Movement, and Payton through after graduation he the annual John A. worked as a lawyer Payton ’73 DistinCOurTESy: POMONA COLLEGE for the Free South guished Lectureship Africa Movement, A young John Payton PO ’73, who chamto pay homage to his helping oversee pioned the rights of black students at the contributions within South Africa’s first Claremont Colleges. and beyond his Poall-race elections in mona experience.

1994.

While the sun set on Payton’s life at just During this time, Payton also worked 65, many of the institutions students benas a lawyer for WilmerHale for a total of efit from today at the 5Cs can be credited 27 years, representing milestone Supreme to the efforts he launched as an undergrad Court cases. Payton argued before the Su- with his fellow BSU members. preme Court in Gratz v Bollinger (2003) He became a pivotal figure in upholdthat the University of Michigan’s use of ra- ing civil rights as an attorney, and left a recial preferences in the admissions process markable impact on those that called him a was a violation of the 14th Amendment. friend or colleague.

Payton also worked on a similar Supreme When he passed away from sudden Court Case, Gruttinger v Bollinger. illness in 2012, former President Barack Payton later served as the sixth presi- Obama mourned the “passing of our dear dent of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and friend,” calling Payton “a true champion of Education Fund beginning in 2008, where equality…[who] helped protect civil rights he aided in huge racial justice victories in the classroom and at the ballot box.” and oversaw involvement in five Supreme Touching on how the “legal community Court Cases. One of his most notable cas- [had] lost a legend,” with Payton’s passing, es was Lewis v Chicago (2010), where he Obama added, “we will never forget his found the city of Chicago to have violated courage and fierce opposition to discrimithe 1964 Civil Rights Act by discriminating nation in all its forms.” against African Americans who applied for Former classmates and faculty alike positions in the city’s fire department. hosted an on-campus memorial service in “John was in his element, because intel- his honor. lectually he could function everywhere,” Since so much of his work revolved Reese said. “He was going quite well and around his community, Payton would not he was still that same person. He had just have wanted to be remembered as an “indigotten a little older but the conversation vidual champion,” according to Coachman was the same, it was always on the higher Moore. intellectual plane.”

Rather, he’d want to be known for how Payton made a visit back to Pomona “he represented the highest hopes and in 2005 to deliver the commencement ad- dreams that we all held for,” Coachman dress, during which he encouraged the Moore said, “ultimately, for freedom, jusstudents to become advocates themselves, tice and equality, particularly. For all stunever straying from the values he embod- dents, really, not just students of color, not ied. just Black students, but for all of us. And “There are huge issues before us to- that’s what’s important…[he] was a repreday… Some of you are future leaders. All sentation of a collective spirit and ethos.”

Scripps College faculty released letter of recommendation in support of BSU’s Black Studies Center proposal on Feb. 14, 1969.

5C Presidents and Provost signed agreement to pass the BSU’s Black Student Center proposal on Feb. 26, 1969

Harvey Mudd College faculty released letter of recommendation in support of BSU’s Black Studies Center proposal on Feb. 25, 1969.

On Feb. 25, 1969, CMC Faculty reported the results of their vote on the Stark and Diamond-Fisk-Jaffa Proposal, supporting and opposing the institution of the BSC, respectively.

Pomona Admissions Office reported applicant statistics for the incoming class of 1972 on Feb. 27, 1969.

News

PAGe 10

sPACe: Galactic collisions can inform pedagogy, Moreno says

DISCOVR: 5C student governments weigh in on support for immunocompromised students Continued from page 1

COuRTeSY: POMONA COLLeGe

Pomona College Professor Jorge Moreno published a paper that offers new insights on galaxies that lack dark matter in the Nature Astronomy Journal Feb. 14.

Continued from page 1 and a number of co-authors, they set out to publish a paper on the seven galaxies. Moreno described their findings as “somewhat conservative,” emphasizing that the common understanding is still true for the vast majority of galaxies, but there are some outliers.

The paper that Moreno and Daneli produced has instigated new conversations. For one, Moreno says that based on the paper findings, they predict around 30 percent of massive galaxies should have at least one smaller galaxy orbiting it, known as a satellite galaxy, that does not have dark matter.

“I’m hoping I’m right on this one, but we’ll see,” they said, adding that the new James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched in December, may verify or falsify their simulations. “Only the universe will tell.”

Moreno also emphasized the social implications of their research. They are currently writing a new opinion-based paper on astromimicry, an astronomical take on biomimicry, a practice of applying phenomena in the natural world to social life. “[The universe] can inspire or give us ideas on how to organize ourselves,” Moreno said, nodding toward their own classroom structure, where they take input from students to organize a safe space, especially for marginalized students. “I think we just need to pay attention, we need to look up.”

