ACLU and civil rights organizations bring legal warning against Pomona College following student suspensions
SCARLETT ANDERSON & REILLY COSTELLO
In a Nov. 13 letter to Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr, five civil rights organizations issued a legal warning against the college, claiming that Starr’s decision to suspend a group of students for their alleged participation in the Oct. 7 protest was a violation of their rights under California law.
Palestine Legal, the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, the National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California claimed that Pomona punished students for the act of protesting, consequently violating their rights to free speech, expression and association under California’s Leonard Law. In the letter, the groups urged Pomona to immediately lift the “unlawful suspensions.”
The Leonard Law is a California state law passed in 1992 and amended in 2006 that protects free speech for students at private post-secondary institutions, which were initially not subject to the same constitutional obligations that public institutions were.
In addition to arguing that Pomona violated this law, the letter argued that the college violated students’ due process rights by suspending them without a “meaningful opportunity to be heard.”
The authors pointed out that, in the notices sent to students before being suspended, the only specific allegations that Starr made were that the suspended students were present inside Carnegie Hall during protest activities.
According to the letter, students cannot be punished “solely for engaging in speech,” yet the college provided no evidence proving that the suspended students committed acts of violence, bodily harm,
destruction of property, or intimidation.
“The suspension letters make clear that the College is holding anyone who attends a protest responsible for any unlawful or disruptive actions that may occur within the vicinity of the protest, regardless of whether the person participated in or even knew of those actions,” the letter reads.
“This is, in effect, punishing the act of protest itself.”
The letter alleges that in this, the suspended students were punished for the actions of others, infringing upon the principles established in Supreme Court cases like NAACP
v. Caliborne Hardware Co. In these cases, the First Amendment prevented state courts from holding a civil rights boycott leader liable for the violent actions of some participants who acted without his personal authorization.
The authors also claimed that Pomona violated students’ rights to the common law doctrine of Fair Procedure. In situations where the severity of allegations might significantly impact a student’s ability to complete their postsecondary education, this doctrine — which ensures the quality treatment of court users — must apply.
“The seriousness of these alle-
gations and the College’s failure to engage in any fair procedure presents a clear hindrance to the students being able to pursue their education, at Pomona or elsewhere, if they want to continue to progress toward their degrees,” the letter reads.
Additionally, the authors argued that Pomona is doing “immediate and irreparable harm” to its suspended students, who they pointed out are disproportionately low-income, BIPOC and members of other marginalized communities.
“Overnight, these students were forced to contend with a loss of their housing, meal plan, access to
medical resources, including mental health care, income from various on-campus jobs, loss of their support networks and community, and a full year delay in progressing toward graduation,” the letter reads.
The authors requested a response by Nov. 20 describing how Pomona’s response will determine whether or not the groups pursue legal avenues.
“If the College refuses to change course, we reserve the right to take any necessary legal action to vindicate the rights of the students,” the letter concludes.
Pomona administration did not respond to comment at the time of publication.
CSWA leads McConnell boycott during Family Weekend, urges Pitzer to rehire former employee
SCARLETT ANDERSON
During Pitzer College’s Family Weekend, Claremont Student Workers Alliance (CSWA) initiated a boycott of Pitzer College’s McConnell dining hall to protest the administration’s refusal to
rehire Adan Campos, a former employee who was fired in February 2024 while renewing his immigration paperwork. The boycott began on Friday, Nov. 8 and ended after brunch on Sunday, Nov. 10. Last weekend’s boycott
after months of conflict between Pitzer’s administration and 5C community members who supported Campos’ re
turn. Calls for the admin
istration to rehire Campos,
ELLIE LAKATOS & LAUREN CHONG
Pomona College used Wi-Fi connection data to identify students involved in the Oct. 7 protest at Carnegie Hall, according to an update on the college’s website and a letter sent to banned students on Nov. 11.
The college found that identified students’ personal devices were connected to wireless access points throughout Carnegie Hall during at least two time periods on Oct. 7, the website states. Identified students had a minimum connection duration of 50 minutes between 11:30 a.m.
ANDReW YUAN • THe STUDeNT LIFe
On Nov. 13, five civil rights organizations issued a “legal warning” against Pomona College for its decision to suspend a group of students after their alleged participation in the Oct. 7 protest at Carnegie Hall.
