Vol. CXXXIV No. 19

Amy Marcus-Newhall announced as 11th president of Scripps

SARA CAWLEY & MAXINE DAVEY

On April 6, Scripps College announced Amy Marcus-Newhall’s unanimous selection as the 11th president of the college in an email from Board Chair Laura Hockett SC ’85. This comes in the wake of former President Suzanne Keen’s resignation after an eight-month tenure.

Marcus-Newhall has served as interim or acting president three times: once during the 2015-2016 academic year, and twice more prior to and following Keen’s tenure as president. Now, 16 days

after Marcus-Newhall stepped into the role of interim president, she will assume the official title of president.

“We have the utmost confidence in her ability to propel the College’s ambitious vision for the future and to cement its position as a world-class educational institution as we approach our centennial anniversary,” Hockett said in the email.

Hockett also said Marcus-Newhall will serve as president for three years, leading up to the institution’s centennial anniversary.

“As the end of her term ap-

proaches, the Board of Trustees will engage community members, higher education peers, and industry experts in conversations about the design of Scripps’ future presidential search processes,” the email said.

Marcus-Newhall has worked at Scripps as a professor and administrator for more than 30 years, most recently in the role of the vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty.

“It is a privilege to continue the legacy of the Scripps presidency and to build upon

SJP relaunches campaign to suspend Pitzer Haifa study abroad program

the accomplishments of transformative leaders who have guided the College’s growth and evolution for almost a century,” she said in an April 6 message to the Scripps community.

Marcus-Newhall added that the time she has spent so far as interim president has been the most gratifying of her career.

“As president, I will build on those accomplishments to define a vision that reinforces Scripps’ core identity, cements its enduring purpose, and strengthens its extraordinary community,” she said.

Scripps removes sculpture with Nazi ties following student criticism

MARIANA DURAN & SARA CAWLEY

Scripps College removed the controversial sculpture “Young Woman” from its wellness center after complaints from students and faculty over the artist’s Nazi ties and the statue’s representations of beauty ideals.

On March 30, President Amy Marcus-Newhall sent an email to the Scripps community announcing the removal of Georg Kolbe’s “Young Woman” sculpture from Scripps’ wellness center, Tiernan Field House (TFH).

After its removal from TFH, the statue was moved to Scripps’ Williamson Art Gallery, where it is now on display.

Marcus-Newhall cited student action and demands, including a petition calling for the removal of Kolbe’s sculpture signed by over 200 Scripps community members, as the impetus for her investigation into the statue’s history.

CSWA hosts second McConnell Boycott

By 5:02 p.m. on Tuesday, April 4, over 25 5C students had blocked both entrances to Pitzer College’s McConnell Dining Hall to protest the firing of three former dining workers: Stephanie Smith, Alexis Ongpoy and Kevin Ayala.

The boycott was organized by members of student organization Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) as a part of a series of demonstrations against the Pitzer administration and Pitzer’s subcontracted dining service, Bon Appétit Management Company (BAMCO). The protests began at the beginning of the semester, in response to BAMCO firing three employees.

Smith, Ongpoy and Ayala, otherwise known as the PZ 3, were discharged after a union certification vote at Pitzer, where they expressed support for the UNITE HERE! Local 11 union. CSWA alleges that BAMCO directly punished the former employees for their union support through ter-

mination.

“The PZ 3 were abruptly and unexpectedly dismissed … with no warning,” members of CSWA said in a joint-statement via Instagram.

CSWA and other concerned 5C students have alleged that BAMCO broke federal labor law by firing the PZ 3. Elle Roc

TSL COVID-19 Tracker covid.tsl.news from

PO ’24 explained that students engaging in CSWA’s protests demand that Pitzer rehire the PZ 3 through Pitzer directly, instead of their subcontractor BAMCO, to protect the workers from the weaponization of unionizing against their em-

“I was compelled by the concerns students, staff and faculty raised about the symbolism of the statue as an idealized standard of beauty or health which does not align with Scripps’ focus on holistic wellness,” she said in her statement to Scripps students.

Aviva Maxon SC ’24, president of Scripps’ Jewish affinity group, Kehillah, said she was pleased with the action to remove the statue from public view.

“That is a real win for the community and all the people who have been working hard on this issue,” Maxon said.

To Lily Dunkin ’24, who wrote an op-ed calling for the removal of the statue last year, students’ needs were only partially addressed by “Young Woman’s” removal. Dunkin said she would still like to see “accountability for the harm it has caused Jewish, Queer and BIPOC students.”

Dunkin is part of the Statue Action Group (SAG), which, according to their Instagram page, is committed to the removal of Kolbe’s statue and the organization of generative actions to acknowledge the statue’s legacy in the community.

“Unfortunately there has still yet to be a pathway for students to be involved with administrative decision making,” Dunkin said. “Student input and empowerment is critical to this effort.”

As part of the organization’s efforts, SAG encouraged students and faculty to attend German art historian Wolfgang Brauneis’ April 5 talk on prevalent artists of the Federal Republic. The event was hosted in Scripps’ Hampton room.

During the presentation that was attended by over 30 faculty members and students, Brauneis talked about the history behind German Nationalist art, the relationship of artists to the Nazi regime and emerging discussions over how this art is displayed in museums and in public spaces.

See STATUE on page 2

From March 30 through April 2, the interdisciplinary conference “Thinking Its Presence: Racial Vertigo, BlackBrown Feelings, and Significantly Problematic Objects” took place at Pomona College. The 40+ events in the conference included BIPOC scholars, activists, artists and authors.

COURTESY: SCRIppS COllEGE

After three stints as Scripps’ interim president, Amy Marcus-Newhall is now acting president of the college.

Claremont Students for Justice in palestine is campaigning to end the pitzer University of Haifa in Israel program.

JAKE CHANG • THE STUDENT lIFE

Students picketed outside McConnell Tuesday to protest the firing of the pitzer 3.”

AVERI SUllIVAN • THE STUDENT lIFE

Georg Kolbe’s “Young Woman” statue has been removed from TFH and is currently in Scripps’ Williamson Art Gallery.

WENDY ZHANG • THE STUDENT lIFE

‘Breathing together’: Documentary on Vietnam War draft resistance screened at Pitzer

On April 4, Pitzer College’s Office of Alumni and Family Engagement and the Intercollegiate Media Studies department presented a screening of “The Boys Who Said NO!,” a documentary on the draft resistance movement during the Vietnam War. A panel discussion with documentary contributors Sara Wood Smith PZ ’66 and draft resister Bob Zaugh followed the screening in Benson Auditorium.

The film covered the development and course of the resistance movement, from the early 1960s to the draft in 1975 to the end of the war. Smith, who served as a volunteer and advisor to the film, spoke about the integrity and courage of those who resisted the draft and remained in the United States with the threat of prison sentences of up to five years.

“[The film] allows us to see the power of people speaking up and taking a stand,” Smith said.

in the resistance movement, including the participation of people ineligible for the draft through complicity statements. Such statements served as petitions through which ineligible Americans indicated their support for the movement and intention to help the resisters in a manner that could result in indictment by the government. This furthered the civil disobedience central to the movement and demonstrated the moral opposition to the draft and war from general Americans, not just those who could be drafted.

Zaugh described this collaboration as “breathing together.”

“That’s what the government fears most,” he said, “breathing together. And we breathed together for years and we put an end to the draft.”

During the documentary, interviews with draft resisters and major figures in the movement, such as folk singer Joan Baez, joined footage, images and recordings from decades when the movement operated.

The film illustrates the story of the boys who said no through the politics of the war effort, media coverage of the war and the resistance, the Civil Rights Movement and beyond.

Bob Zaugh

She added that she experienced encouragement around social justice protesting while at Pitzer.

Bob Zaugh, one of the draft resisters interviewed in the film, also attended the screening and spoke to the audience about the need to spread awareness about the movement and its historical impact.

Zaugh emphasized the impact of people working together

“Evil is a participatory phenomenon. It counts on participation to be successful,” David Harris, a major leader of the movement, says in the documentary. “The first option you have is withdrawing your participation.”

For Zaugh, the draft resisters’ intentional withdrawal was not passive avoidance but active resistance.

“I am still called a draft dodger … And it’s not the truth, we resisted,” he said. “We walked straight towards this stuff that we did. We pulled ourselves out of the system

completely.”

Smith added that actively resisting the draft required courage, resilience and profound moral conviction.

“What all of these men did by protesting and resisting and understanding that they could go to jail was not an easy choice, and there were sacrifices that they all made,” Smith said.

The film ended with photographs from recent protests around climate change, police brutality, immigration restric -

tions, queer rights and more.

Both Smith and Zaugh noted the significance of the number and complexity of the challenges the United States currently faces. Smith named both climate change and staying attentive to the youngest generation’s needs as the most pressing issues facing the country, and Zaugh listed a number of issues ranging from fast fashion to LGBTQ+ rights and mass incarceration.

“There’s so many issues that

Pomona, CMC release plans to address antisemitism on campus

On Monday, March 27, Pomona College students received an email from President G. Gabrielle Starr addressing two recent incidents of vandalism at Pomona and outlining Pomona’s plan to address antisemitism on campus. These incidents come on the heels of a rise in antisemitism in the Claremont community this past January, when flyers with antisemitic messages were distributed around Pomona’s campus and surrounding neighborhoods.

According to Starr, two incidents prompted her email. In late February, a map in the Oldenborg Center Residence Hall had been found defaced by someone who scratched out the name of the state of Israel. The incident comes after a student who had hung an Israeli flag found it cut in half.

Associate Dean of Students and Dean of Campus Life Josh Eisenberg initially called for an end to the vandalism in an email to Oldenborg residents on March 1.

“[Students] have gone back and forth adding Israel to the map, or coloring over it, or adding Palestine,” Eisenberg said. “We all are aware of the longstanding conflict in that region of the world. Vandalizing a map is not the form of expression we espouse in our campus community.”

Pomona’s Dean of Students Avis Hinkson confirmed with TSL that student feedback will be taken into account in deciding what to replace the map with.

“Although we have not yet determined a process for doing so, we hope to get a clear picture of the Oldenborg community’s thoughts regarding next steps before a final decision is made,” Hinkson said via email.

President Starr echoed Eisenberg’s frustration and condemned rising antisemitic vandalism on campus in her email on March 27.

“Criticism of all nations is protected by the U.S. Constitution, and debate over global issues is welcome on our campus. Destructive acts are not,” Starr said.

Starr also laid out Pomona’s plan for addressing antisemitism on campus in three categories: education, community and dialogue.

According to Hinkson, in alignment with the education section of Starr’s plan, Oona Eisenstadt,

Fred Krinsky professor of Jewish studies and professor of religious studies, will offer a voluntary teach-in to the community within the upcoming two and a half weeks in which she hopes to “clarify some things about the nature and history of antisemitism.”

Jews can feel distress or anger or fear when they experience antisemitism or when they hear about it,” Eisenstadt said. “If other students reach out to them and sympathize with them, check-in and ask if they’re okay, that will really go a long way towards creating a better climate on campus.”

Starr highlighted continuing the practice of restorative justice circles as an example of necessary community effort to quell antisemitism on campus.

Dean Hinkson elaborated on last month’s restorative justice circle event held at Oldenborg and hoped it may provide guidance on more community events to support students moving forward.

“Five students, two administrators and two facilitators attended the restorative justice circle

hosted on the evening of Monday, March 6, in Oldenborg Hall,” Hinkson told TSL via email. “Together, the attendees brainstormed how to address and repair the harms/hurts experienced by the events in Oldenborg.”

Starr also outlined a plan to increase dialogue through a collaboration with the Sustained Dialogue Institute (SDI) and provide a platform for those interested in a conversation about how antisemitism impacts individuals and communities.