In previous understandings, when massive galaxies and satellites collided, the satellite either merged with the larger galaxy or was destroyed, Moreno said. However, their new discovery demonstrates that instead, these satellites may survive and simply lose their dark matter in the process.

Moreno drew a parallel to sociological phenomena.

“Sometimes we’re told [as marginalized people that] your option is to behave like the people in the majority, the dominant culture, speak like a white person, be assertive, or you’re completely excluded and destroyed,” they said. “Rather

than assimilating or getting destroyed, [these surviving satellite galaxies] confronted the massive galaxy … and they paid a price, they lost their dark matter, but they’re surviving, they’re thriving.”

Moreno said they personally connect with this metaphor as someone with Indigenous roots.

“I don’t speak any Indigenous language, my name and my gender are European,” they said. “And I don’t know my customs, my cuisine, my music, but I’m still here, right?

I’m thriving.”

With this connection in mind, Moreno named their seven simulated planets after the seven clans of the Cherokee nation: Bird, Blue, Deer, Long Hair, Paint, Wild Potato, and Wolf. Moreno’s Cherokee friend, Doug Ingram, received approval from tribal elders before formalizing the decision.

Moreno’s nod to Indigenous history underscored the emphasis they put on decolonization in their work. “[Decolonizing is] dismantling those false boundaries.

It’s anywhere from gender to race to borders to the separation between humanities and the sciences. And the fact that everything is contained in the universe; art, music, history, all of it, not just STEM,” they said.

“The moment we pay attention to our full humanity, we can actually do better science.”

Besides the scientific contributions, Moreno hopes that their research will inspire fundamental change in the culture of the field, rethinking pillars from scientific understandings of dark matter to social power dynamics within the field.

“I think a united theme in my research and my pedagogy is that discovery is a human right,” they said, underscoring that historically, STEM fields have been weaponized and gatekept. “I’m reclaiming that space for me and for my ancestors and for my students.”

FebRuARY 25, 2022

Clips from the Zoom call were posted on Claremont DISCOVR’s Instagram page on Monday, showing Williamson in conversation with DISCOVR member Johnny Ellsworth PO ’24.

Williamson told attendees that institutions that are truly invested in their students’ education should make learning accessible to all students.

“You know, it’s sad to me that we have to be fighting here for people to just have some human compassion for one another,” Williamson said.

“You’re asking for a Zoom call.”

Ellsworth was excited about the potential impact that Williamson’s support for DISCOVR could have on administrative policies on hybrid options.

“Marianne Williamson stepping in is a great step forward,” Ellsworth told TSL. “I’m hoping that her comments provide us more legitimacy with alumni, parents and the administration. That’s the main goal.”

Williamson, who attended Pomona for two years before leaving in 1972 without completing her degree, visited the college back in 2019 on her campaign trail.

The call with Williamson is just one of the many ways in which DISCOVR has been advocating for hybrid options for students since classes resumed in-person at the end of January.

On Jan. 28, Ellsworth and 11 other immunocompromised students reached out to Pomona College Dean of Students Avis Hinkson to request a hybrid learning option. Their request was denied by the college.

In an email, Hinkson and Robert Gaines, the dean of the college, said that “contract tracing has revealed no evidence of COVID-19 spread in the classroom” and that hybrid learning is “characterized by the poorest and most disproportionate learning outcomes for students.”

DISCOVR then circulated a petition titled “Claremont Colleges: Our education matters; let disabled students learn remotely!” that has received more than 1,100 signatures since Feb. 1.

Since then, DISCOVR has been hosting weekly Zoom advocacy meetings for students called “Hybrid Access Now!” They have also organized their activism via a Slack channel open to the college community.

The group’s Instagram has also posted anonymous quotes from 5C students speaking out about their struggles with in-person classes. A form circulated by DISCOVR allows students to share their experiences with ableism on campus and their support for hybrid learning.

“Our administration should not be putting the onus of self-education onto its disabled and immunocompromised students, it should be supporting and aiding them through the traumatic experience of living in a pandemic while still trying to get an undergraduate degree,” the group sad in a Feb. 18 post.

“A hybrid class option is the first step in this process of support.”

Some 5C student governments have also joined in the campaign, making statements to offer support to students.

On Feb. 6, ASCMC sent an email to Claremont McKenna College students offering them support when contacting their professors to ask for accessibility accommodations. The decision

SCAS: ‘We’re filling that gap of legal information’

ECUADOR: Disasters draw attention to inequities Continued from page 1 the large wealth disparity and significant poverty in Quito.