COURTESY: POMONA COLLEGE Pomona College identified some students at the Oct. 7 Carnegie Hall protest by using Wi-Fi connection data, a new update on the college’s website says.
SID GOLDFADER-DUFTY • THE STUDENT LIFE
The Claremont Student Workers Alliance (CSWA) organized a boycott of McConnell dining hall during Pitzer College’s Family Weekend to protest the firing of Adan Campos, a former McConnell employee who was terminated in February 2024 while renewing his immigration paperwork.
BOYCOTT on page 2
Pomona College finds Claremont SJP guilty on one of six counts; issues seven sanctions including suspension of Instagram account
MACY PUCKETT & KEEANA VILLAMAR
Pomona College’s Judicial Council (JBoard) found Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) guilty of Article III, Violation 14 of Pomona College’s Student Code during a Nov. 1 hearing. According to Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), this was one of six violations that Pomona brought against SJP in an official investigation following the Oct. 7 pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The violation accuses SJP of “irresponsible” or “negligible” conduct resulting in theft, damage, physical harm or threat to a member of the college community’s property or safety. According to PDfA, SJP was exonerated on violations two, three, five, six and nine of Article III.
In a Nov. 1 statement, SJP referenced Pomona’s broader investigation of the group, saying that they were appalled by the college’s actions.
“By criminalizing the oldest school-affiliated group centered on Palestinian liberation, admin
makes it clearer than ever that their priority is continuing to support israeli apartheid,” the post reads. “Pomona College is on a frantic rampage to find the parties ‘responsible’ for all pro-Palestine organizing.”
JBoard issued seven sanctions to SJP the following day, according to a Nov. 5 joint Instagram post by PDfA and Undercurrents, a 5C student publication dedicated to “documenting and amplifying grassroots organizing.” One of the sanctions prohibits the group from using their Instagram account until March 31, 2025. Another specifically calls for the group to create a plan for a community apology.
“The real people who deserve an apology are suspended and banned students, people whose education was completely put on hold and ruptured due to Pomona’s retaliation,” SJP said in the post.
Additional sanctions include requiring SJP to attend eight mandatory hour-long meetings with their advisor or designee and to create a statement clari -
fying their relationship to PDfA. Sarah Maher PO ’28 said that she views the sanctions as an example of how Pomona utilizes collective punishment against protestors. The sanctions follow Pomona’s unilateral suspen -
sion of 12 Pomona students allegedly involved in the Oct. 7 demonstration. “I don’t agree with what happened on October 7,” Maher said. “I don’t agree with the destruction of property. But
BOYCOTT: C swA boycotts
I highly disagree with collective punishment and an unfair judicial process, and I feel like a lot of people also share that sentiment.”
Maher added that she has talked to numerous people who were on the fence about President G. Gabrielle Starr’s decision to authorize a call to police officers during a pro-Palestinian demonstration last spring, an action that resulted in the arrest of twenty students. These same students strongly oppose Starr’s recent actions, Maher said.
“I think Gabrielle Starr is exercising an extreme amount of power, and it is causing a lot of distrust within the student body,” Maher said.
Patricia Vest, interim chief of communications officer at Pomona, stated that all the judicial processes for student clubs related to the “Carnegie takeover” are complete and have been heard by the judicial board.
She added that all student clubs must adhere to the policies in Pomona’s Student Code.
SJP and PDfA did not respond to TSL’s request for comment.
McConnell for former employee Adam Campos WI-FI: Pomona identified
Continued from page 1
including a petition with over 1200 signatures, have been unsuccessful.
“We have no choice but to escalate with a boycott, which is something that impacts [Pitzer] monetarily,” participant Grayson Kunz PZ ’28 said.
During meal hours, participants formed a picket line around McConnell’s two main entrances, drumming, waving signs and chanting. Some participants passed out informational flyers to students and family members approaching the dining hall, encouraging them to boycott Pitzer dining services during Family Weekend.
According to members of CSWA, the boycott was aimed at hurting Pitzer financially. They explained that, when Pitzer students choose to eat at a different 5C dining hall, the college is required to pay that school for the meal.
“We made it so that Pitzer had a business incentive at that point to do the right thing,” a McConnell picketer, who requested anonymity for privacy concerns, said.
The boycott’s overlap with Family Weekend raised additional financial hurdles for the school. Many visitors who came for Family Weekend initially pre-purchased meal tickets to eat in McConnell, but since learning of the boycott, some have asked Pitzer for a refund. Pitzer has agreed to issue a refund to those who requested one.