The SDI promotes “an intentional, patented, and replicable peace process used to improve challenging relationships and come to action in intergroup conflicts,” according to their website.

The Pomona administration has planned to incorporate the SDI’s methods for more effective conversations about anti-hate dialogue and restorative justice in future first-year orientations.

On March 30, ASCMC also released a statement condemning the recent acts of antisemitism, stating that it “stands by the Jewish community and condemns all

acts of racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination against members of the student body.” In response, ASCMC created a Special Committee on Antisemitism and the Jewish Community and will pursue creating a 5C Interfaith Working Group.

Jewish Chaplain and Rabbi Hannah Elkin expressed hope for Pomona’s plan to address antisemitism on campus.

“I think this is a dynamic, multi-faceted approach that will hopefully do a lot of good for the Jewish community at Claremont,” said Elkin. “President Starr has been an amazing partner to and supporter of the Jewish community.”

Elkin emphasized the importance of supporting Jewish peers and educating oneself on antisemitism and its impact on the Jewish community.

“Combating antisemitism means not only calling out and addressing what seems obvious to you but also being willing to listen when Jews explain what they find to be harmful,” Elkin said.

the youth can work on –– just pick one and do it, because we’re in real trouble,” Zaugh said.

One of those youth, Isadora Crane, an admitted student to Pitzer’s Class of 2027, resonated with this idea of individual action.

“I thought [the film] was really impactful, especially with so much going on today,” Crane said. “There’s so many things that you can work on because there is so much that needs to be improved in this country.”

STATUE: SAG has removal success

Continued from page 1

“I think it’s extremely important to show that meaning,” Brauneis said of acknowledging the relationship German National art had with Nazism. “I think it’s always important if you do it with art from National Socialism, not only to show the art for national socialism, but also to show and to explain what has not been shown. I think contextualization is extremely necessary … But at the same time, it’s really difficult because I mean, it’s the art of the Germans, it’s part of German art history.”

The talk was followed by a Q&A, where audience members asked Brauneis about his thoughts on statues such as “Young Woman” being displayed in public-private settings such as TFH.

“When we’re talking about antisemitism, it’s everywhere,” Bruneis said as a response to an audience member’s question. “So you can’t see it directly, maybe, but it’s everywhere. And that’s why I think it’s important to explain [the context of the statue]. But I, of course, understand that you don’t want to be around a sculpture like that because it represents that system.”

SAG also organized a tabling event to occur in tandem with the talk and Q&A. At the event, members of the community made watercolor paintings.

Students involved in discussions over the statue’s role on campus said they hoped the Wednesday talk would ignite further discussions and actions regarding “Young Woman”’s impact on Scripps.

Dunkin said the event was a way “to create the future we want to see at our school.”

Maxon shared that she hopes the conversation surrounding the Kolbe statue to serve as a starting point for greater actions combating antisemitism, citing “access to consistent kosher food, on-campus religious spaces and services, accommodations for holidays and being included in minority spaces” as key elements to empowering Jewish students.

“While I have done work to get this statue taken down, it is not the biggest issue facing Jewish students at Scripps or the wider 5Cs,” Maxon said. “Taking the statue down is important, but should not be the only step taken to fully support Jewish students on campus.”

LUCIA STEIN

together. And we breathed together for years and we put an end to the draft.

ASPC releases election results, names next round of officeholders

At 12:47 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6, voting closed for Pomona College’s 2023 ASPC elections. The winners were announced via email shortly after, announcing Pomona’s student body leaders for the upcoming 2023-2024 academic year.

Current ASPC President Vera Berger PO ‘23 said the new student body will bring a combination of fresh and experienced approaches.

“I’m excited that there’s a mix of students who are new and returning to Senate, so we can have some continuity for longterm projects and bring fresh perspectives to ASPC,” she told TSL via email.

Nathan Flores PO ‘26 is the new commissioner of equity and inclusion, and welcomes the chance to foster a community that becomes a “force of change” at Pomona.

“We are at a point in Pomona’s history where we can truly accelerate institutional change,” Flores told TSL via email. “I am also especially grateful to my opponents in the election because they both had incredible platforms that I hope to integrate into my visions for the year.“

Shoshi Henderson PO ‘25 won the race for ASPC’s next athletics commissioner, and shares Flores’ desire to center the community during her tenure with ASPC.

“My greatest goal for my new role is to represent all students and athletes to continue making the athletic community fun, inclusive and engaging,” she told TSL via email.

In addition to officeholder decisions, every Constitution

change on the ballot was ratified.

According to the email, these include:

The standardization of [the] proportion of votes needed for various initiatives to pass.

Limiting the committees of the Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) to three.

Allowing North and South Campus Representatives to co-chair the Residence Hall Committee and Food Committee.

PROTEST: Students block entrances to McConnell

Minute changes in the Constitution’s grammar, office and position titles.

Berger said that limiting the VPAA committees will “allow more students outside of [the] Senate to take part in institutionallevel decision making about academics and allow the VPAA to sit on the committees that align best with their interests or expertise coming into the role.” This year’s election turnout

was 53 percent, or 901 students.

Berger said this is above the mean (895 students) for the last decade, but that the number dropped from last year’s 1,085 voting students.

“Last year’s numbers may have been slightly higher because of the fossil fuel divestment and disclosure items on the ballot,” Berger said. TSL congratulates the winners and wishes them luck!

The results are as follows:

ASPC President — Timi Adelakun

Vice President of Finance — Daysi Manrique

Vice President of Student Affairs

— Precious Omomofe

Vice President of Academic Affairs — Anna Wu

Commissioner of Athletics Shoshi Henderson

Commissioner of Campus Events — Amarachi Aguwa

Commissioner of Equity and Inclusion — Nathan Flores

Commissioner of Facilities and Environment — Selene (Eli) Li

Commissioner of Wellness — Tara Mukund

Senior Class President — Zaid Al Zoubi

Junior Class President — Vidusshi Hingad

Sophomore Class President Alyssa (Amy) Yao

At Large Student on the Trustee Student Affairs Committee — Miriam (Mimi) Anyagafu

At Large Student on the Trustee Finance Committee — Gianna Hutton

At Large Student on the Trustee Educational Quality Committee — Amara Mir

ABROAD: SJP recognizes Palestine Freedom Week

On Thursday, March 30, Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) relaunched their academic boycott campaign to suspend Pitzer College’s direct enrollment study abroad program with the University of Haifa in Israel.

SJP held the relaunch at Pitzer’s Grove House, where over 40 students and community members gathered to listen to a presentation held by club organizers. The event, which was announced on the club’s Instagram page, is part of a series of festivities SJP organized as part of Palestine Freedom Weeks.

The boycott campaign announced last Thursday models after its iteration in the 2018-2019 school year, when SJP addressed grievances with the Haifa program and called upon its conditional suspension based on their demands. The call to suspend the program based on Israel’s discrimination and its subsequent Pitzer College Council motion was a source of tension and controversy between students, faculty and Pitzer’s then-administration.

Continued from page 1

ployment.

“The most pressing thing at Pitzer right now is to end subcontracting,” Roc said. “I’m willing to fight tooth and nail with my peers [and] with the workers to do that.”

CSWA held its first boycott at McConnell on Friday, March 24, where the three former employees were in attendance. A day before the boycott was set to commence, Pitzer President Jill Klein sent an email to students addressing CSWA’s advocacy.

“Social justice and activism represent a long and cherished element of Pitzer’s culture and community — and nowhere is this more true than in the recent advocacy by … the Claremont Student Worker Alliance,” Klein said in the email. “We contacted BAMCO for information about these employees and have been informed that BAMCO has reached out to them to offer new employment options.”

CSWA member Elena Hockensmith PZ ’24 confirmed that their organization has been in frequent contact with the three workers, who say they have not received any employment offers from BAMCO or Pitzer.

Other students like CSWA member Nick Lin PZ ’24 saw the email as damage control for the administration, more so than meeting the expressed needs and demands of the students or employees.

“It’s pretty obvious that they’re trying to boycott our movement to make it look better for them,” Lin said. “In Jill’s initial email she was like, ‘we want to thank CSWA, it’s people like CSWA that make our school what it is,’ when everything they were doing functionally has been to suppress this.” Klein has maintained that the Pitzer administration has chosen to remain neutral on unioniza-

tion and has denied any involvement from Pitzer in the three workers’ discharge. She did not respond to TSL for further comment on Tuesday’s boycott at McConnell.

Students that organized and attended the McConnell boycott like CSWA member Jacob Neville PZ ’23 have not been convinced that Pitzer can be absolved of blame. Instead, he explained that the firings are symptomatic of a broader issue for Pitzer and their failure to provide living wages and benefits in the long run.

“I’ve always been very proud of [Pitzer] and proud of its core values,” Neville said. “[Pitzer’s refusal to support the workers] really shattered my idea of what it means to be a progressive institution. Even if you say you’re a progressive institution, you’re still a for-profit corporation that’s going to engage in labor exploitation.”

CSWA member Jessica Shen-Wachter SC ’24 added that their organization will remain steadfast on their demands to rehire Smith, Ongpoy and Ayala. If Pitzer fails to do so, she explained that Tuesday’s boycott will not be the last of their demonstrations.

“It’s really important that as a community we make it known that this is completely unacceptable,” Shen-Wachter said. “[BAMCO and Pitzer] cannot force workers out of the bargaining unit for being pro-union. We will continue to escalate. We are going to continue to put pressure on [Pitzer] in unexpected ways for them [and] at unexpected times.”

In their campaign statement published last Thursday, SJP emphasized the University of Haifa’s systematic discrimination against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students. Most Palestinian students are barred from entry into the program, which they said undermines Pitzer’s commitment to academic freedom.

“Because of the violence and discrimination faced by Palestinians at the University of Haifa and in occupied Palestine, we believe that no student should study abroad at a university operating on occupied land — especially considering that many Palestinian students cannot attend this program,” SJP said in their statement.

Currently, SJP’s demands include that the program be suspended until “the Israeli state ends its restrictions on entry to Israel based on ancestry and/or political speech and the Israeli state adopts policies granting visas for exchanges to Palestinian universities on a fully equal basis as it does to Israeli universities,” SJP said in their campaign statement. If they were to suspend the Haifa program, Pitzer would become the first institution nationally to endorse the academic boycott, according to SJP.

“It’s important for us to target the institutions that we’re currently at and ask ourselves, ‘how does our current institution further perpetuate Israeli violence and Israeli apartheid?’” SJP organizer Miriam Farah CM ‘23 told TSL.

In 2019, the Pitzer College Council, which is composed of students, faculty and staff, voted 67 to 28 in favor of conditionally suspending the program, following more than a year of organizing. Pitzer became the first higher education institution to pass such a motion. However, former Pitzer President Melvin Oliver vetoed the vote less than three hours after it occurred, citing the political nature that would be implicated in

the suspension, stating that “[i]t is rarely, if ever, the role of the college to be taking such positions” in a press release.

Oliver has since retired from his role as president and Strom Thacker is set to take on his role this July. Farah added that with this new campaign, SJP hopes to make the feelings of the Pitzer community clear to Thacker.

“It’s very important for us to consider these shifting dynamics of concern and how students and faculty can have an active role in the new president’s agenda,” Farah said.

The campaign is part of a wider trend advocating for Palestinian liberation internationally, namely the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that was adopted by the National Students for Justice in Palestine in 2005.

SJP cited the wave of support in academia, including the Middle East Studies Association vote to endorse the Palestinian call for BDS on March 23, 2022. However, SJP organizers like Anna Babboni SC ‘24 hope that the 5C community becomes more engaged in such conversations about BDS on campus..