“I think that the landslide just kicked a lot of people further down than they were at the moment and there is only so much that the community can do. I think a lot of people are turning to the government and people in higher power to really deal with this poverty crisis,” Gustave said.

That poverty was clear to Gustave even before the landslides, though. From her perspective, the floods have just made the issue of poverty in Ecuador more immediate for Quito’s residents.

“It’s pushing people to really drive home those questions of, ‘where is all of our money going,’ ‘how can we really fix this poverty issue that we have here’ and ‘what can we do to make sure that that people are able to have access to the basic needs to survive and live healthy lives?’” she said.

Overall, Gustave has been enjoying Pitzer’s program so far.

“You get to live really in sync with the locals and just be really immersed in the culture,” she said.

Gustave said it is important that attention is being paid to Ecuador, not just because of the landslides, but also other issues that affect Ecuadorians: a recent oil spill in the Amazon rainforest; the struggles of Indigenous tribes, such as the use of their territory for oil activities and the outsized impact COVID-19 has on their communities.

“I think that with the pandemic and even as time goes on, people are really just starting to hone in on those questions of ‘what will be done for our people?’” Gustave said.

Pitzer’s Ecuador program director Sebastián Granda Merchán spoke with the Pitzer students in Ecuador about the causes of these recent events in order to help them think critically about the issues at

hand, Ballagh said.

“It is not a natural disaster, it is a social and political disaster,” Merchán said. “For many decades the local government has given permission to build houses, gated communities and malls in the Pichincha outskirts, without considering the risks and the logics of the environment.”

In addition to living with a host family, Pitzer students on the program take a core course which, according to the Pitzer Study Abroad website, “offers an important framework for understanding the social, political, economic, and environmental issues in contemporary Ecuador.”

Students additionally take intensive Spanish language courses or other courses at Universidad San Francisco de Quito if accomplished enough in Spanish already, and undertake an independent study project.

The program, though, has balanced optimizing the students’ experience with taking proper precautions, as well as being supportive of students and ensuring that they had what they needed, she said.

As COVID-19 restrictions ease up and make traveling more accessible, Gustave will travel to Baños and to the Galapagos, as well as continue to form strong bonds central to the Quito community.

Ballagh said that the study abroad office has been “dealing with global crises in various other parts of the globe over the past week” but declined to comment further, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. “I can assure you everyone is safe. Numbers abroad are unsurprisingly historically low but we hope to see a level of normality in fall 2022,” he added.

to livestream classes is currently up to professors’ discretion.

The ASPC Senate also put out a statement Feb. 18 in solidarity with immunocompromised students, calling for reasonable alternatives to in-person instruction when students are in isolation.

In their email to students, ASPC officials said they will work with immunocompromised students and their respective faculty on a class-by-class basis to find alternatives to in-person instruction.

“We urge faculty to exercise a certain empathy and flexibility given the circumstances of the ongoing pandemic. A little goes a long way when it comes to making learning more accessible for all,” the statement said. “Empathy also goes both ways, which makes collaborating to reach solutions within professors’ bandwidth so critical.”

Scripps Associated Students emailed Scripps College’s student body Feb. 19 to explain the college’s current policy. Scripps currently requires students to provide documentation which demonstrates that they need learning accommodations. Much like at Pomona and CMC, the details of these accommodations are up to the professors.

In their email, SAS stated that it is currently working with faculty and is in communication with the Scripps interim dean of students to ensure more flexibility in the classroom.

Until there is an actual hybrid learning policy from the administration, Ellsworth and other students at DISCOVR plan to continue their advocacy.

“I don’t think that we should have to think about the condition of our bodies when we walk through the classroom doors,” Ellsworth said. “We all deserve to feel safe.”

HuXLeYANN HueFNeR • THe STuDeNT LIFe

The Scripps College Pre-Law Society is spearheading the creation of the 5Cs’ first Small Claims Advisory Service in conjunction with Harvard University.

Continued from page 1 deposits from tenants and consumers filing consumer rights law cases against deceptive bank practices. A pay-out is the money one can gain by winning a court case.

Due to the small pay-out, the litigation process often does not include lawyer advice, leaving members of the community unaware of their rights.

Kayla Solomon SC ’23, president and founder of the Claremont Colleges’ SCAS and the Scripps Pre-Law Society, told TSL that the service’s creation began when Harvard University’s SCAS program contacted the Scripps Pre-Law Society by email in January.

The email detailed Harvard’s SCAS mission and that it was looking to expand its resources into California through the 5Cs as part of their “SCAS in 50 States Initiative.” From there on, the groups collaborated to develop Claremont SCAS. Harvard’s SCAS is a student-led university initiative founded in 1973, which has since been serving their local Massachusetts community with its student volunteers.

