Vol. CXXXV No. 20

ARRESTS IGNITE NEW WAVE OF STUDENT DISSENT

Pomona College hosts town hall to discuss calls for divestment; Starr announces plans to lift three of seven suspensions for arrested students

ANNABELLE INK

On Thursday, April 18, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr and Chair of the Board of Trustees Sam Glick hosted a town hall discussion in response to students’ calls for the administration to disclose their investments and to divest from “the apartheid system within the state of Israel.” The event was only open to Pomona community members and was held from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Edmunds Ballroom. In an April 2 email from Glick announcing the event, he highlighted the “suffering, moral complexity and contention” marking Pomona’s campus and the broader world throughout the past few months, specifically in regards to some United States college’s relationships with Israeli organizations.

See SUSPENSIONS on page 5

PAGES 1-5

7C students rally for academic boycott of Israeli universities as Pitzer College Council votes to suspend study abroad program with University of Haifa

NITYA GUPTA

On Thursday, April 11, approx-

imately 200 7C students gathered at Pitzer College’s McConnell Apron to rally in support of an academic boycott against Israeli universities.

Echoing chants of “Free, free, free Palestine,” many of the attendees marched directly from Pomona College’s Alexander Hall, where Pomona Divest from Apartheid had just concluded a walkout condemning Pomona’s April 5 arrests of 20 students, calling for the administration to drop all legal and disciplinary charges and to divest from “the apartheid system within Israel.”

The rally, which was organized by Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), began at around 3:45 p.m. and lasted for a little over an hour, continuing as the Pitzer College Council voted in McConnell’s Founders Room on Resolution 60-R-5. This resolution calls for Pitzer to permanently suspend its pre-approved program with the University of Haifa on the grounds that it supports a university complicit in “Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing.” It additionally states Pitzer will not open any new pre-approved programs with any Israeli university as part of an academic boycott.

Although Pitzer removed its program with the University of Haifa from its list of pre-approved study abroad programs earlier this month, Allen Omoto, the college’s dean of faculty, stated that this was not a measure of an academic boycott. Instead, he

explained that the program, along with 10 other programs, was removed because of its failure to meet Pitzer’s study abroad criteria due to lack of enrollment.

However, during the College Council meeting, senators speaking on behalf of the resolution explained that the Haifa program was closed by Pitzer’s Study Abroad and International Programs (SAIP) committee in response to a proposal claiming the program was not aligned with Pitzer’s core values.

SAIP explained this proposal in an email to the Pitzer curriculum committee and Academic Planning

Committee, citing students’ longstanding efforts to close the pre-approved program.

“Additional criteria regarding alignment with Pitzer values and adequate local resources are cited in the Haifa-specific proposal,” the email stated. “SAIP Committee notes that this latter proposal comes with considerable community support.”

According to an SJP member, Thursday’s rally in support of the resolution called specifically for an academic boycott of universities that are “part of the military-industrial

See HAIFA on page 4

ANNABEllE INK • THE STUDENT lIFE

On April 11, about 200 7C students rallied at pitzer’s McConnell Apron for the college to enact an academic boycott of all Israeli universities.

Escalation to arrests: Events preceding historic student arrests at Pomona College

Nov. 29

Oct. 25 Hundreds of

20 student protesters arrested at Pomona College

BEN LAUREN, ANSLEY WASHBURN, JUNE HSU & ANNABELLE INK

On Friday, April 5, local police arrested 20 students demonstrating at Pomona College’s Alexander Hall, following Pomona administration’s attempted removal of a mock apartheid wall.

19 of the students were arrested inside Alexander Hall at Pomona on charges of trespassing in response to a call authorized by Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr. The other student was held on a charge of obstruction. Those arrested who attend Pomona will be issued interim suspensions, according to an email sent to faculty at 8:32 p.m. by Pomona President Gabrielle Starr.

These arrests come eight days after Pomona Divest From Apartheid (PDFA) initiated a sleep-in on the lawn in front of Smith Campus Center (SCC) as part of a demonstration for Palestine Liberation Week.

In an email sent Friday afternoon, Starr stated that participants involved in the sleep-in voluntarily removed their tents from the SCC lawn earlier that morning. However, tensions rose after campus staff began removing demonstration materials from the area in recognition of the college’s policies and preparation for several events scheduled to take place at the SCC on Sunday.

This included a “mock apartheid wall” constructed by PDFA at the start of the sleep-in. The wall, which consisted of eight wooden panels, was hand-painted by students with various phrases and images regarding divestment and Palestinian liberation.

By 2 p.m., five of the eight panels had been removed. Approximately three dozen student protesters gathered around the remaining panels in an effort to prevent campus staff from removing them. Many students filmed the members of campus security and Pomona administration that were scattered around them.

In her email, Starr stated that several individuals during this process “proceeded to verbally harass staff, even using a sickening, anti-black racial slur in addressing an administrator.” Starr condemned this “harassment,” which she claimed went on for two hours. She also condemned students’ refusal to identify themselves, as many concealed their identities with masks.

“There is absolutely no excuse for this harassment; and there is no excuse for refusal to identify yourself on our campus,” she said.

As students continued standing around the panels, they rotated through a series of chants, including “Israel bombs, Pomona pays: How many kids did you kill today”and “Camp sec, KKK, IOF you’re all the same.”

As the protest continued, students moved to Alexander Hall, where they proceeded to make their way to President Starr’s office to continue voicing their demands.

At this point, Starr authorized a call to the Claremont Police Department (CPD). In her email to faculty, she explained that this was because protestors refused to comply with orders asking them to identify themselves and to evacuate the space.

“It is not acceptable for the safety of our community to have individuals on our campus who conceal their identities and refuse to identify themselves when asked,” the email read. “I will not countenance masked in-

dividuals occupying a building.”

Meanwhile, approximately 44 individuals gathered around the steps outside of Alexander Hall and the surrounding area.

Then, at 5:02 p.m., eight police cars arrived alongside North College Avenue with their sirens blaring. Five minutes later, at 5:07 p.m., the cars left, driving towards the Claremont Village.

By 5:20 p.m., a group of about 17 students faced Alexander Hall and began a series of chants, including “Divestment is our demand, no peace on stolen land,” and “Gabi Starr, you can’t hide, genocide is televised.”

Twenty minutes later, 22 police cars from CPD and the Azusa, Covina and Pomona Police Departments arrived on the scene, parking along North College Avenue and Sixth Street. Approximately 24 police officers dressed in full riot gear, filed out and organized in a line along the street, facing Alexander Hall and manning batons.

The first arrests occurred at 6:33 p.m., when students were led out of Alexander Hall by police officers and detained with zip ties before being placed in a police van waiting on the street. While students were met with cheers and support from the crowd, police officers were met with booing.

Following the first set of arrests, one protester called for unwavering support of those still inside.

“We are staying here until all of our comrades come out of Alexander Hall,” the student said.

At 6:43 pm, three more students were arrested and placed in the same van as the other detainees, which departed to the police department several minutes later.

The protest and surrounding crowd outside of Alexander Hall continued to grow, with a student protester at one point urging people to call on their friends to join. Some of the chants were directed at divestment, a leading goal of prominent on-campus groups such as PDFA.

“What do we want? Divestment. When do we want it? Now,” the protesters chanted.

The final arrests were made at 7:18 p.m. with the detained students and the rest of the CPD officers leaving the area soon after.

At around 7:25 p.m., the police van that had taken the arrested students at Pomona pulled into the Claremont Police Department. Dozens of students were already gathered in front and met the van of detained protesters chanting, “No justice, no peace. Fuck the racist police,” while a line of police holding batons stood inside the police department’s gate.

At 7:48 p.m., students announced that CPD was refusing to disclose the location of students and an announcement following 12 minutes later that the arrested students would be released in two to three hours.

Students and faculty continued to rally outside the station, chanting and passing out pizzas.

At 9:25 p.m. the first five students were released followed by five more at around 10:45 p.m. The final nine were released by 12:11 a.m.

Mark Kendall, chief communications officer at Pomona College, commented on the college’s actions in an email to TSL.

“We continue to uphold the right to free speech and to protest within the lines of our long-established Claremont Colleges demonstration policy. We will not permit the presence of masked, unidentified individuals on our campus refusing to show identification when asked. Nor will we stand for harassment of visitors or racial slurs shouted at college employees – all of which have taken place this week,” the email states.

Reia Li, Dania Anabtawi and Mariana Duran contributed reporting.

7C and national organizations denounce Pomona College’s response to student arrests

BEN LAUREN, ELENA TOWNSEND-LERDO & ANSLEY WASHBURN

Following the arrest of 20 students at Pomona College by the Claremont Police Department (CPD) on Friday, April 5, several 7C and national organizations have released statements condemning Pomona’s response, pointing to both the academic disciplinary and legal prosecutions sanctioned by its president, G. Gabrielle Starr.

Starr both authorized the call made to the police department and issued interim suspensions — effective immediately — for students who entered and did not leave Pomona’s Alexander Hall on Friday in protest of the administration’s removal of a “mock apartheid wall” put up in front of Pomona’s Smith Campus Center (SCC) on March 28. Both local and national organizations have since begun to issue statements regarding the events, many of which are demanding that Pomona drop all charges against the students and revoke their suspensions. Some are also calling for Starr’s resignation.

According to James Gutierrez, a lawyer representing all 20 students, the students charged with trespassing will face a misdemeanor charge with the possibility of receiving diversions – an alternative procedure wherein the prosecution is halted due to a negotiated agreement between the defendant and the prosecutor, possibly resulting in the complete dismissal of charges. He also explained if the college decides to drop the charges “that would alleviate everything.”

“I think if the school is what it says it is — a righteous, higher learning institution of higher consciousness — then they’ll drop [the charges],” Gutierrez said. “They’ll understand that most of this country — especially conscientious students — are against genocide, and they want institutions that they revere to not be associated with the State of Israel who’s presently killing people wholesale.”

Gutierrez became familiar with the Claremont Colleges while supporting Claremont Community for Palestine’s push for a ceasefire resolution by the Claremont City Council. He stated that since the hearings of the arrested students will likely come after the end of the spring semester, he will be able to represent them no matter where they’re located.

“A lot of these students are going to be going home for the summer, and a lot of them live on the East Coast,” Gutierrez said. “So I will be able to represent them without them being present.”

However, regardless of whether Pomona decides to press charges, arrested students at Pomona are already facing severe academic discipline.

According to an email sent to faculty at 8:32 pm on April 5 by Starr, all arrested Pomona students will be issued interim suspensions — a sanction imposed by the college without the approval of a judicial body.

Article II, Student Affairs, Section B i “Interim Suspension” of the Pomona College Student Code explains that imposing an interim suspension is only allowed if the sanction protects the safety and well-being of the college community or ensures the student’s physical or emotional safety. The college can also issue an interim suspension if the sanctioned student poses “a credible threat of disruption or interference with the normal operation of the college.”

As a result of their suspensions, the college immediately revoked building access from the arrested Pomona students on April 5, preventing them from returning to their dorms.

In response, the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) Executive Council released a statement on April 5 condemning the interim suspensions on grounds that they “circumvent” the Judicial Council, Pomona’s student-led disciplinary body which makes final decisions on all suspensions, and deny students due process. Starr seemed to address these criticisms in an email sent to Pomona alumni on April 6 claiming the arrested students are subject to Judicial Council procedures and the school will “of course follow all our rules.”

Additionally, she claimed in the

email that Pomona provided support for housing and board expenses to students with financial need.

The Executive Council also encouraged all implicated students to exercise their right to an appeal.

According to Article II, Student Affairs, Section B ii “Preliminary Sanction Review Board (PSRB)” of the Pomona College Student Code, all students who receive a preliminary sanction are entitled to submit a petition to have the sanction reviewed by the PSRB. Students have 36 hours to submit a petition after being notified of the sanction.

In the statement ASPC’s Executive Council called on Pomona to revoke all suspensions, halt suspending additional students, and drop all charges against the protesters.

“Silencing students, whether it be through suspension or the confiscation of students’ protest materials, does not address the root cause of the issue we face today: the majority of the student body believes the College’s alleged morals must be reflected in its investments and associations,” the statement read. “President Starr and the Board of Trustees cannot ignore this any longer.”

The Executive Council statement is referring to Pomona’s campus-wide referendum in February. Of the 1,035 students who participated, 90.8% voted for disclosure of investments in weapon manufacturers aiding Israel; 81.7% voted for full divestment from all associated companies.

The statement denounced Starr’s decision to call the police on who they described as peaceful protestors, calling it a “direct call for violence and dangerous confrontation.”

“Pomona administrators willfully chose to endanger their students, which we find unacceptable and shameful,” the statement read.

the Pitzer College Student Senate Executive Board issued a statement on Instagram condemning Pomona’s actions, writing they were “appalled and horrified by the actions of the Pomona College administration at the peaceful protest at Alexander Hall.”

According to the statement, a Pitzer student and member of the Student Senate was standing on the sidewalk when they were “violently apprehended” by police and charged with trespassing and obstructing/ delaying an officer.

The Senate’s Executive Board then expressed they stand in solidarity with the senator and the other 18 arrested students, encouraging all students to email Starr and request an immediate lift of the Pomona students’ suspensions.

On April 6, Scripps Associated Students (SAS) published an Instagram statement demanding Pomona drop all charges, withhold suspensions and reject measures that restrict access of non-Pomona students to campus. They also demanded that Scripps halt all disciplinary actions against protesters until fair hearings are conducted and publicly commit to refraining from “deploying militarized police against peaceful student demonstrators.”

“We are aware that as of right now, Scripps students are not currently under suspension,” the statement read. “We want to reaffirm our desire that students facing disciplinary action are not deprived of their academic pursuits, housing, or participation in campus life during this period.”

“In the past, Claremont presidents have employed conflict resolution approaches and negotiation skills to de-escalate such situations. president Gabi Starr, instead, forced a gross and immediate escalation.”

This was further detailed by ASPC President Timi Adelakun PO ’24 who sent an email to Pomona students claiming that calling the police only served to escalate the situation.

The Claremont Consortium Faculty for Justice in Palestine

“That choice was reckless and was another horrible decision against the spirit of de-escalation,” Adelakun said in the email. “Knowing the history of police brutality, police calls can lead to murder, imprisonment, deportation, and much more … It is alarming to see such an abuse of power and lack of skill in crisis management. There needs to be training, re-hiring, or other permanent and impactful actions immediately because this is unacceptable.”