“There’s been some loss of momentum about taking up BDS on these campuses, so even just talking about the academic boycott [...] is a huge way to create a domino effect on our campuses to get people interested and committed to Palestinian liberation and freedom,” Babboni said.

Pitzer Professor of Anthropology and History Dan Segal is a strong proponent for the Suspend Pitzer Haifa campaign and was previously involved in leading the initial faculty vote in 2018 that catalyzed the College Council motion the following year.

As a person of Jewish background, Segal has been active in Palestinian solidarity work in the United States for decades by showing support for Palestinian freedom and liberation. He said he cannot support Pitzer in facilitating the program.

“We shouldn’t have an exchange relationship with a university, for instance, in which Palestinian students don’t have equal rights at those universities to Jewish students,” Segal said.

Segal also called upon Haifa’s involvement with occupation forces as a reason that Pitzer should not maintain an exchange relationship with the university. In addition, he endorses the BDS movement in providing a nonviolent path for institutions to show that they are unwilling to support the Israeli state.

“When that message gets across, that’s when Israel will come finally to the negotiating table and will negotiate an end to their atrocities [and] their human rights violations,” Segal said.

Segal also called upon the next Pitzer president to act differently than his predecessor.

“We have to count on him [...] not to support the denial of freedom to other people [and] not to support other people living under repression,” Segal said. “If he were to veto a successful suspension of the Pitzer Haifa program and show that he, like Melvin Oliver is a supporter of apartheid, is a supporter of murder-

ous ethnic cleansing, then very clearly he’s unfit to serve.”

The launch of the boycott campaign is part of the Palestinian Freedom Weeks that SJP is currently hosting through March and April. According to Babboni, SJP aims to promote cultural events, conduct political education and advocate for the Claremont community to take up BDS.

On April 2, SJP and the 5C Prison Abolition co-hosted a talk titled “Policing in the US and Palestine.” Around 30 students attended the discussion with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, an organization that builds community power to abolish police surveillance and its deliberate harm toward Black and Brown people.

During the talk, members of the Coalition spoke about abolitionist organizing and the connection between US and Israeli policing and human rights.

Farah said the talk was important in drawing connections between the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Israeli Defense Fund (IDF).

“What I found most interesting was how police organizations and forces in LA have close ties to Zionist and Israeli organizations,” Farah said. “I think oftentimes people forget how much funding the U.S. government gives to Israel, nearly 4 billion [dollars] per year, and most of it goes to military aid, so I think it’s important for us to draw these connections.”

On Tuesday, March 28, SJP also held an Academic Boycott 101 event, along with a history of BDS at the 5Cs. Farah said she sees these events as a way for students from any background to participate in the BDS movement and provide feedback.

The Suspend Pitzer Haifa campaign circulated a petition in support of the demands for the conditional suspension.

“We want to reiterate the point that the Pitzer community voted to suspend this program during the 2018-2019 school year and there is continued support for that resolution,” Farah said.

Babboni emphasized the importance of the petition in guiding SJP’s future actions.

“We want to show that this is a community ask, that this is what the Pitzer community wants,” Babboni said. “We want to pulse check where people are at with how committed they feel to taking up the academic boycott and what the boycott means to them and get the ball rolling for our future campaign strategy.”

Segal called upon the 5C community and administration to show continued support for the campaign and expand throughout the consortium.

“The challenge ought to be to the faculty, students and staff at each of the other colleges which have not ended their exchange relations with Pomona [College], Scripps [College] and [Claremont McKenna College],” Segal said. “Every college and university in this consortium should ask itself, ‘Can they support a program that is bolstering apartheid, a program that denies academic freedom to Palestinians?’”

In an April 4 email to TSL, Assistant Vice President of College Communications Wendy Shattuck told TSL that Pitzer was aware of the campaign but had no further comments at the time.

JAKE CHANG & SAJAH ALI

AVERI SUllIVAN • THE STUDENT lIFE

CSWA’s Taco Tuesday Boycott is one of a series of student organized demonstrations to pressure pitzer administration to support unions.

Conference confronts violence inflicted upon BIPOC psyche

Powering through class with peppermint

wasn’t awake, at least my hands were.

The conference “Thinking Its Presence: Racial Vertigo, BlackBrown Feelings, and Significantly Problematic Objects” was held at Pomona College from March 30 through April 2. Presenters used interdisciplinary approaches such as poetics, film and archival studies to explicate the reverberations of trauma and racial vertigo, critical race theory and social justice.

A vast conglomeration of distinguished academics, authors and 5C students attended and presented in the conference’s 40-plus events, including panels, performance workshops, screenings and readings.

Pomona English professor Prageeta Sharma founded the conference series “Thinking Its Presence: Race, Creative Writing, and Literary Studies” in 2014.

“The conference came [from] my desire to bring the lenses of reading and thinking together and to celebrate BIPOC scholars by making them primary,” Sharma said.

The conference series was named after the eponymous book by Williams American Studies professor Dorothy Wang. Advocating for a method of poetry reading that mirrors the kaleidoscopic complexities of existence, Wang argues that aesthetic forms and social contexts are inseparable.

The late cultural theorist Lauren Berlant described cruel optimism as a condition in which “something you desire is actually an obstacle to your own flourishing.” The object, e.g. institution, ideal, fantasy, becomes “significantly problematic,” promising harm regardless of whether the subject stays attached or disconnects from the problematic object. Yet this profound damage can be a means for equally impactful healing. Pomona English and Africana studies professor Valorie Thomas terms this phenomena racial vertigo.

“I took a couple of themes of people I admire and I brought them into conversation,” Sharma said. “I wanted to celebrate the thinking around me and build a thesis statement to keep community happening, [in the hopes that] people come with what they have to bring.”

Dr. James Lee, UC Irvine Asian American Studies professor, spoke in a panel titled “If Care Were the First Learning Objective.” Lee discussed how cruel optimism manifests itself as harmful rhetoric in the form of predictive outcomes, such as the notions of the model minority and the American Dream. He also discussed how institutions harm disabled and chronically ill individuals.

Sam Pedley PO ‘23 valued the conversational structures of many

of the panels. “I’ve learned so much, not as a teacher to student [dynamic], but rather teaching as sharing and being human,” Pedley said.

Beyond the reimagining of pedagogies and institutions, in “Writing Mourning,” a tribute to Black and brown luminaries Urvashi Vaid, bell hooks and Kamilah Aisha Moon, speakers used postcolonial theory to reconceptualize death as a dynamic condition, illuminating the concepts of social and spiritual death.

Education and healing were not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, many events bridged the personal and theoretical in some fashion.

Nurlan Gnadinger PZ ’26 appreciated the reflective aspects.

“Genetically, I’m Asian, but I’ve spent my entire life in Idaho, which is like 95 percent white. So I feel weirder in a group of Asians than in a group of white people, but I’ve never actually considered delving into that and how that might have affected me,” Gnadinger said. “This conference opened my eyes to people processing what vertigo is, and I had not even paused to consider it.”

Drawing inspiration from Santería, an African diasporic religion, and the ideas of Black queer feminist icon Audre Lorde, Nigerian-American writer Hannah Eko led the closing ceremony. She conceived of racial vertigo as “unmetabolized trauma,” and told the audience to courageously enter the vertigo, with the aid of spiritual grounding and pleasure, in order to access the source of emotions, robbed by vertigo.

For Shreya Kamra PO ‘23, Eko’s ideas aligned with her academic pursuits.

“The talk with Eko was really similar to my senior thesis project. I’m looking at how neuroscience can be leveraged for self empowerment,” Kamra said. “Some of the practices that Eko mentioned about grounding and somatic healing … are definitely helpful in managing other mental health experiences.”

Throughout the conference, aesthetic approaches and reflections of lived experience did not function as mere crutches for theoretical inquiry. Rather, theoretical inquiry embedded itself into the presenters’ art and speech.

“I hope that we as speakers and faculty have shared what students might need to talk about,” Sharma said. “It might be a seed of something that [one] experiences in [one’s] own sociality.”

I’ve always loved peppermint — some of my fondest winter memories include sipping peppermint hot cocoa with friends by a fireplace, collecting candy canes from family and friends and buying boxes upon boxes of Peppermint Joe Joe cookies when Trader Joe’s holiday season starts. Now, however, my fondness for peppermint extends beyond the holiday season: It is the perfect pick-me-up all year round.

This semester, I’m taking two once-a-week seminar classes. Because I’m trying to cut down my coffee intake — see an earlier column), I’ve been searching for other ways to give me the energy needed to make it through class. My friends kindly suggested I try Yerba Mate or Arizona Green Tea, but interestingly enough, I’ve found that the perfect afternoon pickme-up is neither caffeinated nor a beverage. Rather, it is a red-and-white striped candy sitting humbly at the entrance of Frary Dining Hall.

The first few weeks of spring semester, I remember going to Bilingual Cognition and Translation in the 21st Century and crashing precisely at the 3 p.m. mark –– I’m a morning person and I much rather prefer morning classes. It pained me because the content — bilingual language processing and the concept of the “mythical English reader” — was interesting. As I stared at my laptop, however, and “took notes,” my eyelids felt heavy. I would type whatever I could make of the professor’s words to stimulate my fingers. Even if my mind

Then one day, as I was leaving Frary, my eyes fell to a container brimming with peppermint candies. “Maybe these will help me stay awake,” I thought to myself. I grabbed a couple and tucked them into my trusty yellow fanny pack.

I made my way to Pitzer College that afternoon for my translation class, and the moment I felt my eyes drooping, I quietly unwrapped a peppermint and popped it in my mouth. Immediately, the sugar and bright aroma of peppermint woke me up. My eyelids no longer felt heavy, and even after the candy dissolved on my tongue, I remained alert through the end of class.

Leaving class that day, I momentarily felt like I unlocked a mini secret: a simple peppermint can prevent my mid-afternoon crashes. However, looking at the remaining mint in my bag, I was suddenly reminded of my middle school days when my teachers would pass out mints during standardized testing. “Eat it when you feel tired or nervous,” I remember one of my teachers saying. “You guys got this.”

Thinking back to this moment, I smiled. I remembered how my seventh-grade self would sleepily pop a mint in my mouth during standardized testing, trying to focus on the fraction problems in front of me, and now I was doing the same but as a college student discussing the politics of hyphenated identities. I realized that these candies are reliable pick-me-ups, regardless of if I am 12 or 21.

Since that day in my translation class, I’ve been grabbing a mint every time I leave the din-

ing hall — the front pocket of my fanny pack is full of mints now. There are some days when, surprisingly, I don’t need one; I guess having two of these long seminars every week has trained me to allocate more energy to the afternoon. But there are also days when I find myself drifting again, and in those moments, I know just the thing that will wake me up.

Post-spring break and with the end of the semester on the horizon, I know that people are tired. Every time I talk with friends and ask how people are doing, “tired” is perhaps the most common response, among a smattering of other adjectives.

I know that there are a plethora of caffeinated beverages to choose from on the campuses to keep our energy up, and I still love my coffee, but perhaps the next time you leave the dining hall, consider grabbing a mint. It surprised me just how much a modest mint could keep me awake as soon as it hit my tongue when, just moments before, all I wanted to do was sleep.

Growing up, I always heard the phrase “food is fuel,” but I never associated it with candy. It’s a nostalgic reminder of how I’m growing up — how I’m wise enough now not to exploit the temporary energy boost candy gives but to pop a mint in my mouth strategically when I just need something small to stay focused. Who knows, peppermint may be just the fuel you, too, need to power through the rest of the semester. And just like my teacher in middle school said, you got this.

Emily Kim PO ’25 is from Irvine, California. She is not vegan but considers the vegan brownies at Frary to be top-tier.