Annie Palacio SC ’23 and Nora Renea SC ’23 will serve as the co-executive directors of staff of Claremont SCAS, leading the group’s daily activities and the training and managing of volunteers. Palacio will also serve as the volunteer director, connecting volunteers with cases. Under Solomon’s supervision, the two will be the primary leads in starting the organization and working with Harvard SCAS. This service will be the PreLaw Society’s first opportunity to connect with Claremont’s

non-student population, and it intends on supporting as many people as possible with the resources the 5Cs provide. “[We]’re hoping to share the wealth of information that we have access to and the skills that we have as college students when doing this sort of research,” Solomon said.

The Pre-Law Society is following Harvard SCAS’s organizational structure and working collaboratively with them to review legal research in California before the group becomes completely 5C-led.

In the club’s Jan. 27 email to students seeking volunteers, leaders wrote that they hope to parallel Harvard SCAS’s mission statement to “empower socioeconomically disadvantaged people in order for them to seek legal redress effectively through the small claims system, and to protect their rights as consumers, tenants, and members of [their] community.”

According to Rasleen Krupp, the co-executive director of Harvard’s SCAS, the service trains student volunteers for a semester about small claims law to then provide legal information and help clients navigate the litigation process. “[We]’re filling that gap of legal information that’s often difficult to access just because it’s hard to go through [complicated] statute,” she said. “We just simplify that information in a way that provides accessibility for everyone.”

Krupp told TSL that SCAS is a unique way for students to “try out law.” The service allows students to impact their community by connecting directly with the people they’re going to help. She said SCAS at Harvard has been a great way to get out of the college community bubble and connect with the outside community.

Besides external impacts, Krupp emphasized the importance of students knowing small claims law to be aware of their own rights, especially for purchasing items or renting homes.

The 5Cs’ SCAS will be the first of its kind in California. Henry Austin, the outreach director for this initiative, explained that the partnership with the Claremont Colleges is part of the larger effort to reach communities beyond the state and expand the resource network established by Harvard’s SCAS. Austin explained that Harvard SCAS is now working with the Scripps Pre-Law Society to research all topics covered by small claims courts in California and compile that information into a guide that will be posted online in the form of a wiki.

The organization can then use the information to train volunteers and fuel its future. As the 5Cs will be one of two new Harvard SCAS cross-state implementations, Claremont SCAS will serve as a model that future SCAS organizations can implement nationwide.

“I’m feeling really excited … and creating a scalable model, I think, has the potential to be really, really powerful for a lot of people,” Austin added.

Michelle Lee PO ’25 joined Claremont SCAS and is now a legal research lead. Lee, who had professional experience in law in high school, saw SCAS as the perfect opportunity to connect her career aspirations with community service. “[All] of the people leading the initiative are very passionate and driven about helping … those who lack the resources to seek professional advice navigate the legal system,” Lee told TSL via email.

“I am really excited about SCAS’s prospects and I’m confident that we will be able to make a lasting impact in this sphere.”

SportS

February 25, 2022

PaGe 11

P-P, CMS swim programs finish at top of SCIAC championships HANNAH WEAVER For the past 14 years, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer swim teams have gone back and forth winning SCIAC championships. Historically, either CMS or P-P have won on both the men’s and women’s sides.

But this year, the teams traded the top two spots: The P-P women’s team and CMS men’s team each claimed first, with the CMS women’s team and P-P men’s team in second place, trailing by 51 and 189 points, respectively.

P-P’s young talent lead women to victory, men to close second Alexandra Turvey PO ’24 was named SCIAC swimmer of the year for her outstanding performance at the championship meet.

She competed in three individual events and four relays — and took home gold for each.

She was more focused on the team as whole, noting that her favorite part of the meet was watching others reach their personal goals.

“When you know people have been working all year towards this final meet, getting to watch their reactions after a really good swim… that makes me love the sport,” Turvey said.

Although the P-P men’s team weren’t ultimately able to beat CMS out for the number one spot, they did dominate the 400-yard IM race. This was thanks to a podium sweep with Larry Yu PO ’24, Justin Lu PO ’22 and Allen Chang PZ ’25 going 1-2-3.

Like Turvey, Yu also raced in three individual events and four relays. He placed first in the 400yard Individual Medley, second in the 1650-yard and second in the 500 yard freestyle.

The 800-freestyle relay was another highlight for Yu. Going in as the anchor for P-P’s team, he had a slight lead off of the competition.