Adelakun also responded to Starr’s April 5 email to students, which claimed administrators called for the removal of the mock apartheid wall in preparation for events on Sunday. Adelakun believed Starr was referring to Pomona’s 4/7 Day celebration, which was planned to be held at the SCC on Sunday. However, Adelakun explained that the organizers of 4/7 Day had coordinated with the sleep-in demonstrators and would not interfere with the event whatsoever.

Early on April 6, ASPC announced on Instagram that 4/7 Day was canceled, once again calling for Pomona to lift the suspensions, drop charges, and reinstate students’ access to their dorms.

In the twenty-four hours following the arrests, multiple student government bodies across the consortium have also released statements of solidarity.

Close to midnight on April 5

Several campus organizations have put out statements in support of the arrested students as well.

The Claremont Consortium Faculty for Justice in Palestine released a statement calling the college’s response “shameful” and urging for all charges to be dropped. “Today’s escalation by Pomona College’s leadership, which led to student arrests, represents a clear choice by Pomona College to put students at risk and suppress students’ right to free speech rather than meaningfully engage with the hundreds of students opposed to their policies,” the statement read.

The faculty harkened back to previous protests at the college, citing an action in February 1993 when a group of students advocating for revised hiring procedures occupied Alexander Hall. The protest ended after two days and the college established a task force.

“In the past, Claremont Presidents have employed conflict resolution approaches and negotiation skills to de-escalate such situations,” the statement read. “President Gabi Starr, instead, forced a gross and immediate escalation.”

The 7C Arab Students Alliance (7C ASA) followed suit in a statement on April 6, also calling for Pomona to drop all charges, revoke all interim suspensions issued, and halt suspending additional students.

The statement called out the school for its lack of support for Palestinian and Southwest Asian North African (SWANA) students. It described the students’ arrest and the arrest of a professor last semester as creating a systematic pattern of silencing Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian students.

“The November arrest and yesterday’s arrest demonstrate the school’s priorities: Instead of divesting from complicity in genocide, they are arresting community members for speaking up against oppression,” the statement read. “Pomona is complicit in the Palestinian genocide.”

COURTESY:

Pomona College student tour guides announce protest, strike in response to April 5 arrests

On Monday, April 8, 49 Pomona College student tour guides and admissions office interns signed a letter denouncing Pomona administration’s response to, and authorization of, the arrest of 20 students on Friday, April 5. They revealed plans for forthcoming protest actions, including a tour guide strike.

The announcement follows Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr’s decision to issue interim suspensions to the Pomona students arrested on trespassing charges for occupying her office in Alexander Hall in protest of the administration’s removal of a mock apartheid wall.

Despite being titled “Tour Guide Open Letter,” the letter states it is not representative of the views of all student tour guides and student admissions interns; of the 63 student workers, 14 did not sign. Additionally, the letter explicitly states that even students who did sign are not required to take any potential actions listed. The student workers made this stipulation with students who are on financial aid or international visas in mind, allowing them to signal their support without risking their safety or well-being.

“Those who sign on to this letter are not in any way obligated to commit to these actions,” the letter reads. “Rather, this is a way for students to show their solidarity, whether that is through passively supporting these actions or by actively committing to them.”

The open letter declares that the student tour guides will protest their posts at the admissions office until the college yields to demands to drop all charges against arrested students, reverse interim suspensions, revoke looming suspensions, issue a public apology and commit

COURTESY: ANONYMOUS

to protecting students’ rights to demonstrate.

The statement outlines three specific actions that tour guides “who are willing and able” will be undertaking, effective April 6: Prefacing all student-led admissions programming with an overview of the events that took place on April 5, minimizing their involvement in Pomona’s upcoming Admitted Students Day and, if necessary, striking altogether.

The letter was penned by Angel Yuan PO ’25, a guide who was scheduled to give an admissions tour on Saturday morning, less than twenty-four hours after the arrests. She reached out to her tour manager — one of several non-student adult staffers in the office — to voice her discomfort with representing Pomona after Friday’s events.

“As a tour guide, you’re taught how to spin a situation in a positive way,” Yuan said. “But this is one of those situations where you realize that you can’t spin it — nor should you.”

Following Yuan’s request, the tour guide managers canceled all tours scheduled for Saturday, April 6.

Shortly thereafter, Yuan reached out to other tour guides to gauge interest in a potential action on behalf of the student workers that could continue beyond Saturday’s canceled admissions events. The letter was born that weekend.

“Regardless of your ideology or what you thought about the protest, I think the way it was handled was just grossly inappropriate,” Yuan said.

Another tour guide, Tristen Leone PO ’26, said she felt the administration should have been better prepared for a situation like Friday’s. Leone noted that overwhelming student opinion in favor of divestment was widely publicized and said that steps should have been taken in preparation for nonviolent de-escalation.

“Do they not have a de-escalation plan if they feel that that’s necessary that does not involve calling riot police?” Leone said. “Why was [calling the police] their first instinct?”

Head tour guide Drea Alonzo PO ’26 highlighted the disparities in consequences with arrests, noting that the Pomona administration placed undocumented student activists in danger by calling the police.

“What if [those arrested] were undocumented students at this protest?” Alonzo said. “How would that pan out? And also international students that might be affected by [pending] visas and risks of being deported — did the administration and Gabi Starr not consider that?”

The letter also emphasizes the hypocrisy of bringing militarized police to a campus that purports diversity and inclusion. Tour guide Stephanie Granobles PO ’27 elaborated on this contradiction and further detailed the severe

risk calling the police brought to students of color.

“Having to promote this school as a place that values diversity and values people of color, yet also actively uses tactics that are involved in disproportionately criminalizing them and punishing them and harming them is something irreconcilable in my head,” Granobles said. “It’s something that I’m still navigating … processing these emotions as a student, as a student of color, and then also as a tour guide and as a tour guide of color who promotes her experience based on those intersectional identities.”

Keeping guides’ different positionalities in mind, according to Yuan, tour guides are only expected to take on what they feel comfortable with. For some, like Yuan, that means striking; for others, that means prefacing tours with disclaimers.

“Some tour guides will be making little speeches in their introductions to contextualize our tours,” Yuan said. “That means saying something like, ‘Hey, this is what’s currently going on on our campus and a lot of students are not feeling safe, seen or heard — and even though a lot of us are doing tours because we need the money, you should know that we don’t necessarily believe in what we’re preaching.’”

Some tour guides planning to strike will conduct a Q&A in place of a guided tour.

“I’m striking, but I’m still planning on offering a Q&A for the visitors who are here so they can do their self-guided tours, but then also have a student perspective, especially [regarding] … the events of April 5th and how they’ve affected this campus so negatively, psychologically, physically, all of the above,” Leone said.

According to Yuan in correspondence with TSL, as of April 10, approximately 12 tour guides intend to strike including some who do not currently have regular shifts. She also explained the guides are implementing a “strike fund” to compensate guides who would be impacted by lost wages.

Yuan said some tour groups were receptive to her decision to strike, while other groups “verbally assaulted” her.

“There are [touring] parents who seemed to care more about the fact that they no longer were able to get a live guided tour than the fact that we’re not providing tours because we feel scared and unsafe and unheard, because our peers got arrested,” Yuan said.

For several months, in pursuit of informing prospective students and families about the movement to push Pomona to divest from firms that back the “apartheid system within the state of Israel,” student protesters have handed out pamphlets and, in some cases, disrupted tour groups to express their cause.

President Starr addressed said demonstrators in an email to the

community on April 3. Starr demanded that student protesters “refrain from disrupting campus tours, events, lectures and other gatherings” and “refrain from persistently following or harassing participants in those activities.” She particularly condemned the use of amplifying devices to drown out tour guides’ speech.

Starr claimed that the college was entitled to intervene in student protest when activities violated the demonstration policy shared across The Claremont Colleges.

“This harassment targeting visitors to our campus is unacceptable under our longstanding Student Code, and it is subject to disciplinary action,” Starr wrote.

Granobles said the administration leveraged tour disruptions to justify the extent of punitive measures taken against protesters.

“It is an immense violation of our positionality as tour guides and as student workers … for administration to be using what’s been happening between protesters and tour guides recently to justify their actions and to add fuel to the fire and make it make sense that they called police on so many people,” Granobles said.

According to Granobles, admissions managers and staff offered the tour guides support during these disruptions, but administration did not.

“Never in recent weeks … have I been asked by administration how I felt because protesters have been near me,” Granobles said.

“Had I been asked, I would have said, ‘Yeah, it isn’t the best thing in the world to have protesters, you know, yelling with microphones behind me, but it also isn’t the best thing in the world to be in a country with a genocide unfolding — and I am in an immensely privileged position to even be here.’”

Notably, the letter comes a week before Pomona’s Admitted Students Day, which is set to take place on Monday, April 15. The letter states that the undersigned tour guides are considering minimizing or withdrawing their involvement from the celebration’s activities

should the college continue to dismiss student demands.

“We know that [Admitted Students Day] cannot succeed without student workers, and as much as we would love to convince these students to commit to Pomona, it feels cognitively dissonant to do so when so many of us do not feel safe or heard on this campus as a result of the Administration’s decision,” the letter reads.

The tour guides clarify that the action will not impact admissions programming targeted at recruiting and admitting traditionally underrepresented students, like the fall fly-in program Perspectives on Pomona (POP). This decision stems from the tour guides’ unwavering commitment to maintaining diversity in higher education following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Affirmative Action in June, 2023.

“It would do [prospective students of marginalized groups] a disservice to not show them what college is,” Alonzo said. “I do not want to put them at that disservice because of what’s going on … they deserve the most transparency from us as front-facing employees.”

In an email correspondence with TSL, Pomona’s Interim Vice President for Admissions and Financial Aid Raymond Brown indicated that the admissions office is taking the tour guide action into account as they organize Admitted Students Day festivities.

“We also are in communication with our visitors about the potential lower turnout of our current students at various events during Admitted Students Day,” Brown said. Brown confirmed the admissions office’s support of the tour guide action and applauded their dedication to diversity and inclusion programming.

“We are most grateful that our students are maintaining their support of programs such as [POP] and EXPLORE [a program open to admitted students from underrepresented backgrounds], and encourage any students interested in joining us for Admitted Students Day to do so,” Brown said. “For those who choose not to participate, we certainly will respect their choice.”

Pitzer College Council votes to permanently close University of Haifa study abroad program; Pitzer President Strom Thacker announces intention to veto

ANNABELLE INK & BEN LAUREN voted 67:28 to suspend Pitzer’s program with the University of Haifa. Hours after this vote, former Pitzer President Melvin Oliver vetoed the motion.

On Thursday, April 11, the Pitzer College Council voted to pass Resolution 60-R-5 to permanently close the college’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa, removing it as a pre-approved program, and to prevent the college from opening any new programs with other Israeli universities. The resolution passed 48:19 with no abstentions, but Pitzer President Strom C. Thacker announced before the vote that he would be vetoing the legislation.

Thacker’s verdict on the resolution is the last step of the bill’s enactment, which already passed a 34:1 vote by the Pitzer Student Senate on Feb. 11.

In the months preceding Thursday’s vote, students and faculty members at Pitzer have been increasingly calling for a suspension of the college’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa through Resolution 60-R-5, which demands that the college cease its support of a university complicit in “Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing.” Despite recent escalations, these calls are not the first; the college saw a similar resolution in the past. In 2019, the Pitzer College Council

Now, over five years later, Pitzer moves to repeat history. Unlike in 2019, however, the college’s program with the University of Haifa is no longer listed as a pre-approved option within Pitzer’s Study Abroad and International Programs (SAIP) Office.

This change was announced on April 1, when the Faculty Executive Committee voted to remove 11 study-abroad programs from its pre-approved list, including the University of Haifa. This vote followed recommendations made by the SAIP Committee last month after it reviewed two proposals, one of which argued that Pitzer’s partnership with the University of Haifa does not align with the college’s core values.

According to the college’s Guiding Principles for Opening and Closing Pitzer-Approved Study Abroad Programs, all approved programs must “[align] with Pitzer values, educational objectives, and/or student learning outcomes.”

The aforementioned proposal suggested that, because the pro-

gram does not align with Pitzer’s core values, it does not meet the criteria of the Guiding Principles and thus should be removed as a pre-approved option.

In an April 2 statement, Pitzer’s Dean of Faculty Allen Omoto stated that the removal of the 11 programs’ pre-approved status was a direct result of their failure to meet the college’s study abroad criteria, emphasizing that they were not removed in a symbolic decision.

“The programs are no longer pre-approved for enrollment by Pitzer students because they do not meet our criteria, due, specifically, to lack of enrollments for at least five years, exchange imbalance, or curricular overlap,” Omoto’s April 2 statement read. “I want to clarify that these programs are not closed, nor do any of these actions reflect an academic boycott.”

Because the removal of the program as a pre-approved option was not part of an academic boycott, it can still be reopened. Resolution 60-R-5 would prevent this from happening until “Israeli universities end their complicity in apartheid,” as one student explained at a rally in support of the resolution outside McConnell Dining Hall just before Thursday’s vote took place.

Despite the resolution passing the College Council and the rally continuing throughout the meeting, Thacker announced his plan to veto the bill, advocating against academic boycotts altogether and claiming that the resolution would undermine the college’s procedures for determining whether to open or close study abroad programs.

Thacker went on to expand on these thoughts in a statement sent to the Pitzer community on April

11 following the vote.

“I have considered the issues with an open mind, listened actively, engaged in thoughtful and considered discussion, and shown respect throughout,” Thacker wrote in the statement. “As president, I have made my decision based on … the best interests of the College as a whole. I know many will disagree with this decision. I look forward to engaging further in constructive and respectful dialogues in our shared community.”

Dec. 8-9 Starr condemns protesters in an email after demonstrators interrupt private Admissions Office event for high school counselors the day prior in alleged “doxxing” incident. Hours later, dozens of students block the entrance of Frary

Feb. 16 Starr sends email prior to referendum in which Pomona

ELENA TOWNSEND-LERDO & MAYA ZHAN

MADDIE RUBIN-CHARlESWORTH • THE STUDENT lIFE

pomona College student tour guides announced protest actions in response to the arrest of 20 students on April 5, including a potential strike.