Beware ye that are fearful, JP e GMAFIA and Danny Brown’s new album is ‘ s caring the Hoes’

GERRIT PUNT

Sometimes I want an album to envelop me like a warm hug, but the more I listen to music, the more I find myself wishing I could fill a syringe with concentrated noise and inject it straight into my amygdala. “Scaring the Hoes” satisfies the latter urge and then some.

“First off, fuck Elon Musk / Eight dollars too much, that shit’s expensive.”

If the glitchy, pitched up P. Diddy sample grabbed my attention, then the opening bars (seen above) put it into a chokehold. The first 12-ish seconds of “Lean Beef Patty,” the first track on JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown’s new joint album, promises the exact kind of irreverent, ever-so-slightly abrasive joyride I’d hoped for from a collaboration like this. I’m happy to say that it delivers.

As two of the preeminent oddballs in the hip hop sphere, JPEGMAFIA –– the kids call him Peggy –– and Brown go together like peanut butter and jelly, that is, if peanut butter layed down twitchy, genre-bending, glitch-hop beats and jelly had a creaky voice like a cartoon gargoyle.

“Scaring the Hoes” is short and consistent, but it fits a lot of diversity in its 14-song long track list. Peggy’s production pulls sounds from all over. Kellis’s “Milkshake” gets remixed into tongue-and-cheek oblivion on “Fentanyl Tester,” while a chorus of cheerful singing children from

a 1980s Japanese meat packing commercial forms the lurching beat of “Garbage Pale Kids.”

From the epic orchestral arrangements on “Burfict!” to the soulful autotuned stylings of “Jack Harlow Combo Meal,” Peggy and Brown cover a lot of sonic ground, but it all feels held together by a unifying sense of unflinching, uncompromising confidence.

The actual rapping delivers too. JPEGMAFIA’s flows are as pointed as his lyrics, while Brown cuts through the album’s dense, discordant instrumentals with his esoteric cadence and unmistakable nasal squawk. The rappers play off each other really well, flipping back and forth in a chaotic but calculated dance. If Peggy is the Dr. Jekyll, Brown is the Mr. Hyde, except in this case, both of them are a little out of their minds.

Peggy and Brown are clever wordsmiths, but they know not to take themselves too seriously. The pair weave bombastic rap personas with a healthy dose of self-awareness, delivering playful internet-age bars that would be exceedingly corny if they were delivered by someone lacking a fraction of the duo’s effortless charisma.

“Scaring the Hoes” touches on all kinds of topics, but, unlike the Cranberries, it doesn’t ever linger

and

pot shots at politicians and name drop everyone from Danity Kane to the Iron Sheik. It’s a dense, hectic and unrelenting record, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

Throughout the entirety of the album, there is one sentiment that sticks out strikingly amongst the helter-skelter: This pair has enough collective talent to make whatever kind of album they want to, and they really, really wanted to make this one.

This is articulated on the al -

bum’s title track. “Scaring the Hoes,” with its bawdy handclap rhythm and eerie, squealing saxophone, acknowledges that this isn’t the kind of song you can throw on at a party, at least, not without catching a few odd looks.

The “we’re not like other rappers” attitude is exhausting coming from most artists, but Peggy and Brown keep it self aware. There’s no defensiveness, no chip on their shoulder. These two aren’t concerned with who

likes this record and who doesn’t because they already know it’s absolutely killer.

It’s a remarkably self-assured little record, and a well earned payoff for two careers that have always been a little off the beaten path. JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown have been doing things their way for years, and though it’s evident that they both have the talent required to make something with a bit more mass appeal, they’ve stuck to their guns and been greatly rewarded for it.

It’s mischievous, it’s maximalist and, at times, it’s a little incoherent. “Scaring the Hoes” is an album made for the people who made it, and anyone else’s enjoyment is purely collateral. It’s also absolutely fantastic.

Peggy and Brown’s uncompromised authenticity is admirable. It takes a lot of talent to make a meat packing commercial sound this good, but the results are well worth it.

For all the artists making the music you feel like you’re supposed to, try taking a page of this pair’s book.

And, for the up-and-comers making weirdo shit that you aren’t sure anybody is going to like, I hope this album implores you: keep doing what you’re doing.

Gerrit Punt PO ’24 now feels inspired to make a rap album of his own. If you see him around, you should suggest a cool rap name. Then you should leave him alone. He’s a very busy man.

EMILY KIM

MAYA ZHAN

COUrTESY: MAriE-JEANNE FETHiErE

A vast conglomeration of distinguished academics, authors and 5C students attended and presented in the conference’s 40-plus events.

boygenius’ ‘The Record’ is a testament to the love the group members shares

ABBIE BOBECK

A supergroup of three outstanding female solo artists, who are all best friends, is pretty rare. If boygenius hadn’t already proved their ability to make killer music with their self-titled EP in 2018, they certainly have now. “The Record” –– their perfectly titled, first fullfledged album –– is a testament to the indie-rock genius of each member. Consisting of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, boygenius is a band that brings songwriting and collaboration to a whole new level.

The three lead singles were each written separately: Baker’s “$20,” Bridgers’ “Emily I’m Sorry,” and Dacus’ “True Blue.” Each single tells a personal narrative from each group member’s perspective. With the release of three distinctly different singles prior to their album release, it was hard to decipher what this meant for the level of collaboration to expect on the record.

Listening to “The Record” makes it apparent that what changed for the group since 2018 is two key elements: collaboration and friendship. The recording for their six-track EP took place over four quick days. However, for “The Record,” the group members — also known as “the boys” — sent each other lyrics and voice recordings. Dacus then compiled a Google Drive to organize their ideas over the span of two years. The boys spent a month recording their masterpiece in Malibu, California, and spent every second — 10 hours of recording each day, to be specific — of it working together.

Once I pressed play on “The Record”’s first track “Without You Without Them,” I knew the album was a testament to the love one can only share with a best friend. The hauntingly beautiful isolated vocals of the boys throughout this song reach deep into the hearts of listeners. The song is guided by the question “Who would I be without you, without them?” in reference to the intricacies that make someone unique. This delicate opening track sets the theme of love and intimacy into action. The boys gently sing, “I want you to hear my story and be a part of it” as we start the journey through the album.

“Cool About It” is exactly as its title claims, a chill, folksy song led by Baker’s calm tone. The song’s message is all too relatable: wanting to remain cool in a heated sit-

uation with a partner. Bridgers’ verse uses the example of taking a partner’s medicine to get inside their brain. At the same time, she admits she’d rather pretend that she can’t tell her partner is lying. This reflects a lyric from Baker’s chorus, “Wishin’ you were kind enough to be cruel about it,” which guides the theme of desiring transparency in relationships.

“Not Strong Enough” was the fourth single released and the most upbeat track on the album. The catchy beat and Bridger’s enchanting vocals make it impossible not to sway along. The song addresses the tendency to not feel capable of being in a stable relationship. At the core of the lyrics is the idea that everything that’s wrong with ourselves is a reason why we aren’t good enough for someone else. In their Rolling Stone cover story, Bridgers explained “Self-hatred is a god complex sometimes.” On the track, each boy seems to interpret this concept on their own verses, coming together for an impactful bridge, chanting: “Always an angel, never a god.” This refrain

touches on a larger idea –– one that is central to the band’s identity and name –– that men are placed on a pedestal for doing the bare minimum and women are reduced to shallow standards.

boygenius is a band that brings songwriting and collaboration to a whole new level. hilism. However, the boys flip the switch of these concepts by questioning if anything matters in a world that is, frankly, shit. Furthermore, their rebellious lines all lead with a question: Will you be this with me? At the root of their defiant beliefs is the desire to be together and to share their experiences with someone that matters.

“Leonard Cohen” is another example of boygenius being right on the nose. This one might be my favorite if it weren’t so damn short. Although disguised as a song about Leonard Cohen’s horny but thoughtful poetry, at its very core this song is about the friendship the three band members share. The song was inspired by a group drive into Los Angeles, where Bridgers wanted to share a song with her friends and accidentally missed the exit. The second verse might be the best reflection of boygenius yet, with quip remarks honoring an inspiration –– who also deserves to be lightly roasted.

“Satanist” is the album’s angsty track that compliments the individuality of each band member and gets extra points for adding more samples of Bridgers screaming. All the boys share their own form of rebellion: Baker’s satanism, Bridgers’ anarchism and Dacus’ ni-

Next, “We’re In Love” is an open love letter from Dacus to her bandmates. Oftentimes we expect friendships to last forever without taking the time to understand that, like romantic relationships, these connections are fragile and deserve care. The track is breathtakingly vulnerable and is an open dialogue about how important platonic relationships are for our souls.

When “Letter To An Old Poet” begins fans will immediately recognize it because it interpolates the band’s 2018 hit “Me & My Dog,” a gut-wrenching breakup track. On “Letter To An Old Poet” Bridgers has transitioned into the healing stages of the relationship, prov-

en by the choice of the word “happy” for the bridge. Bridgers noted on the Pitchfork podcast that she wanted to do the “emaciated” line from “Me & My Dog,” but change it to something more satisfying, which is when Dacus recommended “happy”. With Dacus and Baker’s lyrical and emotional support, Bridgers is able to grow from her experiences and make growth in her lyricism as well.

The level of collaboration and teamwork on “The Record” is evident throughout the songs, which all showcase the relationships the boys share. Not only does the album prove that boygenius isn’t going anywhere, but it shows that their friendship is one of a kind. Taking the time to understand the writing and message of the album is a vulnerable experience not only for its creators but for fans as well. At its core, the album is all about the importance of loving your friends, openly and intimately.

Abbie Bobeck SC ’26 is from Washington, DC. She loves spring in Claremont, pool days and when boygenius tours in Pomona.

Pitzer community celebrates ties to César Chávez at annual breakfast

JO KEYSER

On March 31, hundreds of students, workers and other adults gathered at an off-campus conference center for the 19th annual César Chávez Day Breakfast.

Hosted by the Latino & Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley, the event paid tribute to the legacy of the labor and civil rights giant by honoring community organizations and individuals who have exemplified the Roundtable’s mission “to improve the quality of life and socio-economic justice of the Latinx community and those facing inequities.” Among the morning’s awardees were Pitzer College workers fighting to unionize and Pitzer students in the college’s Student Worker Alliance supporting the drive.

José Calderón, emeritus professor of sociology and Chicano/a Latino/a Studies at Pitzer and the Roundtable’s president, explained the event’s mission to celebrate and commemorate those fighting for civil rights.

“It’s to celebrate all those … who have used their lives like César Chávez to fight for worker rights, immigrant rights, quality of life [or] the environment,” Calderón said. “It brings people of all nationalities and sexualities together to remember this day in terms of how we can use our lives to organize and change the problems which affect our community.”

The breakfast is also one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for the Roundtable, which has been serving communities in and around the city of Pomona for nearly two decades. The celebration predates former President Barack Obama’s designation of March 31 as César Chávez Day, a U.S. federal commemorative holiday, in 2014. The 5Cs recognized the holiday last Friday, suspending all classes for the day.

Although not officially a 5C event, Pitzer workers, students and faculty who attended felt an especial significance in this year’s program, given the ongoing battle at the college where recently unionized members have filed multiple Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) claims against Pitzer College and Bon Appétit Management Company (BAMCO).

Many of the students honored at the event were students of

Calderón, studying labor organizing in his class. Chávez — the Mexican-American trailblazer who improved pay and working conditions for farmers through strikes, boycotts and collective action, which eventually led to the formation of the United Farm Workers — was a huge inspiration for Calderón who worked to bring his experiences home to students.

“When I graduated from college, I traveled to Delano to work with [and meet] César,” he recalled, referring to the town roughly three hours north of Claremont where Chávez fought some of his earliest battles. “When I started teaching at Pitzer, I wondered if I could create a class that would make them feel the way I felt.”