“The Caltech guy, he went out super hard and caught up with me, so I was internally freaking out — you don’t want to lose to Caltech … eventually, I think he went out too hard and he kind of died in the last 50, so I was able to outlast him,” Yu said. “It was a really fun experience, the energy especially for relays was unmatched in SCIACs.”

Being away from the pool for more than a year significantly impacted swimmers across the board.

During her senior year of high school, Turvey was a 2020 Canadian Olympic trials qualifier in the 50-meter freestyle, but the trials were canceled due to the onset of COVID-19.

For Turvey and her teammates, COVID-19 and the subsequent lack of a collegiate season last year presented a variety of challenges.

None of the underclassmen had collegiate swimming experience, and even the upperclassmen had been out of practice when it came to large-scale competitions like SCIACs, Yu explained.

“I don’t think any of us had a meet of that [skill-level] since March 2020, maybe even earlier,” he said. “This was my first big college meet, so I was excited to see what I could do.”

Captain Jason Lu PO ’22 noticed that this translated to somewhat of a difficult start for the Sagehen swimmers.

“At the beginning of the season, it was maybe a little bit more rocky. But I think as the season progressed, everybody was getting back into shape, everybody was getting back into it,” Lu said.

Several athletes underscored how crucial a role the team environment played in P-P’s success this season.

“I’ve never been part of such a supportive team who just really loves each other,” Turvey said.

Although the Sixth Street Rivalry remains, there appears to be little animosity between P-P and CMS, as members from both teams pointed out how skilled the opposite program is.

“We’re always really excited to race CMS because they have so many amazing athletes, as well,” Turvey said. “I think the rivalry really brings out the best in all of us.”

CMS’ focus on combined program proves successful Coming into SCIACs with a 7-0 season record, the CMS men’s team knew they had a good chance of winning. But for many of the athletes, just being able to compete was enough.

COurTeSy: aLeXIS rOMerO

The CMS men’s swim team celebrates in the pool upon learning they won the SCIaC championships.

Anderson Breazeale CM ’24 won the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke races, and was a member of the 200-yard medley relay team which set a new SCIAC record.

“Mostly [we were] just really grateful to have the opportunity to compete, I’d say that’s what the team was most excited for,” Breazeale said.

The men’s team’s win was solidified by standout performances from rookies Lucas Lang HM ’25 and Nick Tekieli HM ‘24. Lang set a SCIAC record in the 1650-yard freestyle and SCIAC Newcomer of the Year Tekieli won all his events except one.

The CMS women’s team’s close finish behind P-P was led partly by Augusta Lewis CM ’22, who broke both her SCIAC records in the 200-yard IM and 400-yard IM and won every individual event she swam except one.

Ella Blake HM ’23, a multi-talented distance and medley swimmer, also contributed to the team’s second-place finish.

For the majority of the 1650-yard freestyle, she stayed stroke-for-stroke alongside training partner Gracey Hiebert HM ’23. She didn’t let that dis-

tract her, though, and managed to stay zoned in.

“I feel like a lot of times when I’m swimming, I’m mostly just thinking about the race,” she said. “I like to have a song stuck in my head so I’m kind of in my own world a little bit.”

Even before this meet, the CMS program got off to a good start this season in November, with their sights set on SCIACs and improving team culture.

Their efforts proved worthwhile, as it resulted in an unofficial cumulative best score for CMS as a combined men’s and women’s program.

Both teams on to nationals CMS and P-P will send around 20 swimmers each to the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in Indianapolis March 16-19.

Divers from CMS and P-P will likely also compete at nationals, depending on the results of the NCAA regional qualifiers in San Antonio this weekend.

The rematch is motivating both teams.

“It’s hard to know how other people will race,” Yu said, “But, of course, CMS is going to be out there so we’re hoping to beat them a few more times, as well

as make finals and win as much as possible.”

For all athletes who qualified, the next three weeks will see training ramp back up and then taper down before the biggest meet of their season.

“So, yeah, sort of back to work now,” Turvey said.

For Lu, this will be his last nationals, so his goals are more focused on the experience and leaving an impact on his teammates.

“I really want to just go into it with, ‘let me enjoy my teammates and enjoy the swimming,’” Lu said. “And I can hopefully impart some knowledge onto the younger swimmers who are also going to nationals so that they’ll be better prepared in the future.”

Breazeale has some personal goals, including trying to place in the top eight in at least one of his individual races, and to help make the relays he’s on be the best they can be.

“When your teammates work so hard, and they still do really well, individually, I don’t think we’re ever going to be disappointed, no matter if it’s first, second, third, or whatever,” Breazeale said. “As long as we’re supportive and proud of how we performed, I think we’re happy with the outcome.”