Pomona College faculty

votes to pass resolution condemning college; over 250 7C community members walkout for divestment

On Thursday, April 11, Pomona College faculty passed a resolution drafted in support of the 20 students arrested on April 5, criticizing the college for calling the police and suspending the students. The vote passed with 92 for, 39 against and 4 abstaining, adding up to a total of 135 votes recorded.

“The faculty condemns the present and future militarization and use of police on the campus,” the resolution read. “It insists that the College immediately drop criminal charges and reverse the suspensions and all related consequences against student protesters for their actions of civil disobedience.”

Several faculty members created the resolution on April 7, which was discussed in a faculty meeting the following day. Due to procedural reasons set by administration, faculty were not allowed to vote on the resolution in the April 7 meeting.

As the faculty meeting took place in Pomona’s Edmunds Ballroom on April 11, at 1:25 p.m. over 250 7C students and community members participated in a walkout in support of the arrested students and calling for Pomona’s divestment from “the apartheid state in Israel.”

Protestors gathered at various meetup spots around the 5Cs before walking to the courtyard of Honnold-Mudd Library. Members from Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), the group that organized the walkout, stood against the library at the front of the crowd.

Organizers passed out masks — warning people to keep one on at all times — while attendees carried photo cutouts of Pomona College President Gabrielle G. Starr and Pomona’s Board of Trustees members and signs reading phrases such as “IOF, CPD they’re all the same,” and “This is what the ruling class has decided will be normal -Aaron Bushnell.”

As the crowd grew, protestors chanted statements such as “Divestment is our demand, no peace on stolen land,” before students, some who were arrested on April 5, and others representing PDfA spoke. Each speaker stepped up to an elevated platform where a microphone and speakers helped them reach the entire walkout crowd.

One of the arrested students, Anal-

ise, described her experience of last Friday’s events.

“Being arrested will not deter me and police power will not deter us,” she said. “It was scary to be in jail, denied our right to a lawyer and a phone call. [But] we could hear your voices chanting outside. It was your power that grounded this arrest in a broader international movement and fight for divestment and Palestinian liberation.”

On the night of their arrests, the students were prevented from seeing their lawyer, James Gutierrez, thought to be because they were not questioned by law enforcement. Another arrested student commented on what she saw as the college’s mishandling of the April 5 demonstration.

“Pomona wants to call us violent and intimidating. They want to call us outside agitators,” Julianna Deibel SC ’24 said. “They want to say they’re maintaining the safety of the community. How does calling in three cities worth of cops in full riot gear to arrest and brutalize students keep us safe?”

In a statement released the same day as the arrests, Starr expressed her concern about the safety implications of students’ actions on April 5.

“This occupation was against our policies, but as we have expressed in the past, we work with students who are exercising their right to protest unless that protest impedes on the rights of others,” the statement read. “[Self-identification upon request] is imperative for the safety of our community, especially when these individuals are masked.”

The statement explained that any Pomona students found to be involved in the events that took place on campus Friday would be suspended, and it remains the only of the 5Cs to have instituted suspensions upon arrested students. The college has yet to release a statement on the status of these suspensions.

Deibel shared her feelings toward the colleges in the aftermath of the arrests and suspensions of fellow arrested students.

“I’m supposed to be finishing a thesis right now,” she said. “I can’t focus on anything but rage since Friday. I don’t wanna live or graduate on a campus that has labeled me and my friends as threats to the community.”

At the rally, some students read statements on behalf of the suspended Pomona students who were not allowed on campus. Multiple of the speeches from arrested students or those reading on behalf of arrested students emphasized the need to divert focus away from those arrested and toward efforts for divestment.

“This is not about us, please don’t make this about us,” one student read on behalf of a suspended Pomona student. “This is about divestment, this is about imperialism, this is about mobilizing our community to demand Pomona College’s divestment from the U.S. and Israeli genocide of Palestine.”

Deibel also shared this sentiment, emphasizing that the arrests were a small moment in the larger movement.

“The violence of our arrests by 30 riot cops is nothing compared to the Pomona-funded bombs falling on Gaza every day,” she said. “Any repression we face here pales in comparison to the treatment of the Palestinians at Israeli universities like the University of Haifa.”

The University of Haifa, to which Deibel refers to, was announced to be removed as a pre-approved option for study abroad at Pitzer College April 1.

Other speakers also focused attention away from themselves and the arrests, shifting instead toward Starr, condemning her for her treat-

ment of students of color.

“Black people like Starr are not one of us, they are not with us, they are not our community,” a speaker read from a testimony on behalf of a Black arrested student. “They are fully fledged members of the elite and uphold every system that massacres and genocides our people in the U.S. and abroad. Sure they can change one day when they maybe redistribute their money and start organizing with and for the people but until that day, they are nothing but our literal class and race enemies.”

The testimony also referred to police as the “slave patrol” and called Starr a “race traitor” for facilitating the arrests and suspensions on April 5.

Around 2:45 p.m., one organizer closed out the remarks by calling on students to display a continued protest for divestment.

“Let’s show this murderous institution that it is in fact easier to disclose and divest than it is to coordinate arrest days in advance, charge its own students with trespassing, and deny students campus housing, food, and classes,” the speaker said.

The speaker then led a chant of “Free, free, free Palestine” and directed attendees toward Pomona’s Alexander Hall, the site of last week’s arrests, to conduct a sit-in, scheduled to last 33 minutes to

mourn the deaths of the 33,634 people that have been killed by Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza that began on Oct. 7, 2023.

The crowd of over 250 students, faculty and community members marched from the library and down Sixth Street to College Ave., where the protesters sat outside Alexander Hall, obstructing a portion of the avenue as a few members of Campus Security observed from either side of the building.

Organizers then played audio messages from people currently in Gaza, sharing their experiences living through Israel’s assault.

Following this, at around 3:45 p.m., organizers called on the protesters to march to McConnell Dining Hall at Pitzer College where Pitzer’s College Council would be voting on a resolution calling on the school to hold an academic boycott against the University of Haifa and Israeli Universities. Throughout the day, students emphasized the importance of such protests and walkouts in sustaining efforts in support of Palestine and divestment.

“We will not be suppressed and we are not scared,” Analise said in front of the library. “We are committing to continuing to disrupt business as usual to resisting surveillance and criminalization and to winning divestment. Pomona is scared and we are powerful. We must continue to fight for a free Palestine.”

HAIFA: Thacker vetoes student calls for academic boycott

Continued from page 1

complex and are materially and intellectually supporting the genocide and apartheid the Palestinian people are facing.”

Another SJP member opened a series of speeches at the rally by reiterating the goals of the “Suspend Haifa” campaign and reflecting on SJP’s journey toward getting Pitzer to endorse an academic boycott.

“As we stand here, united and listening, let us not only fight for the liberation of the lost, but to stand firm in our commitment to justice, peace and resilience for every human being,” they said. “For we are not free until all of us are free. In the face of unimaginable pain it is our duty to ensure that the stories of the fallen are not forgotten.”

After this, another member of SJP spoke about the experiences of Palestinian students at the University of Haifa, citing examples of the university’s discrimination against them.

“The University of Haifa touts their diversity statistics as 40 percent Palestinian students, but this is merely the liberal veil of diversity and inclusion politics,” the member said. “Haifa is arguably the most repressive university to be Palestinian [at], as [Palestinian students] are limited to protesting only on Mondays from 12 to 2 p.m. and are routinely suspended and arrested on their own campuses.”

The member then addressed the topic of academic freedom, highlighting the importance of inclusive academic opportunities for all students. They suggested that Palestinian Pitzer students are not safe at the University of Haifa and argued that in order for Pitzer to stay true to its stated values, it must enact an academic boycott.

“Academic freedom is freedom for all, but how is it academic freedom for Palestinian students at [Pitzer] who don’t have the right to return to their indigenous homelands as they cannot go on this program?” the student said. “Today, we stand outside of the College Council and show these faculty that their students are mobilized, their students are fighting and their students are building a freer world.” Following this, a 2021 Pitzer graduate who was highly involved in SJP and who helped establish Claremont

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) during his time at the college, reflected on his experience with organizing the “Suspend Pitzer Haifa” campaign in 2019. He specifically pointed to former Pitzer President Melvin Oliver’s 2019 veto of the Pitzer College Council’s decision to suspend the program.

“[In 2019] when we were organizing the Suspend Haifa campaign, it felt like we lost because [Oliver] vetoed us and we weren’t expecting it,” the alum said. “Even though it felt like we lost at the time, I think I realized that actually, the victory was that we had dramatically changed the opinion of Pitzer through unified organizing.”

The alum then spoke about the importance of student organizing, arguing that it is crucial for people to stay united during moments of crises.

“The only way that we win as normal people is by coming together and creating a crisis for people in power,” the alum said. “What matters is that every single person in this crowd finds ways to plug in to building power and building the movement for the long term.”

Several students also made speeches expressing their solidarity with SJP’s campaign, condemning both the recent police presence on

Pomona’s campus and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians.

After this, members of Nishmat, a Jewish student community at the 5Cs, spoke on behalf of over 100 Jewish students, faculty and alumni who recently signed a letter to Pomona’s administration expressing their outrage at the recent arrests.

The members drew attention to the contrasting responses of Pomona administration during student occupations on two occasions: According to them, Nishmat members were welcomed when they occupied Alexander Hall in December 2023 to observe Shabbat and to ask administration for the recognition of the genocide in Gaza, but students who protested inside Alexander Hall and Pomona President Gabi Starr’s office on April 5 were met with heavily armed riot police and the arrest of 20 students.

“We have been shown that we hold a position of privilege and special protection in exercising our right to peaceful protest, one that is not offered to many of our peers,” the members said. “We feel compelled to use our voices to ensure that these protections are applied to all of our peers across all of the colleges and our Jewish values will continue to compel us to action.”

Following this, two members of the Claremont chapter for Faculty for Justice in Palestine — Professor Lara Deeb, the chair of anthropology and Middle East and North African studies at Scripps College and Professor Heather Ferguson, associate professor of history at Claremont McKenna College — made speeches reiterating their support for an academic boycott.

“If I was allowed into that Pitzer meeting happening right now, I would remind them that for many of us in Claremont, Pitzer is supposed to be the social justice conscience of this consortium,” Deeb said. “Students from Pitzer, Pomona and Scripps are making sure that Palestine and Palestinians are central to our lives here and that there can be no business as usual during the genocide.”

Then, members of Pitzer’s Latinx Student Union made a speech expressing their support for the campaign, highlighting how the experience of Palestinians in Gaza mirrors the historical struggles of the Latinx community.

“As Latinx students, we are products of white supremacy and settler colonialism and historically understand the violence inflicted on our ancestors, which continues to manifest itself in present day Latin America,” they said. “With this knowledge, we have an obligation to advocate for those experiencing ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination and [to] do what we can to prevent the continuation of these violences.”

Members of Mudders against Murder, Pitzer’s Queer & Trans+ Alliance and Pitzer’s Women of Color Collective also made speeches expressing their solidarity with the campaign.

After the speeches were made, members of SJP asked students to stay behind so that they could go inside of the lobby and chant when the College Council voted on the bill, ensuring that they could “hear us and how many of us are out here to support an academic boycott.”

Following the rally, the College Council voted 48:19 with no abstentions to pass Resolution 60-R-5. However, before the vote, Pitzer President Strom C. Thacker

announced that he would veto this decision.

During the meeting and in an email sent to the Pitzer community that evening, Thacker stated that he is opposed to any type of academic boycott, noting that he believes it is against the college’s values of academic freedom.

“I do not support an academic boycott of any country, as it directly opposes our educational mission and our commitment to academic freedom,” the statement reads.

He specifically cited guidelines set by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which has historically advocated against academic boycotts.

“We reject proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues, and we reaffirm the paramount importance of the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas,” Thacker wrote, quoting the AAUP.

He acknowledged the careful consideration he took when making this decision and invited the Pitzer community to continue to further engage in discussion of the topic.

“I have considered the issues with an open mind, listened actively, engaged in thoughtful and considered discussion, and shown respect throughout,” he wrote. “As president, I have made my decision based on the key principles set forth above, which are in the best interests of the College as a whole. I know many will disagree with this decision. I look forward to engaging further in constructive and respectful dialogues in our shared community.”

This announcement has been condemned by many on-campus groups that have supported the resolution including Claremont SJP and JVP, which have directly called out Thacker in a joint post on Instagram for an action they stated undermines Pitzer’s democratic legislative process.

“Democratically passed legislation is not a recommendation,” Claremont SJP and JVP wrote in the post.

“We will continue to remind Strom Thacker the War Backer that a veto is a vote for apartheid.” At the time of publication, no official veto has been made.

ANNABEllE iNK • THE STUDENT liFE

On Thursday, April 11, Pomona College faculty passed a resolution in support of the 20 students arrested on April 5 while hundreds of 7C members participated in a walkout.

ASCMC Senate approves student resolution on Pomona protests

KAHANI MALHOTRA

On Monday, April 15, the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College (ASCMC) Senate voted 11:3 to pass a student resolution written in response to the April 5 arrests of 20 5C students at Pomona College. The resolution condemns the Pomona administration’s use of police force and issuing of suspensions to the arrested students and calls for revisions to the 7C-wide demonstration policy and CMC’s Freedom of Expression Policy.

Discussions of a student resolution began at an April 8 Senate meeting. The meeting began at 8 p.m. in CMC’s Freeburg Forum and saw an audience of approximately 70 students and senators, in addition to members of the ASCMC Executive Board.

CMC Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Diana Graves opened the meeting by commenting on the arrests, specifically calling attention to the mobilization of four police departments to address the 20 student protestors on April 5. While Graves stated that the involvement of multiple police departments was likely a decision made by the Claremont Police Department (CPD), rather than by the college, she suggested that it was a distressing event regardless.

“Any time you have police presence on a college campus, it’s scary,” Graves said. “It’s just not what we normally see here.” Following this, the floor was opened for a Q&A. Graves responded to an inquiry as to how CMC might respond if faced with a similar demonstration and whether police would be called.

“It would have to escalate to a pretty significant place before we would have to call the police,” Graves said. “If you block the [Athenaeum] and shut down a talk, that’s gonna be a really big problem here. There are different thresholds for tolerance for policy violations [at each institution].”

Graves suggested that, if students wanted to see changes, they should turn their attention towards the 7C Demonstration Policy. While she explained that she could not independently change the policy, she also suggested that students could “bring forward what we as an institution with student support think that policy should look like.”