Over time, Calderon created opportunities for students to get involved with others fighting for labor rights in California.

“For 29 years, we’ve taken students to live and work with the farmworkers during their spring

break in La Paz and Delano, California, and from that has come a force of students,” he said. “That’s how we’ve involved students and helped them understand that what you’re learning in the classroom can really be put to work to change the conditions in our communities.”

Workers on campus also described how they’ve learned from each other.

“I got involved because I got to know my coworkers,” said Tony Hoang, a Pitzer groundskeeper and union organizer who spoke at the event. “We’re here today because we fought for each other. It’s that simple. When you find out there’s injustice, what you do is stand up for each other.”

In recent weeks, the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) has been fighting on behalf of three former subcontracted dining workers who were fired for expressing union support. Student speakers at the event touched on

this ongoing struggle and CSWA’s continued activism.

“I want to acknowledge the fact that this union has been won several times in spite of the rhetoric and anti-union campaign that Pitzer has been running for a long time,” Francisco Villaseñor PO ’25 said. “Last week we had students conduct a boycott of Pitzer dining hall services. We had less than 20 people cross the picket line all day. We shut the dining services down for the entire day. That is organized.”

But, he emphasized, “the fight at Pitzer is not over.”

Students who attended the event also found inspiration in the stories of other honorees. They included the National TPS Alliance, which advocates on behalf of migrants to the United States who can’t return to their home countries safely and rely on Temporary Protected Status, a program that enables them to remain legally in the United States

on a temporary basis. They also discussed the Lopez Urban Farm, which brings businesses, local nonprofits and university students and faculty together to create a working urban farm on a three acre plot in the city of Pomona.

At the breakfast, attendees participated in “the farmer’s clap,” a rousing cheer, and referred to each other as “brothers and sisters,” a traditional union greeting conjuring up the solidarity of labor and the early days of the United Farm Workers. As Lisa Nashua, a trustee of the Pomona Unified School District, noted, Calderón has been crucial to building up this community “I went to Claremont McKenna [College]. My husband worked for 10-15 years at Pitzer, so we got to know Dr. Calderon many years ago,” Nashua said. “Him reminding people about equity years and years ahead of his time was so critical. I think this event speaks to the need to recognize all different members of our constituencies.”

COUrTESY: BriAN GAllAGHEr

Consisting of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and l ucy Dacus,

COUrTESY: lOS ANGElES TiMES ViA WiK MEDiA COMMONS

In celebration of César Chávez Day, faculty and students joined forces to reflect on Chávez’s legacy and enjoy a meal together.

BEllA PETTENGill • THE STUDENT liFE

So You Want to Dress: Bimbo

“Bimbo?! I don’t think you can use that word …” my straight, male friend insisted when I told him about my intention to write this article. For him, the connotations of the word “bimbo” are degrading and offensive towards women and should not be used by a straight man. And to some extent, he’s right; “bimbo” is not a word that straight men should be throwing around, but to me, the connotations of “bimbo” are totally different.

Over the past couple of decades, “bimbo” has been used to oppress and degrade women, as the word connotes a woman who is attractive but unintelligent, naive and sexually provocative. This stereotype mimics the one of a dumb blonde, which has also been used to put down women and discredit their voices and opinions. We have all seen stereotypical portrayals of a “bimbo” on TV or movies from the 2000s, and those scenes are uncomfortable to watch because of how dehumanizing and objectifying they are towards the bimbo character.

So how could I possibly have a positive perception and association of the word “bimbo?” Well, over the past couple of years, with the return of early 2000s fashion and the McBling aesthetic, bimbo fashion has been reclaimed and its 2000s stereotype rebelled against. People of all genders across the globe are now participating in the bimbo fashion trend and taking back the word and making it into an empowering and uplifting label for all.

To me, a bimbo is someone who is in touch with their femininity and who doesn’t conform to the binary stereotypes of gender. A bimbo is someone who is comfortable in their sexuality and is not afraid to express it. A bimbo is someone who fights for inclusivity and actively fights against homophobia, racism and sexism. A bimbo is someone who finds power and confidence in dressing in a hyperfeminine way. A bimbo is someone who doesn’t judge other people based on how they present themselves. Most importantly, a bimbo is a powerful, independent and confident individual.

And don’t forget –– anyone can be a bimbo, not just women. Although the bimbo style is rooted in hyperfemininity, it is not exclusive to any gender. Anyone can tap into their feminine side and express what femininity means to them.

The perfect way to reform the

untrue stereotypes around the label “bimbo” is through fashion. By going all out and making a statement by fully embracing the stereotypical bimbo look, bimbo enthusiasts across the world are saying: “You can put these labels on me because of how I look, but that won’t stop me from dressing the way I want.” This way, bimbos are making a mockery out of those who perpetuate the offensive stereotype while letting them know that their words cannot hurt or change them.

So, if all that sounds like something that you want to emulate in your sense of style, keep reading to find out how to enter your own “bimbofication.”

The most important bimbo style tip that I can give you is this: On all days of the week, we wear pink. And if you want to add some edge to your bimbo fit, pairing pink with black is always the move. With your outfit, it’s all about

different materials, silhouettes and textures. Play around with faux fur, satin, PVC, latex and denim. If you’re looking for an easy outfit that never misses, grab a baby tee with glitter lettering and pair it with the tiniest miniskirt you’ve got, and you are runway ready. Ah, rhinestones and shiny jewels, what would we do without you? You want to wear so much bling that you can be seen from outer space –– bangles, lettered chokers, belts, rings, you name it. And don’t forget to grab your most impractical tiny pink purse, and never leave the house without your largest pair of hoop earrings. Shoes aren’t made for comfort, they’re made for asserting your presence and dominance –– so it’s time to bring out those six-inch heels and platforms. Whether you’re going for stilettos or a platform boot, make sure

that they are made with some sort of interesting material. How about a pair of transparent heels?

Or ones decorated with faux fur?

Or ones with charms and chains around them?

A bimbo always has a fresh set of nails, topped with the most extravagant 3D charms, nail stickers and designs. And as for the makeup, you could either go for a dark smokey eye with pink lip gloss or just a pair of lashes and a sparkly gloss. Just make sure you don’t forget to slap on that blinding highlight on all the high points of the face, and you’re ready to shine.

Now, you do not need to have platinum blonde, bleached hair for the bimbo look –– any color will do. All we need to do is add length so that you can perfect your sassy hair flip. Grab those trusty hair extensions or a wig to achieve that look. I have recently invested in black and white extensions and, let me tell you, it’s one of my favorite

looks that I’ve tried.

The most important takeaway that I want to convey in this article is that clothes do not define a person: their intelligence, their sexuality or their gender. We all have a duty to actively dismiss and redefine how we associate these labels with the way that someone dresses. Women have been told how to dress to be taken seriously for far too long, and personally, I am sick and tired of having my intelligence and opinions not taken seriously because I don’t dress business casual for class.

Never let anyone tell you how you should dress, and don’t let untrue, baseless and degrading stereotypes stop you from dressing how you want. And to all the bimbos in hiding, it’s your time to shine.

Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM ‘25 is from Moscow, Russia. She is currently obsessed with pink and black everything, late night solo drives and hanging out at the mall.

Jean Chen Ho reveals behind the scenes work of her bestselling book, ‘Fiona and Jane’

CARTER SOE

“When I was writing ‘Fiona and Jane,’ I felt like each of the stories addressed some kind of concern or question I had,” explained Jean Chen Ho.

Ho was this week’s guest speaker at the Scripps College @ Noon, an interactive series that brings together the Scripps community as well as the consortium to engage with scholars, writers, activists and artists to learn and be inspired.

New York’s bestselling author of the novel “Fiona and Jane,” Jean Chen Ho has made a name for herself in the literature community and has been continuously featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Cut and the LA Times. Ho was nominated as the 2023 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps.

Oprah Winfrey herself described the book as “sparkling and irresistible.” The story of “Fiona and Jane” uncovers the friendship of two Taiwanese-American women who grew up together in Southern California, bonding over the experiences of having immigrant parents, struggling with identity and navigating romantic relationships.

During the one hour talk, Ho read a few excerpts from the book, dove deeper into dominating themes surrounding the two protagonists and answered questions from the audience.

“As I was writing these stories, I thought so much about how the larger social forces exert themselves onto these women in terms of class [and] identity, like the Asian American identity or [first-generation] in Southern

California identity is very close to my own,” Ho said. Ho was originally born in Taiwan. Her family moved to Cerritos, a small city in the greater Los Angeles county in the ’80s, where she spent the rest of her childhood and adulthood. She attended the University of Southern California, where she received her doctoral degree in creative writing and literature and discovered her passion for writing about Asian-American womanhood and identity.

“I grew up around Koreans … as well as several Asian American people even though I didn’t think of that necessarily or subconsciously in high school,” Ho said.

“So even though the part that I read from [the] “Go Slow” chapter, the story of them being teenagers, getting drunk, learning how to drive and going out, sort of emphasizes the idea of testing boundaries of what it means to be a young person, which I am very interested in … it also talks about who I am in terms of ethnic iden -

tity.”

Without trying to spoil too much of the book, Ho also touched on Asian-American identity and how it played a huge part during the process of writing “Fiona and Jane.”

“It’s only in writing these stories that I considered how expansive and complicated the Asian-American identity can be and must be in fiction, I didn’t want to just write about one particular part of Taiwan -

ese-American identity,” she said.

“I didn’t want to focus on a first generation immigrant family … or the trauma that came with it. We need to start telling stories of these experiences and identity as a whole.”

Ho said “everything, so many things” inspires her to keep writing in this field, and she finds inspiration by talking to people and getting that feeling of being alive from them.

“I love to eavesdrop, the way people talk to one another and show their intimacy and history is so interesting to me,” Ho said. “ I have some characters that started out as either a version of someone I know or a composite of people that I know. And through subsequent drafts as I get to know the character, that character is always going to tell me who they are, just like how people always tell you who they are. If you’ve done a good job of knowing that character, that character will speak to you and reveal itself to you. And that’s the magic of fiction.”

Belinda Fang SC ’23 attended this event because she was interested in hearing about what Ho had to say about the book.

“I saw that she was teaching a class here this semester and I wanted to take it but didn’t have space so I thought this would be cool to see what she is working on. I found it very interesting because I’m from nearby and I’m pretty familiar with the town of Cerritos,” Fang said. “It’s inspiring to know that you can write something really specific about your life and there will be at least one person out there who can connect to it, even when you’re not expecting it.

Senior Staff

NiCOlE CEPEDA • THE STUDENT liFE

BEllA PETTENGill • THE STUDENT liFE

Editor’s Note

Less than a week ago, Forbes announced the gender wage gap between men and women’s earnings has remained stagnant for the past 20 years and is not on track to close until 2111. On Monday, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis promised to enact a senate-passed bill that would ban access to abortion pills via telehealth and abortions after six weeks of gestation. By Wednesday Idaho’s Gov. Brad Little outlawed minors from traveling for an out-of-state abortion and Kansas’s Gov. Laura Kelly signed a law that prohibited transgender students from kindergarten through college from playing in girls’ and women’s sports. If the past month is any indication, the war on women and non-binary people is far from over.

In light of the recent uptick in overt misogyny and transphobia, especially amid Women’s History Month in March, TSL felt it crucial to tell more stories to highlight gender equality, women’s progress, and future ambitions of intersectional feminism at the 5Cs and beyond. The stories included in this issue comprise the first collection of stories in a two-part series created by our special project desk to document the triumphs and trials women have faced on our campuses.

While this account is congratulatory of how far women and non-binary members of our community have come, it is doing so with the forethought that misogyny on our campuses still exists and requires an active commitment to dismantling the systems that perpetuate them.