P-P teams reigns victorious over final Sixth Street basketball rivalries ALEX CHUN With a tense environment at Roberts Pavilion, numerous students filed in to see this week’s Sixth Street basketball rivalry. Despite Claremont-Mudd-Scripps hosting, roars from Pomona-Pitzer’s student section drowned out those of CMS. In their final matchups against the Stags and Athenas, both P-P basketball teams pulled out wins en route to earning top seeds in the SCIAC postseason tournament.

Following their successful regular seasons, both P-P programs are now aiming to make a deep run in the conference playoffs and reach the Division III national tournament.

No. 1 ranked men’s basketball becomes regular season champions behind Matt Eberle PO ’22 Following a tight 57-53 loss in their first matchup December of last year, P-P got its revenge against CMS last Saturday behind the roaring Sagehen crowd in their penultimate regular season game.

“The energy of the crowd increased the emotions of the game and enhanced everything to another level,” senior captain Matt Eberle PO ’22 said. “Each defensive stop, each score took a lot out of us to get each of those but it felt really good.”

P-P primarily rallied behind the 16-point effort from Eberle and an impressive double-double from star guard Brendan Mora PO ’23, who notched 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Other notable contributors included the freshman trio of starters Joe Cookson, Pete Boyle and Ty Bergman PO ’25 off the bench, shooting 5-for-9 from the 3-point-line en

route to 35 points combined.

The first half of the game featured a back-and-forth affair between the Sagehens and the Stags, trading basket for basket for the first ten minutes of play.

However, CMS found momentum behind a collective effort from numerous wing players, stretching the Stags’ lead to 30-20 with five minutes left in the first half.

However, the Sagehens immediately found a spark and responded for the remainder of the half, featuring efforts from Eberle, Mora and Cookson. WIth seconds ticking near the buzzer, Peyton Mullarkey PZ ’25 swooped inside for a layup before the clocks hit zero, capping off a 16-3 Sagehen scoring run to retake the lead 36-33.

This momentum carried P-P into the second half as the Sagehens found a 10-2 scoring run late in the second half to dispel any signs of a Stags’ comeback.

Bergman finished off the game with an open-court dunk to seal the victory for P-P, winning 7667.

With this game at Roberts signifying senior night for the Sagehens, Eberle described the feelings behind serving as one of P-P leading scorers this year.

“I’m definitely really grateful; I worked a lot in the offseason and COVID years to stay in shape, but also get better,” he said. “[Being] recognized by the conference as one of the leaders on the court feels so good.”

Following their dominant 13-2 conference record and 18-4 overall record in the regular season, the Sagehens started off their 2022 SCIAC postseason with a dominant showing. Being

Editorial Board

COurTeSy: aarON Gray

Left: Hayden Moser PO ‘24 goes up for a jump shot as a CMS defender attempts to block him. right: brendan Mora PO ‘23 drives towards the basket, looking for an open teammate in the key.

ranked No. 1 in the playoff seeding, P-P blew out Occidental by 30 points in the SCIAC quarterfinal, 96-66.

Numerous players scored in double figures for the Sagehens, as Eberle again led the way by scoring 23 points. Most notably, both Mora and Johnny King PO ’23 displayed standout double-double performances in the match, notching double-digit points and rebounds for P-P. Women’s season finale ends in a blowout, cruising past Caltech and Chapman to reach SCIAC championship The P-P women outdid the

men’s performance, beating the Athenas by double digits in their regular season finale.

Featuring a 25-point effort from star guard and senior captain Madison Quan PZ ’22, P-P cruised to victory by outscoring the Athenas in the final three quarters. Dealing with injuries the entire year, Kamil English PO ’22 also checked into a regular season game for the final time in her collegiate career, knocking down a free throw in contribution to the Sagehen win.

After taking a comfortable victory against the Caltech Beavers 53-43 in the SCIAC quarterfinals, the Hens proved dom-

inant over the Chapman Panthers in the semis.

The match featured double-digit point efforts from four Sagehen starters: Quan earned 19 points, Emily Church PO ’23 scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, veteran guard Charlize Andaya PZ ’23 dialed in 12 points and senior forward Vanessa Hsia PO ’22 knocked in 10 points and four rebounds.

Following these two consecutive victories, the Sagehens will now face the Whittier Poets in the SCIAC championship game on Saturday, with a trip to the DIII national postseason bracket on the line.

THE STUDENT LIFE

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SportS

PaGe 12

Shedding light on the ultimate sport: Braineaters frisbee puts teamwork first

February 25, 2022

CMS, P-P track and field record best times, stadium record at first major meet of season ANNIKA JOHNSON

ruby KLaWaNS • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Members of the Claremont braineaters club frisbee team all reach to catch an incoming disc.