After the Q&A concluded, the ASCMC Executive Board initiated a discussion period for the statement that they had begun to work on.

According to ASCMC Executive Vice President Ryu Nakase CM ’26, the statement was meant to be a message specifically from the Executive Board to CMC’s student body. Still, he emphasized that they wanted input from students as well.

“We’re pretty open,” Nakase said during the meeting. “We want to hear what people have to say.”

Some students at the meeting were dissatisfied with the idea of this statement and called for more student input.

“[The Executive Board] is not representative of the student body … [but] your [statement] is going to get disproportionate visibility,” Rukmini Banerjee CM ’24 said at the meeting. “Why is the student body not being involved in this?”

While the Executive Board had planned to meet at a later point to deliberate over the statement’s initial draft, students requested that it be shared with everyone present at the meeting for a more transparent discussion. Executive Board members rejected their request, instead recommending that students draft their own statement in the form of a resolution.

At 9:15 p.m., 15 minutes after the meeting was supposed to conclude and an audience of 60 remained, Senator Pranav Patel CM ’26 made

a motion to draft a separate resolution in which non-ASCMC students provided input on deliverables they wished to see in the resolution.

“Use of police force was bad, nature of suspensions was bad, students’ right to free speech should be protected,” the document titled “Consensus from Senate” read.

“Students should come together with [the administration] to redesign [the] 7C Demonstration Policy, stand in solidarity with the right to protest [and] urge CMC to gather students to [rethink] the threshold of what counts as threatening or disruptive.”

At 10:15 p.m., the Senate adjourned. Two days later, on April 10, ASCMC President Ava Kopp CM ’24 sent out the Executive Board’s official statement regarding April 5 to the CMC student body, which was approved with 7 “yeas” and

4 “nays”.

Then, on April 14, the Administrative Affairs and Appropriations (AAA) Committee — one of the groups that oversees resolutions before they reach the Senate — met to examine a draft of the student-led resolution. The final draft was co-authored by Banerjee, Patel, Kenneth Owusu CM ’24, Elijah-Emory Muhammad CM ’26 and Maya Kurkhill CM ’24.

The statement criticizes Pomona administration’s actions in relation to values of CMC’s Open Academy.

“We condemn the escalation of violence on campus by Pomona College and the administration’s subsequent institutional retaliation due to their chilling impact on discourse, free speech, and the principles of Open Academy,” the statement reads.

Ashwin Rhodes CM ‘24 said. “I don’t know that we want to set the precedent of supporting non-constitutionally protected speech and assembly, things that people don’t have a legal right to.” One opponent of the document, Violet Ramanathan CM ’27, said she was unhappy with the statement’s political nature and that she was nervous about it setting a potentially dangerous precedent.

“Whether or not it explicitly takes a side in this debate, it definitely implicitly does so,” Ramanathan said. “In doing that, it condones certain actions that put the physical safety and protection of free speech on our campus and in the consortium at risk.”

Supporters of the resolution, however, found that it was beneficial regardless of students’ stances on the Pomona arrests.

“This resolution is about giving democratic power to the broader community and taking it away from the unilateral power of the president,” Rowan Gray CM ’26 said. “Even if you think Gabi Starr was 100 percent right in this case, if you read the text of the demonstration policy, it’s clear that this [clause] could be abused [by] some future president. That in and of itself is why we should address these policies.”

“This resolution is about giving democratic power to the broader community and taking it away from the unilateral power of the president. Even if you think Gabi Starr was 100 percent right in this case, if you read the text of the demonstration policy, it’s clear that this [clause] could be abused [by] some future president. That in and of itself is why we should address these policies.”

‘26

CM

Rowan Gray

The draft was passed by the AAA Committee before moving to the Senate, where it would need to obtain a majority vote before being sent to the CMC student body. On Monday, April 15, the resolution was presented for debate at a Senate meeting to an audience of 35 consisting of board members, senators and students.

Some dissenters expressed concern about the resolution’s classification of the protestors’ actions as free speech.

“I don’t know if what [the protestors] did falls under constitutionally protected free speech or freedom of assembly,” Senator

Banerjee echoed a similar idea, highlighting how the resolution embodies CMC’s values.

“CMC premises its entire ethos on being a bastion of free speech and never silencing dissent,” Banerjee said. “This resolution asks people to stand on that.”

Ultimately, after 50 minutes of debate, Senators voted and approved the resolution with 11 yeas and 3 nays. While the resolution was slated to be sent out the following morning, after the Senate meeting ended, Banerjee and other co-authors requested that the resolution be released 48 hours later.

The resolution was sent to the CMC student body on Thursday, April 18 at 8 a.m. for a vote that was scheduled to close 24 hours later. ASCMC affirmed that the results of the vote will be sent out to the student body on Friday, April 19.

Editor’s Note

SUSPENSIONS:

Pomona town hall grapples with student arrests

Continued from page 1

“People can — and should — reasonably disagree on how Pomona should respond to such challenges,” Glick wrote. “What’s critical is that we all have the opportunity to share our thoughts and ask questions of one another, consistent with the College’s traditions of deep inquiry and shared governance.”

Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) Vice President of Student Affairs Precious Omomofe PO ’24 informed students that their attendance of the event would not be recorded. By saying this, Omomofe addressed recent concerns from Starr regarding the anonymity of protestors where she deemed masked individuals who refuse to identify themselves “inherently unsafe,” and stated that this violates Pomona’s conduct code.

“There will be no record of individual attendance at this event,” Omomofe wrote in an April 17 email. “Additionally, wearing a mask is completely okay and acceptable, and there will be no consequences from [the] administration for choosing to do so.”

On April 15, Starr sent an email to the Pomona community reminding students of the upcoming discussion and addressing its timing in light of the April 5 arrests of 20 5C students.

“When we first scheduled this town hall last month, none of us thought that it would occur in the aftermath of Claremont police answering a call for help to Alexander Hall and the arrest of students from Pomona and our neighboring campuses,” she wrote.

Seven of those arrested were Pomona students, who Starr issued interim suspensions – suspensions enacted immediately and without the approval of the Judicial Council (JBoard).

According to the email, three of these suspensions have since been lifted, while the remaining four have not. Starr explained that this was a decision made by the Preliminary Sanctions Review Board (PSRB), part of the JBoard process.

The PSRB, Starr clarified, consists of two student chairs and two staff from student affairs who have the authority to hear appeals to interim suspensions. She ex-

pressed her faith in their abilities to make an informed decision.

“The deliberations of the PSRB are confidential and I do not have access to them,” she said. “However, I believe that the PSRB has the most complete information available to make an informed judgment as to whether the interim suspensions should be lifted. Given this, I will not overturn their decision.”

In her email, Starr also addressed the college’s response to the April 5 arrests. Despite authorizing the call to the Claremont Police Department, Starr wrote that she agreed with a recent faculty resolution condemning the militarization of Pomona’s campus in response to the student protestors in Alexander Hall.

“In a vote last Thursday, the faculty as a whole expressed clearly that they do not want to see a heavy police presence on our campus,” Starr said. “I could not agree more with that sentiment.”

The statement was drafted at an emergency faculty meeting on April 8 and voted on in a follow-up meeting on April 11, in which faculty adopted a resolution stating the following: “The faculty condemns the present and future militarization and use of police on the campus. It insists that the College immediately drop criminal charges and reverse the suspensions and all related consequences against student protestors for their actions of civil disobedience.”

According to Starr, the faculty’s resolution received 92 “ayes,” 39 “nays,” and 4 abstentions. Still, she reaffirmed her decision to call the police during the protest.

“While I believe that the safety of our campus made that call for help essential, I also believe our community wants to work together to avoid having a situation like this unfold in the future,” she wrote. “I wholeheartedly agree with that aim.”

Approximately 80 members of the Pomona community came to Thursday’s discussion despite a statement released by Pomona Divest From Apartheid (PDFA) on Instagram the day prior calling for students to boycott it. In the statement, PDFA argued that the administration would not be open to the dialogue they claimed to want to encourage with the event.

“Pomona has gone out of their way to show us that they do not see Palestinians as people who deserve rights,” the statement reads. “Until they meet this basic pre-requisite, we will not be engaging in any dialogue.”

WENDY ZHANG • THE STUDENT liFE

Pomona President Starr invited students to a town hall discussion and announced the removal of three of the seven suspensions for arrested students.

Ansley

Ben Lauren, Editor-in-Chief

CAELAN REEVES

By December of 1987, as a winter chill began to settle over Claremont, global criticisms of South African apartheid reached a fever pitch.

In 1979, students at the Claremont Colleges were made aware of the school’s investments in South Africa, particularly Pomona College Vice President Fred Moony’s personal investments in apartheid holdings. Student organizing coalesced around the issue and by 1984, divestment had emerged as the international precedent for combatting apartheid in South Africa.

On Dec. 15, 1987, a group of students with Students Against Apartheid established a “shanty-dorm,” or a collection of small tent buildings and protested outside of the then-president’s house for several days. Students chanted, gave speeches and distributed educational material as they occupied the area, occasionally speaking to the president directly.

In an article published in 2011, celebrated journalist Vijay Prashad PO ’89, a Pomona student at the time, recalled a time the president emerged from his house deep into the night to speak to the students.

“I remember him telling us that our presence was an irritation to his garden and he hoped that we’d let him have at least one unbroken night of sleep,” Prashad said.

At the end of his brief address, Pomona President John Alexander turned and retreated into his home and fell asleep to the chants of his students.

Alexander Hall was christened in John David Alexander’s name in 1992, at the end of his 22-year tenure. In the years since, its function as an administrative building and its location along College Avenue have made it a repeating location in the history of student organizing at Pomona, echoing that encampment outside Alexander’s own home.

In light of Claremont police arresting 20 peaceful protesters at Alexander Hall on April 5, TSL spoke with Prashad to learn more about the his-

A HISTORY OF OCCUPYING

POMONA COLLEGE’S ALEXANDER HALL

tory of organizing at Alexander Hall. Prashad recalled Pomona administration invoking police force to remove students from outside of Alexander’s home at the shanty-dorm protest in 1987. The Claremont Police Department (CPD) was called to extinguish a trashcan fire lit at the demonstration and proceeded to detain multiple students.

“No charges were brought against us,” Prashad said. “This was not the only time we were detained by the CPD, but I do not recall any charges being brought against any of us at that time.”

The shanty-dorm protest was, arguably, successful — Pitzer College and the Claremont University Consortium Board of Trustees agreed to divest from apartheid holdings by the end of the 1980s after repeated student and faculty demonstrations. Aside from Pitzer, however, the other Claremont Colleges did not divest until California Assembly Bill 134 forced them to do so.

Prashad himself regarded the protest as a success.

“Obviously our protests had an impact,” he said. “Pomona did divest.”

As President Alexander’s tenure ended, student activists viewed the new administrative building as a prime location for protest.

In 1993, Pomona faced significant pressure to diversify its student and faculty bodies after multiple incidents, which happened in quick succession and exposed potentially biased hiring practices: Rumors circulated that three Black professors were rejected by the Pomona English department, the Scripps College Chicano studies professor position was left unfilled and a Black female Pomona professor failed to get her contract renewed. These events were compounded by lingering unaddressed concerns following an anti-Asian-American vandalism incident in March of 1992. Student organizers from a variety of backgrounds coalesced to demand revised hiring practices and support for ethnic studies.

From Monday, Feb. 1, to Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1993, around 50 Claremont students affiliated with various activist groups occupied Alexander Hall after following custodians in as they unlocked the building. Administrators were unable to enter and organizers plastered signs in the window reading “Closed due to racism.” Students organized teach-ins, gave speeches from the steps of Alexander Hall and received civil disobedience training from a Claremont Graduate University staff member. Professors in support of the protest taught classes on the lawn outside.

TSL spoke with Karl Halfmann PZ ’94, a lead organizer of the 1993 Alexander Hall occupation, about the organization and events of the takeover.

“We were talking about what kind of action do we want to take?” Halfmann said of the preliminary organizing efforts. “Is it a vigil, is it a march? And [Yusef Omowale PZ ’95, another student] said, ‘I’m sick of this stuff, we need to take it up a notch and do something really

bold.’ And that’s when the idea kind of sparked to take over a building.”

Ruth H. Chung, USC professor of clinical education and former Pomona psychology professor, was one of two faculty allowed into Alexander Hall by student organizers to aid with negotiations.

“The 5C student coalition, which were heavily Pitzer students, targeted Alexander Hall due to its prominence, ease of access as a new building and a friendly administration,” Chung told TSL.

The idea of a building occupation was new and not immediately popular with all organizers.

“There was a gender dynamic to it,” said Halfmann. “A lot of the men were like, ‘we need to be level headed, we can’t take over a building.’ And this girl just got up and said ‘I’m sick of this. If you’re not with us you need to leave right now, cause we’re taking over a building.’ And from that point on everyone was heading in the same direction.”

Negotiations with a delegation of administrators from all five colleges began late on Tuesday night, during which thenPitzer President Marilyn Massey arrived on a flight from out-of-state. At 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 3, organizers emerged from negotiations with administration having reached a deal.

professor whose contract was not renewed, weren’t met.

Additionally, in an interview with student publication The Claremont Colleges Collage, then-sophomore George Revutsky PO ’95 leveraged allegations of antisemitism against organizers, pointing out that Jewish student group Hillel had not been extended an invitation to the demonstration.

Further, one of the speakers who organizers brought to the steps of Alexander Hall was Kwame Ture, who had spoken at the Claremont McKenna College Athenaeum earlier that day about the occupation of Palestine. Revutsky protested the platforming of Ture, who he called a “known antisemite.”

“There were some progressive Jewish students with us and they said no to Hillel coming in,” Halfmann said. “They were like, ‘you’re very conservative.’ At the time I didn’t understand the dynamic. But they were very clear: ‘[Hillel was] not attaching themselves to us.’”

“The 5C student coalition, which were heavily Pitzer students, targeted Alexander Hall due to its prominence, ease of access as a new building and a friendly administration.”

Ruth H. Chung, USC professor of clinical education

“Victory is ours,” proclaimed Omowale as they emerged. “Those of us on the inside have chosen to leave the building on our own terms. There will be no business as usual. Usually, the administration decides when folks leave buildings by calling the police.”

This time, he said, administration had no excuse “to send in [their] fascist pigs.” Administration had invoked police presence recently. Halfmann recalled a protest along Sixth Street where the CPD was called to follow students along their march to Pomona. Police were not called, however, to the Alexander Hall occupation.