Kaliyah Keïta PO ’24 on advocacy, community at the Women’s Union

Women’s Union Timeline

Walker Hall

The Women’s Union has been permanently housed in Pomona College’s Walker Hall since 1982.

1978

Feminist, women-only group “Feminists Against Repression” (FAR) begins organizing against sexism on campus, working with the Gay Student Union (GSU), later changed to the Lesbian Gay Student Union (LGSU) in 1982

It is our deepest hope that our spread, underscoring the achievements and adversity of 5C women and non-binary students, will contribute to that daily fight to build a community that is compassionate, concerned and celebratory of all genders. 1981

Colleen O’Neil PO ’83 writes a letter to the Pomona College administration regarding the need for a safe space for women

1983

The Women’s Union is established in collaboration with then-Dean of Women Toni Clark and Pomona students

First Women’s Union Thursday Noon Discussion is held

1984

Lesbian Student Union (LSU) begins to hold meetings in the Women’s Union

COUrTESY: HONNOlD-MUDD ArCHiVES

Interconnections

1989

The Re-View, a feminist publication at the Claremont Colleges begins

1990 Re-view staff

COUrTESY: HONNOlD-MUDD ArCHiVES

Fred Sontag urges the Women’s studies department to list his course “The Feminist Critique: The Ad Feminam Argument” in their curriculum

“The Closet,” a.k.a. the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Resource Center (LGBRC) opens in Walker Lounge

The LGBRC officially changed its name to the Queer Resource Center (QRC), also known as “The Center”

1996

The Women’s Union, along with Student Liberation and Action Movement (SLAM), creates the “Call to Action”, intended to address instances of hate speech and intolerance on campus

A chapter of Voices for Planned Parenthood (VOX) is created to raise awareness in the Claremont Colleges community about contraceptives and family planning options

2004

The Women’s Union and SLAM revise the “Call to Action” to improve the campus climate for students who had been made to feel marginalized

QRC moves to its present location in Walton Commons at Pomona College

lEFT: The Women’s Union hosts many events in a semester including their Take Back the Night event which is a march against sexual, domestic and interpersonal violence.

riGHT: The Women’s Union is a gender-inclusive safe space at pomona College, aimed at advocating for women in the Claremont community.

Following Women’s History Month in March, TSL sat down with Kaliyah Keïta PO ’24, a staff member at the Women’s Union (WU) at Pomona College to get an insider’s perspective on what equality, advocacy and the future of intersectional feminism means to the WU.

The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

TSL: What is your position at the Women’s Union and why did you join the team?

Kaliyah Keïta PO ’24: I am a staffer at the Women’s Union, although I am not in a coordinating position. I wanted to join the WU after I heard about it through my friend Aarushi last year. She was very excited about working there and spoke highly of the WU. I know a lot of people that are involved with the WU, and it’s a really cool, comforting community to be a part of. I look forward to our gatherings and lunches, and I think that I wanted to join because I could see myself kind of fitting into that community and finding a kind of home there.

TSL: What is the WU’s mission?

KK: The mission of the WU is essentially to advocate on behalf of the women in this community and also just globally. We often have guest speakers and people visit to share their stories and experiences. It’s a gender-inclusive space, even though it is named the WU. We are committed to providing a space for all genders and the diverse needs of different people on this campus and beyond. As much as it is about women and having that feminist perspective, we also advocate on behalf of equality in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, religion and ability. I think that’s why the WU is such a wonderful space — as much as we focus on one aspect of advocacy and equality, there actually is no way to do that without being intersectional.

TSL: What does a semester look like at the WU? What kind of events do you hold?

KK: Most of our programming

is through lunches, which are typically held during the week. This semester, we had two women visit from Strippers United, which is a labor union for strippers in Los Angeles and other parts of the United States. They advocate on behalf of women and people in that industry to have better benefits, safer working conditions, health insurance and other resources that they are often deprived of because of their line of work. Bringing perspectives like this to campus that we may not necessarily be familiar with, having the opportunity to hear from people who are doing this work, exposing our community to these important issues and talking about how we can be involved is essentially what most of our programming is aimed towards.

We also hosted a lunch on March 8, which was International Women’s Day. We focused on gathering, recognizing and honoring the women in our lives who we wanted to celebrate for this month and on that specific day.

TSL: What did Women’s History Month mean to you as a Women’s Union team member?

KK: As a Black woman and as an African woman, I have realized that what I was taught wasn’t always accurate. Most times when we think about historical figures and people that have held important positions and done all of these incredible things, we think about men, completely omitting the women in their lives that have been able to contribute massively to said accomplishments. And while that is not all that Women’s History Month is about, it always fascinates me.

For example, I didn’t know that Winnie Mandela was carrying the entire anti-apartheid movement in South Africa for the 27 years that Nelson Mandela was in prison. That is just not something that you hear about. She’s never acknowledged in the same light that Nelson Mandela is. And it’s not that he shouldn’t be, but it’s fascinating to think that for almost 30 years there was a woman that was occupying the position that we credit Nelson Mandela with.

That’s just one example of so many where women’s contributions simply aren’t being acknowledged

or honored. I think that Women’s History Month is such a crucial thing to celebrate and acknowledge because, without doing that, we just continue to support the male-centric narratives.

TSL: The WU originated from the group called FAR or Feminists Against Repression. How do you think their ideas influence how the Women’s Union functions today?

KK: I would say that it absolutely does influence the WU. Championing for intersectional feminism is, again, the only way to champion for feminism. But, we should acknowledge that we are in a different position from the women who were on campus back then. I am sure that the struggles that women were experiencing when this group was created were probably a lot different than what we might be experiencing today. But, I also think that sometimes our concept of progress when it comes to oppressive systems is skewed. We may think that these issues don’t necessarily exist anymore when in reality they absolutely do. Gender oppression is a prevalent issue everywhere in the world.

Us being college students in and of itself represents some level of progress toward the rights of women but, at the same time, it’s difficult to celebrate that and be comfortable with that. Billions of women all over the world don’t have the rights that they deserve in any capacity, aren’t afforded access to education and are experiencing period poverty. We need to acknowledge that so much progress is still ahead of us. We, as the WU, are just playing a minute role in this movement. We are just a blip on the timeline of people who have been dedicating their lives to this for centuries at this point.

TSL: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

KK: The WU is meant to be a welcoming and inclusive space for people on this campus of marginalized identities, so I urge people to join or attend our events. We also have a pretty strong relationship with some of the other leftist organizations on campus. The 5C Prison Abolition Collective, which I’m also a part of, will often have meetings in the WU. It’s wonderful to see so many people be able to utilize the space to gather to do such positive things.

In the years leading up to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in January 1973, the women of the 5Cs were fighting their own battles for equality against the administration and other students — and winning. However, the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 may signal that our society has become in danger of regressing in gender equality and women’s rights. The 5Cs in the early 1970s still featured several student traditions that some students had labeled as “barbaric” and misogynistic, even absent today’s standards. According to TSL archives, Pomona College’s football team had an annual, now defunct tradition known as the “weigh-in,” where incoming first-year women were forcibly rounded up to publicly weigh them and take measurements of their bodies.

After taking the women’s measurements, the men of the sophomore class would compile and distribute the data, along with phone numbers, according to one account from a fifties-era Pomona alumnus. Many women had felt as though they were “on the market” from the moment they set foot onto Pomona’s campus.

“[The weigh-in is a] traditional little atrocity,” student Jamie Dorn McMahon said in TSL’s Sept. 18, 1971 issue.

The custom was originally founded as part of a “friendly” rivalry between the first and second-year classes. TSL began reporting on the weigh-in as early as September 1956. In an article titled, “Sophs Investigate Shape of Things to Come,” TSL published quarter-page photographs of the first-year women being measured and made note of the uncomfortable “expression[s] on [their] faces.”

But despite existing complaints, many students and faculty members defended the tradition as harmless.

In a September 1967 TSL article, titled “Deans reply to four vital questions,” Pomona Dean Beverly Brice called the weigh-in a “very good thing.”

In 1972, then-sponsor Helen Hutchison PO ’74 rallied the rest of the sponsor and RA teams — the only other people, apart from the sports teams, who would be on campus when the first years arrived — to push the football team to discontinue the weigh-in practice. They were supported in this endeavor by then-Dean of Women Jean Walton, who had previously attempted in vain to persuade the football team coaches to rein in their athletes.

Faced with pressure from the sponsor and RA teams, the football team begrudgingly agreed to back down that year. However, come the fall of 1973, they were right back at it, likely assuming that the previous year’s resistance would have dissipated by then. Hutchison discovered the football team accosting a solitary first-year woman with the intention of taking

COUrTESY: HONNOlD-MUDD ArCHiVES

her measurements.

“I was irate,” Hutchinson told TSL. “They kept saying it was fun — it was all in fun — and I looked right at [the first-year woman], and I said, ‘Are you having fun?’ And she burst into tears and said no. That kind of killed [the tradition] at that point.”

After that failed attempt in 1973, there would never again be another first-year weigh-in at Pomona. Many students would later change their stance on the weigh-in and condemn the tradition.

Not all defunct student traditions targeted gender identities. There was a long-held tradition of wearing a dink, or a beanie, to signify that one was a first-year at Pomona, dating back to the 1950s. However, for some alumni, the weigh-in’s legacy still remains.

Nearly a decade ago, Hutchison recalled encountering another Pomona alumnus from the time, who mentioned his son — then a Pomona student-athlete — had “missed out on this great tradition” due to the death of the infamous weigh-in.

“If people are still sore about it,” Hutchison told TSL, “they can continue to be sore about it.”

ANURADHA KRISHNAN

The weight of the weigh-in: How women ended a misogynistic Pomona tradition, 50 years ago

SARU POTTURI

First Interconnections retreat takes place at Pomona College’s Halona Lodge in Idyllwild, California

The weigh-in tradition forced first-year women to be publicly weighed and measured by their male peers.

My language isn’t useless

Just two weeks ago, on March 24, 2023, Harvard University announced that it will be offering Tagalog as a course and a preceptor will be teaching it. This is one of the institution’s steps towards expanding Southeast Asian representation. The formalization of Tagalog, along with Bahasa Indonesian and Thai, radically benefits representation for so many Southeast Asian students like myself.

I was aghast at an op-ed article titled “Why I Won’t Celebrate Harvard for Offering Tagalog” by Eleanor V. Wilstrom, who, while elated at Harvard’s new language offering, begs readers to be active, not passive, and critically evaluate their institution’s lasting colonial mentality. Wilstrom details Harvard’s history of colonizing the Philippines’ education system through implementing English-only instruction. But Harvard is not alone: American institutions have contributed to displacement of indigenous lands, erasure of history and fully supported imperialism in lieu of nation-building. And one of them is my country, the Philippines.

The discourse coming out of Cambridge, Massachusetts sheds light on the Claremont Colleges’ lack of language offerings and support for Southeast Asian students as well as other underrepresented groups. Asian languages that are offered here include Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Arabic is offered as well. As for other languages, they offer Spanish, French, German, Italian and Russian.

Similarly, a look through the

Asian Studies course offerings at the Claremont Colleges reveals that the department is predominantly East Asia-centric with South Asian course offerings few and far between.

This lack of engagement towards Southeast Asian countries’ histories, development and languages makes me question what Asian Studies actually entails. As a Southeast Asian student, I once again feel erased — erased and made invisible.

I am well aware of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian

American Studies (IDAAS) offering robust course offerings toward diasporic history, militarism and issues within the Asian American community. However, I believe that the formalization of languages prevents recognition and active consciousness of the violence immigrants or children of immigrants face.