ELI WEISS Far from a casual game among friends, club ultimate frisbee is a competitive sport with a heavy emphasis on teamwork and communication. For 5C club ultimate team the Claremont Braineaters, the foundation for a strong team was set in 1979 by Pitzer College students, although the team is currently open to students from each of the 5Cs. Their latest success came at the men’s DIII College Ultimate Frisbee League in December, where they finished 8th.

A unique sport, ultimate frisbee represents the true definition of parts of a team creating a whole, well-functioning organization. The central rule of play includes catching a disc and relaying it to a teammate before taking any more strides down the field. This requires constant communication and creates an acute sense of camaraderie.

Gunnar Mikko PZ ’25 has played ultimate frisbee for years and has enjoyed continuing his career as a member of the Braineaters this year.

“You have to throw it to your teammates in order to score a goal or to advance, so just by its nature it can’t be just a one-person-dominated-team or sport,” Mikko explained. “That really just makes it so that you have to work together, all seven people out on the field at once.”

One unorthodox practice includes the lack of third-party refereeing, meaning the players decide the ruling amongst themselves on the field of play. This dynamic creates interesting relations among opposing teams and even players on the same team.

Previously, Mikko felt that the lack of outside refereeing was a poor attribute of the game.

“I used to really wish in the past that there were referees and there was someone there to make a definitive call on if something was a foul or a turnover or a travel,” Mikko said.

But as he continued playing the sport, he realized that this aspect wasn’t a flaw; rather, it helps maintain the “spirit” of frisbee.

“Everyone has [it] at the back of their mind the whole time [that] we’re playing this game, and we’re going to play it fair,” he said. “I think that’s really cool and it makes it easy to connect with the teams you play against.”

Another newcomer for the Braineaters, Rory Beals PO ’25, echoed Mikko’s sentiment.

“There’s not any animosity towards the other team,” Beals said. “We’re competing, but we still want to keep it respectful and figure out this call together.”

Beals first discovered ultimate frisbee in high school, thanks to his sibling’s involvement in the sport.

“The only reason I started is because [my sibling was] my ride home and they went to practice so I kind of had to go to practice with them,” he said. “Over the course of high school, I got really into it … By the end of high school, my primary social group was the ultimate frisbee team.”

His passion for the game encouraged him to find the Braineaters.

“I knew that out of college, I wanted that same opportunity to have a social group,” Beals said.

Compared to his involvement

in other sports before college, including tennis and soccer, the friendly coaching style of ultimate frisbee was unique to him.

“Once we start going through the drill, it doesn’t feel like a huge hierarchy or anything, you’re just sort of playing,” Beals said.

Though the first semester of frisbee saw a natural separation of teammates by school and year, Beals has found that those divisions have gradually subsided.

“Over the course of the first semester, those walls started breaking down to the point where I really don’t feel the difference between who is a freshman and who is a senior on the team,” he said. “It’s been a really good time because there doesn’t feel to be any sort of divide between players on the team.”

Ultimate’s unique rule configuration allows for a fulfilling team sport opportunity and a great environment for cultivating a community of like-minded individuals.

“When we’re scrimmaging our own team, I think that promotes everybody learning the rules together, which is important,” Mikko said.

The ultimate goal is for teammates to foster an enjoyable environment while supporting each other on the field.

“The main thing is being open-minded and welcoming to pretty much everybody,” Beals said. “It’s obviously a pretty niche sport, so in order to field a team you have to make people want to be there.”

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Kai Dettman HM ’23 won the 800-meter with a commanding two-second lead and the fourth all-time fastest time in CMS history: 1:50.39. His time was one of the fastest recorded by any DIII runner this year.

Colin Kirkpatrick PO ’24 led the Sagehen charge in this race, finishing ahead of teammates Oscar Roering PO ’25 and Justin Chiao PZ ’25, who placed third and fourth.

Emily Clarke SC ’22 led a 1-2-3 finish in the 3k race for the Athenas.

“It felt like cross country all over again,” Clarke said. “We work out together, we do most of our runs together. And it’s just always a blast because you never really know who’s gonna take it.”

The Athenas are coming off a program-best finish during cross-country season. Clarke saw this meet as a good place to start and a nice baseline after, like most of the CMS and PP track athletes, not racing since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re all really, really grateful to have the opportunity to compete after it being so long,” Clarke said.

The Stags also had a 1-2 finish in the 3,000-kilometer with Henry Pick HM ’23 taking gold followed by Stevie Steinberg HM ’22.

The main feeling on the field was gratefulness to compete, said Jenna Lange PO ’23, who placed second in the mile.