“None of the students were arrested,” Chung said. “The Pomona president at that time, Peter Stanley, was supportive of [ethnic] studies and despite pressure from trustees, resisted arresting the students.”

Stanley confirmed in a statement that this was due to the protestors’ respect for the building and lack of damages.

Due to amicable negotiations between administrators and student organizers, the protest was successful in many respects. Stanley agreed to finalize the search for a joint Intercollegiate Black Studies position in the Pomona English department, Scripps agreed to prioritize hiring a Chicano studies professor on tenure track and all colleges committed to involving students in the hiring process. Chung believes that the protest also catalyzed the creation of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies a few years later.

Still, as with any act of civil disobedience, some students voiced disapproval of the protest.

A group of organizers were disappointed that certain demands, such as the reinstatement of the Black Pomona

Pomona students circulated a petition expressing disagreement with the protestors that garnered around 100 signatures, some anonymous. In the archival memory of Pomona, the 1993 Alexander Hall occupation was the catalyst for many of the college’s diversity hiring practices. Alongside student organizers fighting for protections for racially marginalized students and faculty, there has been a strong labor organizing presence in Claremont since the 1970s. It is around this issue that much of the latter half of Alexander Hall’s history as a site of protest is concentrated. Silverman said that on-campus organizing often follows larger national social movements.

“Each one of these events occurs because there’s a huge national upheaval and the Claremont Colleges are part of that,” Silverman said. “At the same time, the response of the colleges also follows the national pattern.”

This momentum culminated in the May 1, 2000 occupation of Alexander Hall by students who protested the colleges’ partnership with Aramark, the firm that ran the colleges’ dining services. The action was incited by allegations that Aramark had intimidated workers to deter them from voting to unionize.

“You will see that you do not need the union,” wrote then-district manager Scott Parry in a letter to employees.

According to Silverman, the Colleges claimed they had no influence over Aramark.

“When the workers started to organize for union election and demanded that the colleges press Aramark to accept a card check vote for unionization, the colleges refused,” Silverman said.

The demonstration was loud, disruptive and organized relatively quickly. Students U-locked themselves to the doors and, as in 1993, prevented administrators from entering the building.

This came after a similar demonstration two days prior in which protestors locked Pitzer President Massey out of her own office in Broad Hall. Massey signed a statement supporting the students’ right to organize and CPD was not called.

According to Silver-

man, the college terminated their contract with Aramark soon after a union deal was reached with the organization. Silverman noted that a union deal had to be “reached on each campus,” thus delaying the process of unionization across campuses.

As Claremont students grew more outspoken, coinciding with rising national tides of protest, the colleges’ protocols tightened to match rising national police repression.

“In 2001, the demonstration policy was revised and made a lot more restrictive,” Silverman said. “It was revised again in the wake of the dining hall workers demonstrations. It progressively became more repressive over the last 20 years, which is just like the United States as a whole.”

Labor organizing tensions bubbled to the surface again in 2011, after Pomona conducted an audit of all of its faculty and staff’s immigration and citizenship records. In late 2011, Pomona fired 17 dining hall workers for failing to resolve discrepancies in their immigration documentation, to the shock and dismay of students and faculty.

“It was right before Christmas,” said Silverman. “It was just a cruel, cruel thing to do. Some of them had worked for Pomona for decades, had grown up working in the dining halls. It was a terrible time and a terrible thing to do.”

In March of 2010, 90 percent of Pomona dining hall workers signed a letter pushing the college to allow them a card-check union vote process free from discrimination in a “stunning show of strength.”

This incident, Silverman argued, was directly connected to the firing of the 17 workers. This was the position taken by student organizers as well.

In response, students held a twoday vigil outside of Alexander Hall protesting the firing of the 17 dining hall workers.

“Given the Board [of Trustees’] apparent unwillingness to open up lines of communication, we decided to hold an extended vigil in hopes that the Board and the administration would respond to us,” organizers said in a statement.

Students spent a week “sleeping, studying, and working outside of Alexander [Hall].” Pomona Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum expressed support for the students’ “rights to express themselves and their presence outside Alexander Hall” and kept in line with their wishes for “limited involvement of Campus Safety or [CPD],” so long as they stayed true to their promises to not obstruct access to Alexander Hall and maintain “a peaceful, nonviolent space.”

The Alexander vigil remained as such until the occurrence of another protest that began at Frary and made its way to Alexander Hall, consisting of both Claremont students and fired dining hall workers. The protestors moved to the intersection in front of Alexander and, in an act of planned civil disobedience, attempted to get 17 protestors arrested. “College officials declined to have them arrested so long as they were peaceful,” said Dean Feldblum in a statement. A few hours later, 15 students were arrested by CPD for blocking the intersection of 4th Avenue and Sixth Street. The 17 dining hall workers were never re-hired.

Since 2011, there has not been a long-term occupation of Alexander Hall or the surrounding area. In 2019, Pomona students protesting hastily imposed limits on workstudy allowances staged a fourhour-long sit-in in Alexander Hall on Pomona’s Admitted Students Day, where they were joined by current Pomona President Gabi Starr for discussions on steps forward.

On Dec. 1, 2023, 5C Jewish student group Nishmat organized a sit-in Shabbat celebration in Alexander Hall to express solidarity with Muslim students in the wake of Israel’s escalation of its violence in Gaza.

According to Pomona, students were inside Alexander Hall on Friday, April 5, for about one hour.

Caelan Reeves CM ’25 was a member of TSL’s editorial board, once upon a time.

A-E: MiCHAEl lArSEN • THE STUDENT liFE

COUrTESY: ClArEMONT COllAGE A-E: PHOTOS FrOM 1985

PHOTOS FrOM 1993 H, I, K:

COUrTESY: THOMAS AllEMAN, ClArEMONT COUriEr

Gus-core: A personal reflection

As my final semester in college comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on how my style has evolved since I arrived in Claremont. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about style in general and, honestly, I feel like I understand the meaning of “style” less than I did as a first-year.

A lot of people at the 5Cs have made me realize that my definition of style is completely different from that of others. I think maturity in fashion is realizing that different opinions can coexist peacefully and not feeling the need to criticize when a look doesn’t align with your preferences. I struggle with that sometimes.

I only really started becoming critical of what others wore when I escaped the “sneakerhead” phase of my fashion journey. Around my senior year of high school I began to realize that the shoes were not, in fact, the centerpiece of every outfit (especially if those shoes were designed to be worn on a basketball court). Before I even got interested in fashion, though, I was still buying clothing I thought was cool. They were met with mixed reactions — I was even teased once for wearing a pink jacket.

Claremont presented an environment that contained a lot less judgment. I’ll rephrase that, actually: Claremont presented an environment that contained the same amount of judgment, but a lot less judgment about what anyone wore. I remember buying a pair of loafers my first year. I was terrified to wear them until I showed them to my friends and they encouraged me to take risks and fully express myself. This definitely resulted in some questionable outfits that year, but that’s part of the experimentation process.

Our style preferences can change based on the people we meet and the new tastes that we’re introduced to. Sophomore year, I was thrown into a friend group that had never met in person due to the pandemic. I felt like my style back then reflected the character I was playing as I tried to assimilate into this new friend group; I was caught up in brand names, even though some of the brands I was buying weren’t really authentic to me. As my friend group changed over that year, I grew more confident in my role in my social circle and how my style fit into my personal expression.

Your day-to-day environment can play a big role in how you dress as well. That summer, I got my first internship at an office with a business-casual dress code and immediately turned to The Real Real to find cheap, sharp clothes. Now, I look at the three pairs of dress trousers sitting in my closet that haven’t

gotten a wear for at least a year and laugh, remembering how excited I had been to own them. It’s funny — each time I glance at my closet I’m reminded of how different pieces of clothing I’ve worn over the years have fit into my personal evolution. Just like songs, pieces of clothing can hold intangible memories that don’t fade quickly.

During my junior year, I turned towards old, niche designer brands and vintage clothing. I was really focused on building a solid baseline for myself; I wanted one of every kind of jacket, pant, shirt, whatever would allow me as much variety as possible. I was also trying to prepare for going to Paris the next semester, which resulted in me buying jackets that were probably not appropriate for Claremont weather. I wore them until my body got so used to them that they actually became appropriate for Claremont weather — but weren’t nearly enough for Paris weather once I actually arrived there.

In any case, Paris allowed my style to flourish because I never felt like I was overdressed. I could

wear a full Canadian tuxedo, overcoat and cowboy boots on the Metro and no one would care whether I was on my way to a fashion show or my French language class. (I will, unfortunately, admit that it was always the latter.) Often, I think about those fashion iceberg memes on Instagram that have a big name brand like Supreme at the tip of the iceberg and eventually work their way down to super niche, artisanal brands like Carol Christian Poell, Deepti, m.a+, etc. The more I’ve learned about fashion, the more I’ve come to disagree with these portrayals. Fashion evolution is not a linear progression at all.

A few months ago, I bought a pair of A Diciannoveventitre boots (they’re also known as A1923, but it sounds way more pretentious when you spell it out) and a shirt from the ’80s with the words “Party Hut” printed on the front. My fashion evolution theory goes from sneakerhead to minimalism to vintage and high fashion to essentially just buying whatever I like. As humans, after we get bored

enough of semi-commitment to an aesthetic, we either have to go all in or just let it go in favor of diversity. Right now, I would align myself more with diversity in clothing taste; I mostly just buy individual pieces that I like and then hope that they work well together. Sometimes, that guess will be more educated than not, but I like the variety it gives me. I feel like being tied down to a certain aesthetic is limiting; there’s no way that some of those people on Instagram really feel like wearing head-to-toe Balenciaga for all of their pictures, but I digress. As I’ve gotten to know my style better, I’ve also realized the faults in my process. I’m still tied to certain brand names, even though the brands I’m attached to now tend to be of higher quality and richer history. Sometimes I’ll find myself searching auctions for a certain brand, hoping to find a cheap piece that I know was made well, instead of discarding my biases. It goes the other way, too; I can sometimes be elitist in criticizing the fast-fashion and Instagram brands I see other

people make, even though I can only assume the quality of the clothing itself. As I continue to develop my style, I have to make sure that I develop an impartial perspective on all the clothing I could add to my wardrobe as well.

My sophomore year, I had two pieces of clothing that always earned compliments because of the designs embroidered and printed on them. As of now, I’ve sold one of them and don’t wear the other often. I feel like I’ve turned away from stuff like that — stuff that I know is aesthetically appealing, almost like it’s too easy to wear — because it doesn’t take any controversial risks. There’s definitely some kind of facade of rebellion behind this, but I’ve realized that the compliments I get now are more authentic to my style, which makes them better to receive.

Recently, I’ve been really interested in the texture and weight of clothing, specifically pants. I bought a pair of pants a few weeks ago in large part because of their sheen; they’re made of acetate, which creates a unique texture. My friend complimented the pants because of this effect and it made my day because she recognized why I had thought they were cool enough to add to my wardrobe.

Anyway, now I’m rambling. My general point is that it can be easy to dress in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing — but if it’s not true to you, what’s the point of receiving the compliments? Anyone can throw on a pair of Timbs, baggy pants and a zip-up hoodie and say they have style, but is that “style” for you or someone else? I’m not saying that dressing trendily can’t also be authentic (I write this wearing a pair of wider jeans purchased when they became super popular), but rather that it’s more rewarding to look good wearing an outfit you put together yourself.

I usually end my articles with something about dressing true to yourself, so, now you can hopefully see how I got here. Clearly, that self is ever-evolving and your personal style, like mine, should be too. you, what’s the point of receiving the compliments? Anyone can throw on a pair of Timbs, baggy pants and a zip-up hoodie and say they have style, but is that “style” for you or someone else? I’m not saying that dressing trendily can’t also be authentic (I write this wearing a pair of wider jeans purchased when they became super popular), but rather that it’s more rewarding to look good wearing an outfit you put together yourself.

I usually end my articles with something about dressing true to yourself, so, now you can hopefully see how I got here. Clearly, that self is ever-evolving and your personal style, like mine, should be too.

QUiNN NACHTriEB • THE STUDENT liFE

From international stages to translated pages:

Book recommendations from around the world

CAROLINE KELLY

International films provide an incomparable transportive experience. An indescribable sense of concentration overwhelms audience members as they voraciously read subtitles while devouring the picture playing above them. The engulfing nature of such experiences is reminiscent of visiting the literary worlds contained in novels — which brings me here to recommend some foreign films and translated books.

This article will highlight some of the best foreign films of 2023 alongside a similar translated novel that will help you escape the post-movie blues.

The first notable foreign film of 2023 is “Anatomy of a Fall,” a French legal drama directed by Justine Triet. The movie begins with the death of Samuel Theis, who falls from the second story of his home. As the film unfolds, what appears to be a suicide soon becomes a murder investigation — and Samuel’s wife, Sandra, becomes the prime suspect. The scandal that unfolds makes the film absolutely addicting. Beloved across the world, the movie received international recognition at the Oscars this year, taking home five nominations and one award.

The magic of “Anatomy of a Fall” is the tension and unhinged qualities of the female protagonist. Although not a murder mystery, “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang depicts a similar woman who dangerously spirals amidst catastrophe. The book takes place in South Korea, following Yeong-hye and her ostracizing decision to follow a plant-based diet that cleaves her from a meat-eating society. Yeong-hye’s choice to become vegetarian sends her down a crippling path of no return. Similar to “Anatomy of a Fall,” both women grapple with the dilemma of whether their guilt is earned or undeserved as they face

the consequences of their actions. The second phenomenal foreign film on my list is “Society of the Snow” directed by J.A. Bayona. The movie portrays the historical event of the 1972 plane crash of a Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes Mountains. The story of survival in the cruelest conditions is harrowing and petrifying. I will not spoil the events of the film, but the culmination of catastrophes made watching “Society of the Snow” a constant source of anxiety. That being said, I deem “Society of the Snow” one of the best movies of the decade; featuring gorgeous cinematography and the resolve of the human spirit, the film is unparalleled in storytelling. “Society of the Snow” received two Oscar nominations and, much to my disappointment, no award.