I am ashamed, at times, when my English isn’t perfect. Children of immigrants often are not taught their parents’ native language to ensure they can assimilate well. What re -

ANDrEA ZHENG • THE STUDENT liFE

sults is a disconnect from our identities and painful attempts to understand our family who may not speak English well. In this way, assimilation is absolutely violent.

On heritage language loss among Asian American youth, scholar Sheryl Lee highlights: “When the language of home, family and community is not represented in the school, Asian American students come to see a part of themselves dehumanized and invalidated, affective experiences that influence and carry throughout a lifetime.”

Although Lee’s research specifically addresses California K-12 public schools, it still rings true for many Asian American students here in the Claremont Colleges. Tagalog, as well, is one of the top 12 languages spoken and second most-spoken Asian language in the United States — far more common than French, for example. What, then, warrants a language as useless? This tongue of mine burns to speak my language. Nevermind that speaking a language other than English symbolizes being un-American. Nevermind being told your native tongue is useless even though that’s what you knew of. Nevermind that speaking something else, other than English, means you are talking shit about another person. Every time I meet another Tagalog speaker, I immediately reply in my own broken Tagalog. A rush of familiarity and yearning for the sounds of the country I grew up in until moving to the United States in 2012 come running back, and I’m reminded of my first home, Quezon City. It is beautiful — and liberating — to speak in Tagalog.

Language connects us to our identity, family and community. The Claremont Colleges have allowed me to learn more about myself through their Asian American Studies program. It is a matter of time, across all institutions in the country, to expand language learning beyond East Asian languages.

Zeean Firmeza PO ’26 is from Miami, Florida. She enjoys gaming, drinking Jasmine milk tea and going out.

The TikTok ban shows just how antiyouth our government is

It’s half-past time to talk about our government’s recent moves against the social media giant. In case you haven’t heard of the legislative controversy over TikTok, here’s a quick introduction.

Over the past few weeks, Congress has been considering banning the app in the United States over concerns of data privacy and national security concerns — just last week Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok, testified before Congress in defense of the app’s practices.

Many prominent members of Congress and the Biden administration have stated publicly that they intend to ban the app unless it disconnects itself totally from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, by selling itself off. A ban pushed by Sen. Hawley (R-MO) was recently blocked in the Senate to give lawmakers more time to decide what actions are appropriate. But let me cut to the chase here. There isn’t any evidence of any legitimate national security or data privacy concerns. Well, at least no concerns that we don’t have about all other social media apps. The fear with TikTok is that it might take users’ data and sell it to the Chinese government, which could theoretically do bad things with it. Here’s the problem — there is zero evidence that TikTok has ever given any data to the Chinese government, and it would violate its own policies to do so.

There’s an even bigger fallacy with Congress’ argument. TikTok is not the only way they could get access to a lot of data about Americans — those other social media apps sell your data all the time. In the age of big data, there is no shortage of information about all of us on the internet that the Chinese government could easily get access to,

with or without TikTok.

And this doesn’t even address the most obvious question. Why do we care if the Chinese government has data about us that it got from TikTok? What nefarious purposes could they use my shopping habits or tastes in cat videos for?

If the Chinese government really really wanted to know this information about me — say I worked for the Taiwanese government or organized protests in China, they could always just hack my phone the normal way. Or track me with satellites. Or with their enormous military. Or with anything else they have in their massive security-state apparatus.

Congress does stupid stuff without enough evidence all the time, but TikTok, as the fastest growing app in the United States, is as important as anything can be to our culture. Every day, businesses and communities get their start on the platform. Many depend on TikTok for their income and connecting with their friends.

Even the Supreme Court agrees with me that social media matters. Just a few years ago, in Packingham v. State of North Carolina, former Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that social media is “integral to the fabric of our modern society and culture.” It’s hard to imagine a youth culture today without TikTok.

Another nuance in expression was noted by the Supreme court in Lamont v Postmaster General — the court found that the First Amendment isn’t only about enabling individual expression, it’s also about giving Americans access to diverse opinions from around the world. TikTok and its various trends have indubitably helped Americans connect to people

around the world.

And I’m not bringing these legal arguments up out of nowhere — the court used similar reasoning to prevent former President Donald Trump from banning both TikTok and Chinese messaging app WeChat only two years ago. It’s hard to find differences between Trump’s justifications for banning WeChat and Congress and President Joe Biden’s justifications for banning TikTok. Sometimes it’s reasonable to suspend the First Amendment. We don’t let people yell fire in a movie theater or incite imminent violence. But we must have a really compelling reason to do so — something Congress doesn’t have here.

This move by Congress represents a fundamental disconnect between young Americans and our government. Recent

polls have found that 63 percent of adults between 18 and 34 oppose banning the app. But who does support banning?

Old people and the government. 60 percent of adults 65 or older want a ban, and Biden and Congress have been pretty clear on the question. Even the people who we think of as being young and in power often aren’t really connected to us — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez only just made her first TikTok a few days ago.

This disconnect doesn’t only matter when it comes to what kind of media we can consume — the majority of American life is structured to work for older generations. They get to enjoy their Social Security and Medicare — things that likely won’t exist by the time we’re old. They live on a planet that has yet to be destroyed by climate

change. They didn’t have ridiculously expensive college tuition or an economy with the highest income inequality since the gilded age and they didn’t have a pandemic that destroyed their education.

This makes sense — old people vote more than we do, so naturally the world works better for them. And it points to a pretty clean solution — become more politically active! Tell your congressperson to vote against laws that seek to destroy youth culture. Open the voting process to younger people. Get some of those dinosaurs out of there and replace them with people that understand us.

Rowan Gray CM ’26 is from Sharon, Massachusetts. He wants you to know that all Oxford commas in this piece were violently deleted by his copy editors.

ROWAN GRAY

ZEEAN FIRMEZA

MANHOlE SANDWiCH: A COMIC BY SASHA MATTHEWS

CrUD WOrlD: A COMIC BY GERRIT PUNT

BEN lAUrEN• THE STUDENT liFE

Mudders no longer uphold the student honor code

When I came to Harvey Mudd College almost five years ago, I found a place that I was both excited and proud to call home. Then, the integrity of the honor code began to erode.

I went to an extremely small high school in Kansas, and on the front page of every single graded assignment or test, every student handwrote the school’s honor code and signed their name below; this was the environment I had come to love.

That’s why Mudd’s honor code helped draw me to Claremont. In fact, for many students, signing the honor code as a freshman is one of our most memorable experiences.

I have worked as a grader, a tutor and a teaching assistant at Harvey Mudd for five semesters. Every semester, I am forced to send the same dreaded email to the professor that someone’s assignment looks far too much like someone else’s.

Sadly, the 2020-2021 remote academic year saw a barrage of calls for self-reports and judiciary board cases. During the online year alone, there were 54 academic violations that made it to a judiciary board case. The case proceedings showed that, in the majority of cases, the resolution was to receive zero credit on the assignments they were caught cheating on and to write a one-page letter of reflection. There is no mention of any sort of permanent record for the outside world and no real deterrent. Unserious punishments like these are a slap on the wrist for the guilty student and a slap in the face to every non-cheating student taking classes alongside them.

But the Mudd student body’s shift away from honor didn’t go away with the pandemic. “Maybe younger students just hadn’t yet been informed properly about the importance of academic integrity,” I thought. “Maybe once we return from the remote learning year, it will be different.” It hasn’t been.

In the past two semesters, I’ve

seen several bystanders keep quiet as their peers openly –– and proudly, no less –– admit to taking advantage of one another by cheating on a solo assignment. For context, the syllabus for one of the courses in question stated that “each problem has a 30-minute time limit, and they are to be completed independently, without consulting other students (including tutors), your course notes, professors, or any other sources.”

I was surprised, alarmed and seriously shaken by this cavalier attitude towards cheating. How could someone be so shameless, so uncaring?

Don’t get it twisted: I’m approaching this situation from a point of sympathy. Many changes made to class grading stem from Mudd’s effort to be sensitive to students with testing anxiety.

For example, these solo problems were made to count more heavily towards the course grade in return for removing a second midterm. The compassion from professors to create more equitable classrooms is failing because students are abusing it. Still, It’s important to remember that unpunished cheating comes at the expense of honest, hard-working students. One firstyear friend in particular brings me joy every time she comes to me at lunch or after class, excited to tell me that she figured out her solo problem. Cheating students are cheapening every honest student’s effort, not to mention the potential effect on any curve in the course. Where did Mudd’s honor go? And what will come of Mudd without it?

The potentially irrevocable

harm inflicted on Mudd via current students’ disregard for the honor is on its way to tarnishing our school’s reputation –– and the results could be disastrous, especially for women.

As I am visiting graduate schools and testing out the environment at other schools, I am keenly aware that Mudd is still a far more accepting and balanced institution than many others.

When I go out into the field of science, I am at least armed with the reputation Mudd has for producing the excellent scientists who came before me. Unless cheating students put in the work and learn material, younger students won’t benefit from this –– current and future female-identifying students will be directly and unequivocally harmed.

We need to appropriately edu-

cate our students on the importance of the honor code, and there need to be appropriate repercussions for cheating.

Some students argue that because they personally don’t cheat, they shouldn’t have to give up the benefits the honor code affords us like take-home exams. That is exactly the point. If we let the honor code die, we will no longer be afforded these benefits. If we let our peers cheat, professors will not be able to put their trust in us.

We have to hold each other accountable — if not for you, then at least for those counting on the armor of Mudd’s reputation to help them navigate the patriarchal postgrad scientific industry.

Ella Blake HM ’23 is from Lawrence, KS. She really likes swimming and painting.

Jasper’s Crossword: Say (w)hen

41. Group mail by ZIP code

42. Hourly wage alternative

43. Tried, literarily

47. The only correct answer for this clue’s number

53. Dried-up Central Asian sea

56. Morpheus’ disciple

57. “Shark Tank” network

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

ELLA BLAKE

The failure of students to adhere to Harvey Mudd’s honor code has resulted in endless cheating and must be addressed, argues Ella Blake HM’23.

Aces high for the Stags as CMS men’s tennis serves Oxy defeat

Aces all around! The ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) men’s tennis team controlled the court against SCIAC opponent Occidental, serving their way to victory in their second conference match of the season.

On Friday, March 30, the Stags defeated the Tigers 8-1 at home in the Biszantz Tennis Center, improving their record to 9-4 overall and 2-0 in conference play.

The Stags started off strong in doubles play with a quick 8-1 win on Court 3 by the Harvey Mudd College freshman duo Advik Mareedu HM ’26 and Warren Pham HM ’26. Ian Freer CM ’24 and Daniel Blackman CM ’24 were next to post a point for CMS with a 8-5 win on Court 2.

On Court 1, Matthew Robinson CM ’25 and Christian Settles CG ’23 took their pro-set to a tiebreak in hopes of giving the Stags a sweep of doubles. However, after some volley errors by CMS and a few key passing shots by Oxy, the Tigers claimed the tiebreak eight points to six, giving them their lone win of the afternoon.

Leading 2-1 after doubles, the Stags started off singles play hot with all six CMS players taking their first sets. On Court 6, Morgan Schilling CM ’25 wasted no time, claiming the first set 6-0. Standing at 6 feet 2 inches tall, his big serve and powerful groundstrokes aided in his domination, but according to Schilling, it was his mental approach that gave him the edge against Oxy.

“I really stayed in control mentally,” Schilling said. “There weren’t any high highs or low lows. I just focused on continuing to do what I was doing.”

All the way on the other side of the bank on Court 1, Mareedu also won his first set quickly. Although he went down 2-3 to begin the match, he used his lengthy arms to stay in many long rallies and come up with crafty point-winning shots to turn things around, winning four straight games to take the set 6-3.