“We’re still in that learninghow-to-compete-again phase,” she said. “And this year especially, that’s been a big transition.”

Lange went into her mile focused on competing and having fun with her teammates, not stressing over times.

It paid off — she tailed the competition for most of the race and made her move on the final lap to ultimately snag second place between two athletes from Biola University. The first through fourth place finishers were separated by just four seconds.

“It was such a positive experience because there was just so much love out there, the track was just lined with Pomona-Pitzer people screaming for Pauline [Steines PO ’25] and I,” Lange said. “I really feel like that race went so well, because of how much support was out there.”

That camaraderie was almost palpable among all the teams and athletes.

Bertini’s favorite race to watch on Saturday was when Whittier College’s Cooper Tirado won the 100-meters.

“When we had our first meet there was a kid from Whittier with dyed hair and he was the first kid who approached me and said ‘hi’ from another school,” he said. “Very kind kid.

And then he won the 100 [meter]. And seeing that felt amazing, he wasn’t my teammate, but in track even your teammates are still your competition so everybody could be your teammate in the same sense.”

In the women’s 800-meter, Laura Zimmer CM ’24, Megan Maley SC ’23 and Michaela Jones PZ ’24 cracked the top five, placing third, fourth and fifth respectively.

Brooke Simon CM ’23, one of the athletes already nationally ranked and headed to indoor nationals mid-March, earned

third place in pole vault.

The Stags scored high in shot put, claiming second and third place with Sarath Kakani CM ’24 and Tyson Saena HM ’23, respectively.

Next up for both teams are the Rossi Relays, to be held Saturday on CMS turf at Burns Track Complex. finishing ahead of teammates Oscar Roering PO ’25 and Justin Chiao PZ ’25, who placed third and fourth.

Emily Clarke SC ’22 led a 1-2-3 finish in the 3k race for the Athenas.

“It felt like cross country all over again,” Clarke said. “We work out together, we do most of our runs together. And it’s just always a blast because you never really know who’s gonna take it.”

The Athenas are coming off a program-best finish during cross-country season. Clarke saw this meet as a good place to start and a nice baseline after, like most of the CMS and PP track athletes, not racing since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re all really, really grateful to have the opportunity to compete after it being so long,” Clarke said.

The Stags also had a 1-2 finish in the 3,000-kilometer with Henry Pick HM ’23 taking gold followed

by Stevie Steinberg HM ’22.

The main feeling on the field was gratefulness to compete, said Jenna Lange PO ’23, who placed second in the mile.

“We’re still in that learninghow-to-compete-again phase,” she said. “And this year especially, that’s been a big transition.”

Lange went into her mile focused on competing and having fun with her teammates, not stressing over times.

It paid off — she tailed the competition for most of the race and made her move on the final lap to ultimately snag second place between two athletes from Biola University. The first through fourth place finishers were separated by just four seconds.

“It was such a positive experience because there was just so much love out there, the track was just lined with Pomona-Pitzer people screaming for Pauline [Steines PO ’25] and I,” Lange said. “I really feel like that race went so well, because of how much support was out there.”

That camaraderie was almost palpable among all the teams and athletes.

Bertini’s favorite race to watch on Saturday was when Whittier College’s Cooper Tirado won the 100-meters.

“When we had our first meet there was a kid from Whittier with dyed hair and he was the first kid who approached me and said ‘hi’ from another school,” he said.

“Very kind kid. And then he won the 100 [meter]. And seeing that felt amazing, he wasn’t my teammate, but in track even your teammates are still your competition so everybody could be your teammate in the same sense.”

In the women’s 800-meter, Laura Zimmer CM ’24, Megan Maley SC ’23 and Michaela Jones PZ ’24 cracked the top five, placing third, fourth and fifth respectively.

Brooke Simon CM ’23, one of the athletes already nationally ranked and headed to indoor nationals mid-March, earned third place in pole vault.

The Stags scored high in shot put, claiming second and third place with Sarath Kakani CM ’24 and Tyson Saena HM ’23, respectively.

Next up for both teams are the Rossi Relays, to be held Saturday on CMS turf at Burns Track Complex.

HaNNaH WeaVer • THe STuDeNT LIFe

foothilltransit.org/theclaremontcolleges

Top: From left, Camille Forte CM ‘23, Laura Zimmer CM ‘24, Megan Maley SC ‘23 and Michaela Jones PZ ‘24 jockey for position in the women’s 800-meter race. bottom: From left, Kai Dettman HM ‘23, Henry Pick HM ‘23, Oscar roening PO ‘25 and Mark russell CM ‘25 dash at the start of the men’s 800-meter race.