The emotional rollercoaster that is watching this film pairs perfectly with “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed” by Mariana Enríquez and translated by Megan McDowell, which you can read to recover. “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed” is an Argentinian collection of short horror stories that range from traditional gore to psychological twists. My favorite chapter is “Meat,” which follows teenage girls who obsessively stalk a pop star beyond his death. The story collection exemplifies the dangerous nature of human desire and the extremes one will go to belong — similar to “Society of the Snow,” “The Danger of Smoking in Bed” demonstrates the will to survive.

The last film I’m recommending is “The Zone of Interest,” which took cinemas by storm worldwide. The movie was directed by Jonathan Glazer and co-produced by the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland. The film follows Rudolf Höss, a Nazi commandant, and his wife Hedwig in their manor outside

of Auschwitz. The movie is immensely experimental in sound and cinematography. Uncomfortable close-ups and haunting screams serve as background music to create a disorienting, unnerving experience. An interesting aspect of the film is that Auschwitz is rarely shown and only in black-and-white. By frequently hearing — but not seeing — the atrocities happening at the concentration camp juxtaposed with the Nazi family’s lavish home life, the audience is immersed in a world of absolute terror. “The Zone of Interest” was recognized for the uniquely harrowing portrayal of the Holocaust by the Academy, receiving four nominations and two awards.

The exploration of the Nazi figures truly invokes a petrifying response. A similar sense of dread is instilled in readers of “Fatelessness” by Imre Kertész, translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson. The book offers an alternative perspective to “The Zone of Interest” and depicts the horrors of the period with a chilling accuracy. “Fatelessness” is a semi-autobiographical novel that follows an adolescent Hungarian Jewish boy who is transported across Europe to different concentration camps. The book is devastating in its truthful portrayal of the horrors victims of the Holocaust experienced while Nazi families, like the one in “The Zone of Interest,” lived in luxury. “Fatelessness” was one of the earlier novels on the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002. The simple voice of a young boy alongside the potent reality he faces makes the novel an unforgettable depiction of the human will.

The commonality between all these movies and books is the transformative ability of their storytelling. None of foreign films and translated books are fun or light in content, but they are immensely moving and powerful. In a time of tumult and turmoil, learning from history reminds us of the importance of empathy. Similarly, these creative pursuits serve as a poignant reminder of human determination and the disasters that will ensue if history and the present persist in echoing one another.

Caroline Kelly PO ’27 is from Boston, Massachusetts. Her ideal afternoon involves reading and cold brew.

Modigliani took her eyes

I like looking at sketches and imagining the moment they were drawn. Sketches feel intimate. Knowing that a drawing could’ve only been produced in a short period takes away some of art’s illusion, the barrier between the moment of inception and the moment that I am looking at the drawing.

Amedeo Modigliani’s “Portrait of a Woman (Beatrice Hastings?) in a Cloche Hat” is made up of expressive lines. The 1915 graphite drawing is part of the Benton Museum’s current exhibit “500 Years of Italian Drawings.”

Most of the external lines that outline the figure are heavier — I see Modigliani’s hand pressing down into the paper. The longer I look at the portrait, the more a person seems to come out of this assemblage of lines.

The first line I notice is the one that forms the right side of the woman’s neck. It is single, unbroken and starts at the jaw, outlining with a tiny mark where the jaw breaks away from the neck before moving slowly down through the neck and almost to the shoulder.

This neck is ridiculously long — its line crosses most of the vertical page. The heaviness of the line foregrounds the figure, implying that she exists in a space that recedes behind her. As it continues down the page, the line tilts into a soft angle, making the twist of the head that turns away from us and hangs down languidly.

The heavy line of the neck exaggerates how delicately the face is drawn. Its features and the left side of its cheek and neck, are all made in such thin, light lines that the face threatens to sink into the white

of the paper. The jaw is almost entirely omitted, leaving a very big expanse of blank paper down through the collar. Modigliani often left his subjects’ eyes empty — here, the eyes are barely there, only a few marks and without eyelids or pupils.

This is the barest indication of a face. All features are annihilated to a few pencil marks. On the gallery wall, most of the drawings that surround “Portrait of a Woman” are significantly more finished-looking and dramatic, making Modigliani’s portrait seem even more delicate in contrast. The exhibit’s galleries are kept in low light, the portrait hiding in a dark corner; its face, mostly white paper, stares ahead ghost-like.

The appeal of portraiture is often to look at a face and see the person behind it — the soul or mind or whatever else a person is beyond their body. A face becomes a control board for the self. The eyes, which cry and see, signal emotion and perception; the mouth, which speaks, signals self-expression; the ears, nose, etc.

Modigliani’s “Portrait of a Woman” is only just enough of a face to signal the self — but still, this feels like a person to me. The tilt of the head and slight smile seem lifelike, as if the woman has stepped back to look at us. In its spare lines and abstracted simplicity, I am tempted to say that Modigliani’s portrait feels like a truer representation of a person than realism would be. If I were someone else, I might say it “captures the essence” of its subject.

This tilt of the head makes her seem hesitant, as if she has only in this moment decided to turn her face forward and let us look at her. The soft lines of the left outline of the face give the impression that she is receding slowly backward, fading away out of our view. Portraiture wants to steal the face of its subject; the artist and viewer both want to take the face of a person and keep it trapped here. Myself included. Modigliani has taken her eyes! We want portraiture to signal the self — at least, I do. I want to look at “Portrait of a Woman” and feel like I understand this woman, like I am seeing through the paper into her head, seeing the lines as more than just lines. But, of course, it’s a half-lie: We only see the version of this woman that has been metered out for us, the lines she’s composed of intentionally elongated or thickened, her eyes given pupils or not given pupils.

Nadia Hsu PO ’27 is from Austin, Texas. She is chalant.

‘The only solution is a political solution’: UCLA professor

James L. Gelvin gives historical perspective on Gaza

DYLAN ZULUETA

Students and Claremont community members filed into Pitzer College’s Benson Auditorium on April 3 for a lecture titled “The Conflict in Gaza: A Historian’s View.” The speaker, UCLA Professor of History James L. Gelvin, authored “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A History.”

The event was sponsored by Pitzer’s Melvin L. Oliver Racial Justice Initiative.

Gelvin started the talk with geographic and historical background, from the British taking control of Gaza in 1922 to Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. He stated that Gaza has a 65 percent poverty rate.

Gelvin provided three reasons for Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, each supported by historical precedents.

First, he cited the 1974 Ma’alot massacre to illustrate how such attacks aim to bring Palestine back to the forefront of the international agenda. Next, he drew parallels with the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks to demonstrate an intent to discourage Arab states from establishing normal ties with Israel. Third, Gelvin referred to the 1970 Black September conflict as indicative of an attempt to diminish the influence of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

“Now, if it’s true that all three of these points are reasons for the attack … then Hamas has already won,” Gelvin said.

Gelvin discussed Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu’s goals in Israel’s bombing and ground attack campaign. Netanyahu stated that the objectives of the campaign are to destroy Hamas and to return the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

However, Gelvin argued that the release of the hostages has been treated as an afterthought by the Israeli government.

“Actually, there is a third goal as well: Keep Benjamin Netanyahu out of prison,” Gelvin said. “This

explains the Israeli reluctance to change its tactics. This explains the very muscular and unrelenting Israeli attacks.”

Gelvin pointed out that Netanyahu is attempting to hide his track record of supporting Hamas. According to a CIA official, the Israeli government initially enabled Hamas in order to “divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO.”

“This was done to mask … Netanyahu’s previous support for Hamas,” Gelvin said. “And … his unpreparedness in dealing with October 7.”

Gelvin argued that because Hamas provides social services and administrates Gaza, it is unlikely Israel will be successful in disbanding Hamas. He also predicted that Israel would claim an unearned victory and revert to a strategy known as “mowing the lawn,” in which Hamas militants are likened to grass that Israel needs to “mow” through periodic bombings and attacks to manage Hamas’ military capabilities.

“Every year or two, Israel will launch an attack on Hamas to the greatest capabilities,” Gelvin said. “Hamas will then rebuild his capabilities and Israel will strike again … Since the onset of the Oslo agreement, this is basically an almost yearly occurrence.”

Gelvin said Netanyahu’s postwar proposal does not address the political contention at the root of the conflict. The proposal includes deradicalization programs, implementation of a technocratic government, reconstruction of Gaza funded by third party foreign states and the disbandment of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.

“The plan raises a number of questions,” Gelvin said. “In other words, Israel has no real plan … And there is no real plan because there is no military solution to the crisis. The only solution is a political solution, which is a solution that not only does the Israeli

government not agree with, but 65 percent of Israelis currently oppose a two-state solution.”

During the Q&A, Gelvin mapped out a potential resolution. He argued that current violence is not rooted in inherent religious differences; rather, it originates from the repression of Middle Eastern governments.

“This is a sideshow, but what’s really happening in the region was expressed in 2011 with the [Arab Spring] uprisings,” Gelvin said. “People are sick and tired of their governments … They see the repression, they see the corruption … they’re really pissed off.”

Gelvin argued that the conflict is bound up in an unconventional conception of religion.

“This is a quintessential nationalist conflict,” Gelvin said. “Religion shouldn’t be thought of as what we think of religion, as it’s a belief system … Religion is a marker of community.”

While Gelvin offered the Clinton parameters as a rational solution, he said that in order to actually implement a solution, the conflict requires “political will” from both sides.

“At this point, neither side is willing to compromise,” Gelvin said. “There’s a certain American optimism about, ‘Well all we got to do is put out this plan and because it’s a reasonable plan, obviously people will accept it’ and it doesn’t work that way.”

Gelvin offered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as precedent for how the United States might leverage their influence over Israel to create “political will.”

“After the … saturation bombing of Beirut, [Americans] began demanding that the Israelis work … for some sort of ceasefire,” Gelvin said. “The Americans backed that with an arms embargo of certain weapons … until the Israelis cooperated with that. That’s leverage that the United States still has.”

Addressing recent national

protests, Gelvin argued that effective action cannot take place solely on college campuses. When asked to comment on the difference between “open-air prisons” — a phrase often used to describe Gaza — and concentration camps, Gelvin warned against sloganeering.

“I could come up with a semantic answer that would differentiate between the two but I can’t,” Gelvin said. “What has shocked me has been the way in which discourses on campus have been run.

‘From the river to the sea,’ for example, as a slogan is something that many people find extraordinarily objectionable … The sloganeering basically turns off those people who can go one way or the other.”

Instead, Gelvin implored students to take action off campus.

“The thing about political change is if you want to do it, you get the hell off campus,” he said.

“If you are a member of a pro-Palestinian organization, you call up every local chapter of the Democratic Party and ask to speak to one of their meetings, every trade union office you can reach … You got to get off campus, you got to begin to move the movers and

shakers in the American political system and it can be done.”

Sonali Mudunuri PZ ’25 found this answer to be unsatisfying in light of ongoing pro-Palestine organizing across the 7Cs.

“There is a lot of value or merit in college organizing, which is why I was … a little bit confused about the answer that was given to us,” Mudunuri said. “Since colleges are part of the military apparatus … divestment, particularly at Pomona … [is] a really, really hot button issue. And it [is] important to put pressure on the administration.”

Ultimately, Mudunuri appreciated Gelvin’s analytical perspective on the conflict.

“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation and propaganda, so I was just hoping to get a clear overview from the historian because Middle East relations in general can be very convoluted,” Mudunuri said. “I did appreciate that Gelvin was very staunch in laying out the facts and what the problem was before October 7 and what it’s looking like now, in terms of death toll and mass starvation. I just wish that there was a little bit more insight into what that actually looks like, rather than the pure statistics.”

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NADIA HSU

QUiNN NACHTriEB • THE STUDENT liFE

Art columnist Nadia Hsu pO ’27 visits Amedeo Modigliani’s “portrait of a Woman (Beatrice Hastings?) in a Cloche Hat.”

James L. Gelvin gave a lecture titled “The Conflict in Gaza: A Historian’s View” at Pitzer College’s Benson Auditorium

Pomona, riot gear police is the opposite of de-escalation and ‘dialogue’

On Friday April 5, students occupied Pomona College’s Alexander Hall in a protest condemning the administration’s removal of a ‘mock apartheid wall.’ Pomona had 20 of them arrested.

The last thing that comes to mind when sounds of nearly two dozen police cars are blaring at the heart of campus is that your own college president has authorized a call for police on peaceful student protesters.

In fact, the first thing that comes to mind is far worse. My friends who aren’t on social media first thought there had been a shooting on campus. Instead of considering the traumatizing effect of seeing waves of fully-armed police in riot gear storm a campus building Friday evening in response to a peaceful protest, Pomona College President Gabi Starr allegedly requested that students be arrested after having already authorized a call to local police. That’s not to discount the trauma those who interacted with police experienced first-hand after organizing a peaceful sit-in.

The overwhelming response from police makes me wonder what it was that Pomona and Campus Safety had said to evoke such an aggressive response to peaceful protesters. It makes me question why anyone in leadership would think soliciting a fleet of 22 police cars across five jurisdictions — Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, La Verne

and Covina — was appropriate or necessary. Other colleges and past Pomona administrations tell us that it didn’t have to go this way.

After Vanderbilt University recently suspended 16 students for a sit-in resulting in the arrest of three students, internal campus security escorted students out of the building they had been occupying, rather than Nashville police who only became involved after the fact.

When Pomona students occupied a building twice for two days apiece in 1993, the then-president responded far differently, instead opting to implement a task force to ensure the college moved forward with student concerns in mind as well as with strengthened involvement. President Starr did the same — also without the use of full riot gear police — after a four-hour sitin for student workers took place in 2019.

Yet, this week, the decision to call the police signals a turn in policy that isn’t on par with past approaches or how the college could have chosen to respond.

The college knows how to handle student protests in Alexander Hall without police because they do so nearly every semester. They have proven that they are capable of responding internally just as they and many other colleges have done for years.

This time, they chose to call police.

With such a strong response, it seems like admin’s main intention

calling

was to intimidate students from exercising their right to free speech, especially at times when their opinions may not align with that of the administration.

This is despite the fact that the student movement’s call for divestment from Israel is overwhelmingly supported by students, something President Starr’s administration has conveniently dismissed, unlike her predecessors, which detracts from the fact there is an ongoing genocide of Palestinians taking place as we speak — and that Pomona’s finances are contributing to it.

If upcoming events, such as 4/7 Day, had become a source of concern for administration, with the activist art in mind that had prompted the sit-in in the first place, it’s on them for making it one. It’s hard to imagine something more in the ethos of the liberal arts college experience than the intersection of art and activism — just take a look at any semester’s course catalog.