Mareedu had a stellar fall season, finishing with an undefeated nine-match winning streak en-route to an ITA Cup victory. He came into the spring season holding the No.

1 spot in the ITA Division III National Rankings and was most looking forward to being able to experience the dual match format that defines college tennis.

“The fall is mostly individual,” Mareedu said. “I was really excited to develop with the rest of the guys and do more team based stuff in the spring.”

Mareedu posted the first singles point for the Stags with a 6-2 win in the second set, putting CMS up 3-1. Settles was next to get a win for the Stags, coming out on top against his opponent 6-3, 6-2. Settles explained that his serve-and-volley style of play proved difficult for his opponent to handle and that he was happy to be able to implement some of the things he had been focusing on in practice.

“As a team, we’ve been working on trying to be loose and play the same style of tennis in the bigger moments,” Settles said. “I thought I served and volleyed pretty well and played an aggressive brand of tennis. I was able to execute on some big points.”

Settles, who is a student at Claremont Graduate University,

often dueled against CMS during his time playing for Trinity University in Texas. With an extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19, he decided to play for his dad, Paul Settles, head coach of the Stags.

“It’s great [playing for my dad],” Settles said. “I’ve had so much fun this year getting to really know these guys. I’m glad to be home in Claremont, and I’m super pumped to be wearing the Stags uniform.” On Court 5 and Court 6, Pham and Schilling were racing to get the clinching point. Pham, whose tricky slices and aggressive net play won him a competitive 6-4 first set, was cruising in the second set up 5-2. Meanwhile Schilling, who’s opponent did not back

Ultimate fun: Braineaters fly high on many levels

Frisbee, friends and fun — whatever you want, however you want it, the 5C men’s ultimate frisbee team has it for you.

With a heavy emphasis on sportsmanship, teamwork and communication, the Claremont Braineaters prioritize the spirit of the game while carrying on founder Jeff Landesman’s PZ ’83 legacy.

Landesman grew up in New York City and didn’t pick up the game of ultimate until he was a junior in high school. However, before then he had a different sport. Landesman said he was originally drawn to Pitzer College by a conversation he had during recruitment with the Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) men’s soccer coach who described the campus as a drive away from the beach or mountains. However, upon arriving in Claremont, Landesman said he quickly realized he no longer wanted to pursue soccer and instead went on to found the Pitzer College Braineaters, the men’s club ultimate frisbee team.

“I came out to Pitzer to play for the Sagehen’s men’s soccer team, but I had gotten so hooked on ultimate during my last two years of high school that when I got to Pitzer I really had no desire to play soccer anymore, and I decided to start an ultimate team,” Landesman said.

Along with the help of a few friends, Landesman began organizing a team and eventually settled on the name “Braineaters,” inspired by the 1950s movie “The Brain Eaters.”

“We had been dabbling with names like ‘Pitzer Ultimate Frisbee’ but we really didn’t have any good names. One night three of my friends and I were up late and we were going to watch ‘The Brain Eaters.’ At about 6 o’clock [in the morning] we were sitting on top of the geodesic dome at Pitzer and we realized we had missed the movie,” Landesman said. “All four of us kind of looked at each other at once and said, ‘that’s it, we’re the Braineaters.’”

Since its founding, the Braineaters have experienced a lot of success. They won the Division III Ultimate Frisbee National Championships in 2011 and have made multiple

appearances at Nationals in recent years. The team, which was originally composed entirely of Pitzer students, has also expanded to include members from across the 5Cs.

The team practices three times a week and competes in approximately 10 tournaments over the course of the year.

Current Braineaters team member Logan Stouse PO ’23 said that the fall season focuses on growing and developing the team and its new players while the spring season focuses on training for sectionals and Nationals.

“We spend a lot of time in the fall teaching new people how to play and welcoming new people in,” Stouse said. “By the time spring comes around we typically develop more of a competitive season with a little bit of a tighter roster while still doing our best to integrate people who have put in the time commitment.”

While the team has evolved to become more competitive than it originally was, the Braineaters are still focused on carrying out Landesman’s original mission of fostering lifelong friendships and a community of inclusivity and competitiveness.

Stouse spoke on the culture of the team, acknowledging that while the Braineaters want to win and make it to Nationals, they are more focused on integrating new players and having fun.

“It’s a super welcoming environment and we do our best to try to integrate a lot of new players who haven’t played before,” Stouse said. “We tend to be a pretty fun group and we try not to take ourselves too seriously and with an intent to include new players, we have to balance how intense we get with how welcoming we are. Both the welcoming and competitive side involve a lot of casual fun because at the end of the day we’re really all there to play frisbee and have fun.”

Reflecting on his legacy, Landesman said that he is thrilled to see current Braineaters members continuing to carry on his original mission.

“It’s really exciting for me to see that [the team] hasn’t changed the name over the years, but more importantly, they haven’t changed what the team is about, which is spirit first,” Landesman said. “It was always really important that the team focused on having fun and never taking themselves too seriously.”

Current Braineaters member Adidev Jhunjhunwala CM ’25 reiterated Landesman’s sentiment. He said that the culture of the Braineaters is unlike any other team he has been a part of.

“It’s a really nice, inclusive team and is incredibly non-toxic which is different from most teams I’ve been on … It’s just a really fun team to be around and if you ever see a tournament you will always see teammates chanting funny cheers and carrying on a bunch of silly traditions,” Jhunjhunwala said.

Isaiah Curtis PZ ’26 said he has had a similar experience. As a new member who joined the Braineaters in the fall, he said he found a new community within the team.

“It’s a vibes thing. The culture definitely is a really big draw,” Curtis said. “I convinced a lot of my friends who had never played before to come and they mostly stuck around because they liked the team and not really because they were into frisbee … There is a big emphasis on communication and building a community that is more than just a sports team.”

Landesman and his fellow Braineaters alumni will return to campus to participate in a friendly alumni vs. students Braineaters game on April 29 at 1 p.m.

“We’ve missed out on a lot of alumni games when the Braineaters began making it to the [DIII] Nationals, so the fact that they wanted to do it again was spectacular,” Landesman said. “It’s thrilling for me to be back at the Claremont Colleges playing ultimate because it’s been such a huge part of my life for a long time. Brains for life!”

down after the first set beatdown, was battling it out in a second set tiebreak. Ultimately, Schilling powered through the tiebreak first and secured the Stags their win, with Pham giving CMS their sixth point of the afternoon just seconds later.

“Obviously, I had a really great first set and came out playing really well,” Schilling said. “[My opponent] really upped his game in the second set, but I think I stayed consistent. It was also nice to look at the scoreboard and see everyone else taking care of business. That kind of gave me the confidence to pull it out.”

With the Stags up 6-1, it was up to Freer and Robinson to finish out the dual match. On Court 3, Freer’s steady groundstrokes

worked his opponent around the court, and he took the first set 6-2. With a change in strategy, Oxy was able to steal the second set 6-4, but Freer held it together in the deciding tiebreak, pushing his opponent back with some spinny forehands and pulling him out wide with his precise yet powerful serve. He sealed the victory with an ace to win the tiebreak 10-4.

On Court 2, Robinson was able to use his lefty advantage to control the majority of the points and move his opponent around the court. He finished his match with a forehand winner to come out on top 6-4, 6-3.

The Stags are looking to build on this convincing win as they continue conference play. They have not lost a SCIAC matchup since 2006, and Schilling is looking forward to keeping the SCIAC winning streak alive.

“I’m really looking forward to beating up the other SCIAC teams,” Schilling said. “It’s always fun to beat conference opponents. I’m pretty confident with the guys we have, and I think we’re just gonna go out there and just be electric for the next month and a half.

Settles believes that CMS can avenge last year’s NCAA Championship quarterfinal loss and go even further this year.

“The keyword is NCAAs,” Settles said. “I think that’s what everybody has their eyes on, and we’re all super excited to give her our best again this year and see how far we can go.

The Stags followed up the dominant win the following day with a 6-3 victory on the road against Redlands. They will return to the Biszantz Tennis Center for a pair of matches against Gustavus Adolphus on Friday, April 7 at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

SCIAC introduces football championship

On Feb. 28, 2023, the SCIAC issued a statement announcing the establishment of a championship football game starting in the Fall 2023 season.

This development came after Whittier decided to terminate their football program after last season. Following Occidental, who dropped their program in 2018, and Caltech, which has not had a football team since 1993, the SCIAC Conference now only has six football teams competing. In an effort to retain the number of games that the remaining teams get to play in hopes of keeping SCIAC football alive, the conference, with the help of the coaches, decided to change the format.

Kyle Sweeney, ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) football head coach and SCIAC football committee chair, said that the decision was collaborative.

“[SCIAC] involved all of the coaches in the conference and took ideas from everyone. We were involved all of the way through,” Sweeney said.

Starting next year, the six teams will be divided into two different pods, organized on a two-year cycle. Each of the pods will play the other teams in their pods twice and the teams in the other pod once, ensuring seven games will still count toward conference standings. The teams with the best record from each pod will play each other in the championship game.

Despite losing Whittier, Sagehen wide receiver Quinten Wimmer PZ ’24 who earned All-Region Third Team honors from D3Football.com, believes the new system has the potential to create even greater energy within the SCIAC.

“I love the idea of a championship game,” Wimmer said. It’s not only going to increase fan levels at games, but it’s going to make the SCIAC a whole lot more exciting. When you have two pods and the teams are fighting to get the top seed, it’s going to make everything that much more competitive.”

For the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the pods are as follows: Cal Lutheran, Chapman and CMS are in one, while La Verne, Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) and Redlands compete in the other.

With this format, It is possible that CMS and P-P will play each other for the championship. The Sixth Street Rivalry game in the past has always taken place the last week of the regular season, but it is usually not for the championship, except for last year.

Last fall, P-P defeated CMS in the final game of the season to claim co-ownership of the SCIAC title and earning them the SCIAC’s sole ticket to the NCAA Tournament, the Sagehens’ first trip to Nationals in program history. Sagehens head coach John Walsh said that winning that last game was exhilarating.

“It was something our school hadn’t won since 1955 when it was the Pomona-Claremont football team. It was exciting to be a part of it,” Walsh said.

For Walsh, P-P’s one-of-a-kind rivalry with CMS adds another level of pressure and excitement to this new format. The two teams will not face off in the last week of the regular season unless both teams win their pods. In that case, CMS and P-P will once again compete for the title of SCIAC Champions. Walsh said he is looking forward to the upcoming rivalry game.

“We have the greatest, most unique rivalry in the country with CMS, and that has always been an awesome way to end the regular season,” Walsh said. “This coming year, that game is in September so this definitely changes that. I am optimistic about it and I hope it is successful”

Wimmer, who dominated the game against CMS, contributing to three of P-P’s four scores with two receiving and one passing touchdown, explained the team is already looking to next season.

“We’re on [a] next-step mentality,” Wimmer said. I’ll be a captain next season. That starts now … There were a lot of [times] last year where we knew we didn’t play our best football and we didn’t play our best as a unit … The way the coaches are saying it [is that] last year is the standard. That was as low as we could have gone and now we just have to keep stacking on top.”

This fall, conference play will begin on Sept. 23.

“We’re excited, we can’t wait for the football season to start again,” Walsh said. “Like anything else, you have to try something until you judge it. I’m going into it optimistic and I just want our players to get the opportunity to play 10 games and try to be the best we can be.”

SENA

Morgan Schilling CM ’25 hits a backhand during his singles match win during the Stags 8-1 victory over Oxy on March 30.

COUrTESY: CMS ATHlETiCS

AUDREY SAWYER

BEN LAUREN & ANSLEY WASHBURN

CMS and P-P football face off on Nov. 12 2022 at the last game of the regular season.

JONATHAN KE • THE STUDENT liFE