Recent TSL reporting revealed that student activists had already coordinated plans to work with the college by removing the encampment they had set up alongside the art installation days earlier, as well as with ASPC to ensure the art would not interfere with both groups’ 4/7 Day events.

Instead, Pomona admin put students in danger past the arrests themselves.

Rather than show consideration for the arrested students’ well-being, Pomona immediately revoked swipe access to dorms and campus buildings, meaning that as soon as police released students from the Claremont jail, the first thing on their mind was finding a roof overhead for the night and food the next day.

For reference, the Claremont Police released the last students early into Saturday morning, around half an hour past midnight, seven hours after police had first arrived on campus. This meant several students had to scramble to figure out their next moves regarding their hopefully temporary solution for off-campus accommodations.

Calling for an excessive police force and embracing the militarization of campus — despite knowing what the imagery of police brutality and incarceration conjures in the minds of students, staff and faculty, and particularly the non-white 5C community — is heartless.

This is especially salient given that student protestors had never become violent, per numerous TSL reports and my own experience

must support

witnessing the protests. Both Pomona and Campus Safety know all too well that when police arrive on campus, what happens next is outside anyone on campus’s control.

Calling police meant that any risks associated with their presence, such as confrontation with students or revoked visas and deportations for international students would now be plausible.

If Pomona regrets firing 17 undocumented workers in 2011, it’s again not apparent because they risked putting students in a similar position yet again. Under President Starr’s administration, Pomona justified kicking out a housing insecure student in a matter of days, yet has done little to address internal doxxers and off campus counter protesters that have shown up to campus over the last six months.

From a legitimate campus safety standpoint, Pomona’s recent tendency to dole out punitive responses to some protesters over others, rather than uniformly or none at all, just doesn’t add up, or seem fair to everyone involved.

The issue isn’t that Pomona lacks the ability to support all their students — it’s that they’re choosing not to.

In the following days, more information will come out on what led to Friday’s escalation. Admin will need to look inward and evaluate all the individuals and policies responsible for such a strong police response in the first place.

Some of the policies that could have served as a safeguard don’t even exist yet.

When asked last semester about on-campus “private detention” policies, which determine whether Campus Safety places individuals under citizen’s arrest until police are called, Campus Safety told TSL they did not have any policies.

In November, a professor was arrested on the grounds of trespassing during a pro-Palestinian rally during work hours. He told TSL that Campus Safety never told him they had placed him under private arrest, something TSL had to confirm through public records as Campus Safety initially said they had not.

With two instances of excessive police presence within six months, it’s imperative that the college and Campus Safety have a set of criteria that determine when police should be called and private arrests should be made.

If the Pomona administration or Campus Safety have any real remorse for the arrest of one of

its professors like it says it does, it doesn’t feel that way. Calling police on students indicates the exact opposite, indicating an excessively punitive pattern from current leadership on both fronts.

Pomona can start to amend the situation by dropping the charges and halt the suspensions and campus bans altogether. Pomona can also acknowledge the implications the call to police had on the campus community.

To show it cares about its students, faculty and staff, Pomona administration should start by questioning why Claremont Police denied those who had been arrested access to legal counsel and never even read students their Miranda Rights, per Los Angeles Times reporting.

Unlike Pomona, Pitzer College announced Sunday they won’t pursue suspensions but will instead work with Pomona to help their students finish their cross-campus classes, an alternative Pomona could consider as well.

Many students in Claremont are on financial aid, so expecting them to fend for themselves until then —or depend on the support of the few off-campus Pomona students, or that of their professors — is pathetic at best. Where does admin think these students are right now?

In the next few days, arrested students have the chance to appeal their interim suspensions, a process which relies on the decision making of the Pomona Student Review Board. Faculty, admin and students involved with the interim suspension process should act to tone down admin’s unwarranted response to students’ rights to exercise free speech and protest.

If mending a relationship with a distraught campus is important to admin — and it should be — the college should explain why it chose the course of action it did and how it will ensure the unnecessary and overwhelming police presence will not happen again.

Pomona can and should let students get back to learning — and allow them to actually put said learning into praxis, as liberal arts colleges purport to preach.

Jenna McMurtry PO ’25 served as TSL’s editor-in-chief from May to December 2022. Having previously reported for the news desk, Jenna covered last semester’s arrest of a Pomona College professor. She loves calling Claremont home for college, except in times when police are hastily called to campus and students lose access to dorms and dining halls for standing up for what they believe in.

academic freedom

and students’ right to free

On Friday, April 5, 20 Claremont Colleges students were arrested during a peaceful protest at Pomona College by local police department officers and booked in the Claremont Police Department (CPD) — 19 of them on trespassing charges and one on charges of obstructing an officer. This action comes all too soon after CPD arrested a Pomona faculty member last semester on trespassing charges, after bringing their class to observe an anti-apartheid die-in protest at Big Bridges Auditorium.

But I want to do what few so far have done and take this incident out of the context of the BDS movement and Israel-Palestine. I want to ask, what does Pomona’s response to campus protests say about them as an educational institution?

Its response makes it abundantly clear that Pomona does not support academic freedom and students’ right to freedom of speech.

President Gabrielle Starr’s escalation of the situation on April 5 by calling the police was unwarranted. This unnecessary level of enforcement was blanketed by a notification sent by Campus Safety, which read, “Police activity at Pomona Campus, Alexander Hall. Please stay away from the area where law enforcement personnel are present. There is no threat to the community.”

What reason was there for this escalation, besides silencing voices speaking on one of the most contentious issues in the world? Would the response to a protest of this nature differ if students were speaking for another cause?

Let’s dissect the rhetoric of the Campus Safety notification and figure out what “threat to the community” even means.

Testimonies from detained students describe instances of police

resorting to physical force under the guise of “protecting” Pomona administrators. Violence is coming from police, meaning that, in the eyes of Campus Safety, the “threat” is 7C student protesters; the “community” is Pomona administrators.

This vital clarification directly opposes students’ academic freedom and freedom of speech. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that there shall be no “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Academic freedom is, according to Inside Higher Ed, “[the] protect[ion] [of] faculty members and students from reprisals for disagreeing with administrative policies or proposals.”

As a private institution, Pomona is not directly subject to the First Amendment — it is, however, subject to California Education Code’s Leonard Law. The Leonard Law protects free speech rights for students at private colleges and universities.

According to Pomona’s website, Leonard Law prohibits the college from “subjecting any student to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that is protected by a student’s First Amendment and other free speech rights.” Pomona violated these student rights on April 5 — not just those of student protesters, but also of the student press.

“[Starr] turned to campus police and told them, ‘please detain this individual,’” a member of a student press organization stated in an Instagram post by Pomona Divest from Apartheid. “Three campus police grabbed me (two on each arm, one on my torso) and dragged me outside … they closed the door on my body. One of them then kneed me in the gut

and shoved my chest, pushing me out again before locking the door. They saw me and closed the door on me again, then elbowed me in the face. I fell to the floor due to the impact.” For those of us who are members of student media organizations at the Claremont Colleges, this is a chilling story. These tactics of press suppression — tactics that are becoming all too familiar in the United States — are unlawful. Claremont College community members have the responsibility and right to advocate for our campuses to become a better place. This is a practice that should be welcomed, not stamped out. If the Pomona administration perceived their current investment practices as unproblematic, then a protest wouldn’t be deemed threatening. The escalation of calling the police on Friday night proves just how scared Pomona administration is of student voices — fear born out of a knowledge that they are doing something wrong, but also

a lack of integrity to make the necessary changes.

As if violating state and federal rights weren’t enough, Pomona is also actively going up against its own mission statement.

“Pomona students are inspired to engage in the probing inquiry and creative learning that enable them to identify and address their intellectual passions,” the statement reads.

As residential campuses, learning at the 5Cs does not stop in the classroom, but is continued through praxis and student action. If students aren’t able to manifest our learning into action, then why are we even learning at all? The April 5 protesters were, after their learning,“inspired to engage in probing inquiry” — and they were addressing their intellectual passions through demonstration.

Like many others after the events of Friday night, I am discouraged and outraged by Pomona College’s handling of a peaceful, student-organized

protest. Our students should be encouraged to explore their intellectual interests and to take action to advocate for good — not thrown in the back of police cars for it. We, as a cross-campus community, must not tolerate the actions of President Starr or Pomona administrators unwarrantedly militarizing Pomona’s campus and attempting to silence our voices.

Regardless of whether or not your beliefs align with those of the April 5 protestors, we are united under our commitment to intellectual freedom, intercultural understanding and shared responsibility to challenge the status quo. We should all be equally outraged by the college’s violation of our rights and values.

I call on all of our community members to condemn the actions of Pomona administrators on April 5 and to advocate for “The Claremont Colleges Policies and Procedures” — the document that governs demonstration policies at the Claremont Colleges — to be reviewed and revised by representatives of faculty, staff, administration and students across all 7Cs to ensure better protection — a revision where we choose for responses to be constructive, not destructive to our community.

Most of all, I am calling on you President Starr.

Will you persist in fostering division, or will you be a unifying force that stands with us to uphold the Claremont Colleges’ commitment to co-creating a better future?

The choice is yours.

Aaron Matsuoka PZ ’26 is one of TSL’s copy chiefs and believes in co-creating community as a holistic collection of faculty, staff, administration and students. He loves the Claremont Colleges and hopes that we can all work towards a more transparent community that supports our shared values and welcomes the questioning of our current systems.

JENNA MCMURTRY

Former TSl editor-in-chief Jenna McMurtry pO ’25 argues that pomona College’s decision to call the police on April 5 protestors was unprecedentedly cruel.

Aaron Matsuoka pZ ’26 questions the implications of president G. Gabrielle Starr’s use of police force on students’ right to freedom of speech and academic freedom.

Dear Pomona College administrators, masked protestors aren’t

a danger

to our community — but you are

ARIA WANG

On April 5, Pomona College called the police on 19 students peacefully occupying President G. Gabrielle Starr’s office. The 19 students — alongside one student arrested from the sidewalk, totaling 20 — were held at the Claremont Police Department (CPD) long into the night while several hundred students assembled outside in protest.

As individuals willing to take up physical space in the protests’ aims for boycott, divestment and sanctions, the arrested students became essential contributors to our community — something Starr clearly doesn’t understand.

Disruptive protest, like the peaceful occupation of Starr’s office, invites legal and disciplinary consequences. I am certain that the protestors anticipated facing retributive action from the police and/or administration.

While the non-Pomona arrestees were, fortunately, able to return to campus upon release, the seven Pomona students arrested (PO7) were greeted with interim suspensions and barred from entering campus facilities, including their own dormitories.

Starr claims to prioritize community, but this “community” does not include student protestors. In a statement she sent out on April 5, Starr refers to protesters not as community members, but as “masked, unidentified individuals.” What’s more, an email from Pomona Treasurer Jeff Roth on April 9 includes a “web resource” for students that uses “protestor” and “unidentifiable individual” interchangeably. By failing to mention that said “unidentifiable individuals” are also students, the school portrays them instead as foreign actors on our college campuses. This dehumanizes and alienates student protestors from other students. In essence, this illogical, nonsensical separation between student and student protestor discourages other students from engaging in peaceful protest.

Pomona’s rhetoric demonizes the same people it claims to stand for.

Pomona criticizes students for not revealing their identities, but their narrative fails to address this question: Why is it that students are so afraid to identify themselves? The answer is twofold — and terrifying.

One explanation is doxxing. Doxxing is the risk of having one’s private information plastered online for malicious purposes — something easily imaginable in

a world where filming in public is completely legal. Starr’s emails have exasperated doxxing by repeatedly slandering and mischaracterizing protestors, including but not limited to unsubstantiated claims about food waste, assault and usage of “a sickening, anti-black racial slur in addressing an administrator.” In these circumstances, student protestors conceal their identity to avoid defamation from such a voice of supposed authority.

Another answer lies in nowabused tools such as interim suspensions.

According to Article II, Student Affairs, Section B ii “Interim Suspension” of the Pomona College Student Code, an interim suspension may be imposed only for the safety and well-being of the college community, property or suspended student; or if the student’s presence threatens to disrupt the college’s “normal operations.”

One could assume that the college views the disruptive protests as contrarian to “normal operations” — it appears, however, that this is not the case.

In Roth’s “web resource” email, administration claims that

they “need to ensure the safety of our community due to the risk caused by unidentifiable individuals protesting on our campus.”

This crass, insensitive hogwash willfully misrepresents student protestors as literal threats to the community rather than peaceful protestors. As such, administrators sought to remove the “threat” with police force rather than address it — an example of Pomona’s complicity in the prison industrial complex.

In calling the police on peaceful protestors, Pomona administrators actively ignored the impact that police and the prison industrial complex have on communities across the United States and abroad.

For a liberal arts college that prides itself on being diverse, this is a colossal humiliation.

This act from administration only demonstrated that Starr’s Pomona community doesn’t consist of any students, much less those that police institutions systemically oppress.

To the Pomona administration, community only includes Pomona trustees, administrators, Campus Security and the CPD. By invoking interim suspensions

against the PO7, President Starr has made clear that no student is a part of this elite community.

Students should take away that the Pomona community, overflowing with financially overprivileged administrators and trustees, will see you as a threat if you dissent. They will exile you, barring you from seeing your friends or attending classes.

Thus, even though Starr claims to invite students to Alexander Hall to discuss divestment (under the wild, oafish assumption that debating human rights is a civil discussion worth having), the reality is that no student can safely accept those terms. After April 5, Starr made it abundantly clear that discussions without anonymity leave the possibility for disciplinary action.

Student protestors are a menace to the “community” — that is, a gated community enclosed within the walls of Alexander Hall, now guarded by a campus insecurity force. Unless Pomona College rectifies this transgression against student activism, there will be no Pomona community in which students are included.

Of course, the focus of the current protests isn’t about the PO7

or President Starr — it is about an active cause of divestment from an ongoing genocide. We are unable to divest if administrators continue to consider us as threats rather than members of the Pomona community. We must cultivate a community that dismantles Starr’s gated community and includes students at Pomona — a school students pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend.

Pomona, stop scapegoating student protestors; stop blaming the community’s fracture on your “fear” of masked individuals. Instead, rebuild trust with your students by showing interest in our democratic processes.

In other words, divest now and you can salvage pieces of the community you’ve destroyed.

Aria Wang PO ’27 believes the police have no place on our campus and supports divestment from Israeli apartheid and genocide of Palestinians. She can occasionally be found enjoying the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 with conductor Leonard Bernstein — until at least thirty oinking cops in riot gear are called in to satisfy the insecurities of money-guzzling trustees and administrators.

Jasper’s Crossword: Orbital Mechanics

Issue 19 Leaderboard

Philosophical argument against believing in both evolution and philosophical naturalism simultaneously

Luminous galactic core powered by a supermassive black hole

Successor to Project Mercury

institution

familiarly

King deposed by Richard III

TCL phone offering (yes this is obscure, yes it is absolutely, strictly necessary for the puzzle)

12 mo. periods

Seaborgium

Tim-____

Fill with passion

Head-splitting headache

____-Mandara, AfroAsiatic language family

Emasculate

Stirner’s ideology

Division of an ER dealing with critical condition cases

Pillar of USA public space exploration

Zinc Sulfide, colloquially

Foodies, haughtily

Cordon-____

Microgram symbol

George Airport code

Sober one at a party

Master Linguist of Rothfuss’ University

Of the dawn

The first state, abbr.

Senior day thrashing: Athenas crush Bulldogs 24-1

OTTO FRITTON

They’re back and better than ever. On the afternoon of Saturday, April 13, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s lacrosse celebrated a successful senior day with a 24-1 victory over the University of Redlands, establishing a threegame winning streak in which the Athenas have scored 77 goals and only conceded eight.

After dropping a close contest to non-conference foe Colorado College on March 31, the Athenas won their next two games and came into the weekend with a 9-3 overall record and a 8-1 record in the SCIAC. Though still unranked by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA), the Athenas’ national profile is on the rise, with CMS appearing as an honorable mention on the last IWLCA post.

The Athenas came out of the gate flying with Grace Minturn CM ’26 scoring her 31st goal of the season just 33 seconds into the game. Not even 20 seconds later, Taylor Daetz CM ’25 added to the Athenas’ early lead by putting away her 13th goal of the season.

This offensive charge stunned the Bulldogs who seemed incapable of responding. The Athenas capitalized on this as Daetz scored her 14th goal of the season, increasing the Athenas lead to 3-0 after only three minutes.

The rest of the first period looked much the same and CMS’ dominance was reflected on the scoreboard. Goals from Minturn, Daetz, Cate Lewison HM ’26 and three from Amelia Ulmer CM ’26 had the Athenas’ leading 9-0 by the time the first period came to a close.

Ulmer emphasized how the team’s strong communication was

critical to their success.

“I think we’ve been so successful because we are really well coached and we love each other,” Ulmer said. “I know that sounds silly, but we really do. We’re all best friends as the way that we work together on and off the field really is how we make everything happen.”

In fact, everything did keep happening for the Athenas, with the second and third periods repeating the energy of the first.

CMS added five goals in the second and six in the third, increasing their lead to a seemingly impassable 20-1 margin by the start of the fourth quarter.

In the second period, Minturn opened the scoring and was quickly followed by goals from Ulmer and Julia Ryan CM ’27 shortly after. Before the period was over, a goal from Catherine Murphy CM ’24 increased the lead to 14-1.

Though only a first-year, Ryan has played a vital role in the team’s success this season with her dominance in draw control situations proving essential support to the CMS offense. On top of adding a goal and four assists on Saturday, Ryan also won 12 draw controls, more than the entirety of the Redlands team combined.

Ryan echoed Ulmer’s sentiments about her individual success stemming from a positive team atmosphere.

“I couldn’t be successful without my team,” Ryan said. “We work together on and off the field and I cannot do it without them. I’m really excited for the rest of our season and I know we’re gonna be able to keep on building off of what we already have as a team.”

Less than three minutes into

the third quarter, Stella Hansot CM ’27 added her 15th goal of the season and was quickly followed by Murphy, who added her 22nd goal of the season. Before the period was over, the Athenas would score three more, courtesy of Annie Parizeau CM ’26, Sheridan Dorsey HM ’26 and Ainsley Basic CG ’24. Head coach Lauren Uhr attributed much of the team’s offensive triumphs to a well-balanced offense.

“We have a lot of different threats,” Uhr said. “I think in this past game, around 13 players scored. And so it’s not like we have just one or two looks. Overall, we are pretty deep which helps us a lot down the stretch.”

The Athenas would strike once again in the fourth period, adding four more goals including Murphy’s third of the night and 23rd of the season. Ava Marra SC ’27 secured her first goal of the season, as well as the Athenas’ 24th and final goal of the night, with 2:37 left in the game.

CMS senior goalkeeper Kendall Chapko CM ’24 reflected on the game and her entire collegiate experience. Though disappointed to not obtain a shut-out, she said she was delighted with both the team’s performance and the outcome of senior day.

“We just have the best team possible,” Chapko said. “I think that’s what makes us play so well in big games because we really kind of play for each other and we are very unselfish. It was so much fun out there today and I’m going to miss all of this so so much. I just appreciate my teammates and the rest of the seniors and I really think this is what made my college experience so fun.”

Though the Athenas were de-

lighted with the result, they still have their sights set on a revenge matchup against first-place Pomona-Pitzer (P-P), a Sixth Street match with major implications for the SCIAC playoffs. Both Ryan and Ulmer said they were confident that the Athenas could score a win against a program that hasn’t dropped a game to the Athenas since 2019.

“We’re really excited for Wednesday,” Ulmer said. “It’s gonna be a great game, all credit to [P-P]. They’re a great team, really well coached as well. We just have to make sure that we are having fun and pushing ourselves in practice, and I think it’ll be a really cool game.” Uhr remains optimistic in the Athenas, believing that their recent growth puts them in a solid position.

“I think the team is really adapting to the new things that we’re throwing at them,” Uhr said. “We’ve been watching, scouting and looking at what other teams do and we are trying to figure out how to progress accordingly. As for P-P, I think it’s definitely going to be a competitive game, but I think our team has been working hard to win and hopefully, that will show on Wednesday.”

After beating Redlands, the Athena’s went on to lose the massive SCIAC matchup against P-P in an overtime 11-12 loss after holding the lead for most of the game. CMS will finish the season with games against University of Chicago (April 21), Occidental (April 24) and Chapman (April 27), before SCIAC Championships.

Stags stomp Bulldogs on day two of series, come one step closer to playoffs

The pounding of hooves and the patter of paws could be heard from the diamond as the Stags stampeded over the Bulldogs on day two of their series, defeating Redlands 9-6 in the morning and 13-3 in a quick seven innings in the afternoon. After a 6-8 loss on Friday, two victories for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) baseball on Saturday, April 13 both won them the series and brought their overall record to 20-10 this season.

Starting on the mound in game three for the Stags and making his seventh appearance of the season was Aaron Herst CM ’26. Herst forced three consecutive groundouts in the first inning to send the Stags up to bat with early momen-

tum. Rider Gordon CM ’27 said that Herst’s performance, as well as overall defensive dominance, was crucial for the team’s success.

“Our guy Aaron Herst was pitching for us and he was throwing strikes early,” Gordon said. “We let the defense do the work and up and down through the line up everyone just hit and trusted each other.”

Tyler Shaw CM ’24 hit a leadoff single to start the bottom of the inning, followed by a walk and an HBP to load the bases with one out. CMS began to make things difficult for Redlands pitcher Kyler Bacosa and an RBI walk by Jack Potter CM ’25 put the Stags on the board. Right after, a single by SCIAC hitter of the week Adam Dapkewicz CG ’25 drove home

two and brought the score to 3-0, forcing a pitching change for the Bulldogs. Gordon then hit an RBI single before the end of the inning, putting Redlands four behind going into the second. Dillon Martin CM ’27 said the team was thrilled with their performance after the first inning.

“It was electric,” Martin said.

“Once that happened, we all kind of knew that that was our game.”

However, the Bulldogs were not going to go down without a fight and Redlands scored three in the top of the third, closing the gap to one run. This went unanswered by CMS until the bottom of the fourth, who responded with force and made sure that was the last the Bulldogs would see of home plate.

After turning a double play in the top of the inning, CMS went into the bottom of the fourth with bats hot. Blaise Heher CM ’26 walked with one out and Shaw came up for his third at bat of the afternoon to smash a double to left field, advancing Heher to third.

Wesley Wells CM ’27 said big hits from Andrew Mazzone CG ’25, Dapkewicz and Sanders in both games on Saturday were crucial for the team’s success.

“Those guys have definitely been producing,” Wells said. “And then even in the bottom of the lineup our guys like [Heher] and [Gordon] and [Bryce Didrickson HM ’26], they’ve been great too.”

An intentional walk loaded the bases only for Julian Sanders CM

MUDD SUMMER SESSION

’24 to hit an RBI single to short and move all runners forward. Potter then got his second RBI walk of the game, putting the score at 6-3 with bases loaded and two outs. Executing under pressure, Dapkewicz fired a double to center field to clear the bases and increase the Stags’ lead to six runs. Martin said he was very happy with his teammates’ performances, noting that the Stags were able to deliver results in critical moments.

“As a team I just think we hit really well,” Martin said. “Especially our grad students Andrew Mazzone [CG ’25]and Dapkewicz, they were just incredible.”

The Stags opened the bottom of the fifth with a pair of singles from Didrickson and Heher. Shaw then walked to load the bases with no outs, bringing up Mazzone, who hit a sacrifice fly to left field that allowed Didrickson to score. Martin then hit a single driving in another two runs, forcing another pitching change from Redlands.

Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, a fresh arm couldn’t stop the Stags as Potter drove in yet another run off a single. The 10 run gap satisfied the collegiate mercy rule, which would allow them to pack up early if they maintained that lead through the next two innings.

Martin explained how the morning win was part of the reason for their afternoon dominance.

“Our confidence was just super high,” Martin said. “That’s a big part of the game. If you believe you’re gonna win, chances are

you’re gonna win.”

Redlands could only scrape together one hit over the next two innings against Herst and Berkeley Harsch HM ’27, who faced the last three batters of the afternoon. The two pitchers secured CMS the mercy rule win with a final score of 13-3.

“Herst is kind of a contact pitcher, so our infielders made a bunch of plays,” Wells said. “Our defense has definitely been stepping up a lot sometimes when our offense isn’t there. But obviously our offense was there.”

The Stags had 14 hits and six walks over the seven innings and held Redlands to only eight hits and one walk. This series win moved CMS to 8-7 in conference, sitting at fifth place in the SCIAC trailing several spots behind the No. 1 ranked Sagehens who currently hold a 11-4 record in the SCIAC. With only three regular season series left in the season the Stags will have to move up one place in the rankings to secure a playoff spot, as only the top four teams in conference advance to the tournament. Despite the uphill battle the team is about to embark on, Gordon said that he feels good about their chances.

“We’re really confident moving forward,” Gordon said. “[We’re] looking for a SCIAC tournament spot and thinking we could do some real damage.”

Looking ahead, the Stags will face Occidental College in their next series at Azusa Pacific on Friday, April 19 and at Pomona-Pitzer’s alumni field on Saturday, April 20.

Classes offered online and in-person

Three- and six-week courses

Taught by HMC faculty

$4,250 (three-credit course)

CHARLOTTE RENNER

Stella Hansot CM ’27 dances through the redlands defense en route to a 24-1 win on Saturday, April 13.

COUrTESY: ClArEMONT-MUDD-SCrippS ATHlETiCS Andrew Mazzone CG ’25 steps up to bat for CMS in their 13-3 mercy rule win against redlands on Saturday, April 13

RegisterNow!

Six-Week Session: May 20–June 28, 2024

Open to All Students Enrolled in An y Accredited Institution

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Housing Available • Financial Aid Available for Those Who Are Eligible

AMST 012: Intro to Race, Ethnicity, and American Cultural Studies

AMST 012: Intro to Race, Ethnicity, and American Cultural Studies

ANTH 002: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology

ANTH 002: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology

ANTH 055: Reproductive Justice

ANTH 055: Reproductive Justice

CGS 010: Introduction to Critical Global Studies

CGS 010: Introduction to Critical Global Studies

CGS 050: Power and Social Change

CGS 050: Power and Social Change

CHLT 013: Intro to Caribbean Studies

CHLT 013: Intro to Caribbean Studies

CSCI 004: Introduction to Computer Science for Non-Majors

CSCI 004: Introduction to Computer Science for Non-Majors

EA 089: California Beaches

EA 089: California Beaches

ECON 052: Principles of Microeconomics

ECON 052: Principles of Microeconomics

ENGL 047: The Human Condition: A Longform Journalism Practicum

ENGL 047: The Human Condition: A Longform Journalism Practicum

PHIL 036: Gender, Crime & Punishment

PHIL 036: Gender, Crime & Punishment

PHIL 039: Philosophies of Place

PHIL 039: Philosophies of Place

POST 030: Introduction to Comparative Politics

POST 030: Introduction to Comparative Politics

POST 040: Introduction to International Politics

POST 040: Introduction to International Politics

POST 091: Statistics and Data Analysis for Politics

POST 091: Statistics and Data Analysis for Politics

POST 135: Political Economy of Food

POST 135: Political Economy of Food

PSYC 010: Introduction to Psychology

PSYC 010: Introduction to Psychology

PSYC 101: Brain and Behavior

PSYC 101: Brain and Behavior

PSYC 103: Social Psychology

PSYC 103: Social Psychology

PSYC 194: Seminar in Social Psychology

PSYC 194: Seminar in Social Psychology

HIST 098: Palestine and Israel: A History of the Conflict

HIST 098: Palestine and Israel: A History of the Conflict

LGCS 007: Writing Systems

LGCS 007: Writing Systems

MATH 052: Introduction to Statistics

MATH 052: Introduction to Statistics

MS 056: Digital Mythologies

MS 056: Digital Mythologies

ORST 151: Participatory Action Research

ORST 151: Participatory Action Research

SECU075: History of Atheism/Freethought

SECU075: History of Atheism/Freethought

SOC 030: Deviant Sex Cults

SOC 030: Deviant Sex Cults

SOC 183: Consumer Society and Culture

SOC 183: Consumer Society and Culture

SPAN 002: Continuing Introductory Spanish

SPAN 002: Continuing Introductory Spanish

SPAN 033: Intermediate Spanish

SPAN 033: Intermediate Spanish