Learning of this, picketers created an email template for anyone hoping to request a refund.
“If there are parents who have already paid for expensive meal tickets, it might not be financially feasible for them to go and replan their finances and have to go eat out for the whole weekend,” the anonymous picketer said. “We had some people
who said, ‘Oh, that was the one thing that was stopping us from respecting the picket.’ And now that they had the refund form, they were able to actually turn away.”
Following the boycott’s official conclusion, those fighting for Campos’ rehiring say they look forward to continued calls for administrative action.
“We’re gonna continue to boycott, we’re gonna continue to cost money to Pitzer,” participant Paz Benitez-Lopez PO ’27 said. “We’re not interested in polite conversations with them where they just invalidate the cause completely because that’s just another tactic to get us to shut up.”
Campos echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the movement’s resilience.
“I feel like we’re just going to keep fighting back,” Campos said. “Hopefully [the Pitzer administration] is willing to negotiate.”
students involved in Oct. 7 protest through Wi-Fi tracking
Continued from page 1
and 4:00 p.m., with Wi-Fi connections being validated through student-specific login credentials.
Pomona’s decision to use WiFi to track students raised broader concerns among the college’s community about data privacy, students say.
“It is a little bit off-putting to think about,” Sydney Cottrell PO ’27 said. “It’s something that people should be aware of. I feel like, as a student, having transparency is key.”
According to the school’s website, this information was “collected in accordance” with the Privacy Policy in the Informational Technology Services Policy section of the Student Handbook.
“The College’s computer and network resources are the College’s property, and students should not have any expectation of privacy when utilizing these resources,” the policy reads. “In addition, when there is reason
to suspect inappropriate use of campus computing and networking resources, authorized College personnel will take appropriate steps to investigate.”
The college’s identification tactics were also referenced in a Nov. 11 letter sent to banned students by Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr. In the letter, which provided students with new evidence about their participation in the Oct. 7 protest, Starr explained that those affected would have three business days to submit a petition for their ban to be dropped.
“The written petition is your only remaining opportunity to respond to the allegations, and you should provide whatever additional related information you have to support your response to this proposed sanction,” the letter read.
Students whose bans are upheld will be prohibited from enrolling in any Pomona courses in the spring, with a registration block placed on their accounts during pre-registration which took place the week of Nov. 11.
‘Assessing the 2024 Elections’: CMC’s Open Academy discusses Trump’s victory and future implications
YUHANG XIE in persuading voters toward the Republican ticket. Speaking on the large shift of marginalized racial groups toward the Republican Party, Miller said that Trump is now “driving a wedge into the Democratic coalition.”
On Nov. 9, Claremont McKenna College’s Open Academy hosted a Saturday Salon titled “Assessing the 2024 Elections” at CMC’s Kravis Center, featuring government professor Ken Miller, director of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at CMC, and Pomona College politics professor Amanda L. Hollis-Brusky.
The session focused on the deterministic factors and future implications of the 2024 presidential election, which concluded with former President Donald Trump winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote.
Miller discussed several key factors that contributed to the Democratic Party’s defeat.
“I think the country is still in a way experiencing a [COVID-19] hangover,” he said. “When people look back to the last four years, it was [COVID-19] shutdowns, job losses, economic stresses, losing family members and all of that.”
According to Miller, when people engage in “retrospective voting,” whereby they attribute their immediate experiences to the incumbent government, that incumbent party tends to “take a hit.”
He further characterized President Joe Biden as being a weak incumbent president and how his initial reluctance to step down had hindered Kamala Harris’s ability to become a stronger candidate.
Miller then went on to explain that although issues around abortion benefitted the Democratic Party in the 2022 midterms and recent ballot measures, Trump’s campaign put a lot of money into ads against “wokeness,” “transgenderism” and “pronouns,” which they believed to be effective
“I think Democrats have to wrestle with how to talk about cultural issues, how to connect with the working class, with people without a college degree because those voters were not as on board with progressive viewpoints as [the Democratic elites] thought,” he said.
Hollis-Brusky then discussed the possible policy outcomes for the incoming administration, arguing that the Republican Party,
despite winning the trifecta — the presidency, House of Representatives and Senate — may still face various constraints.
“Recent Supreme Court rulings in the past 20 years have actually set progressive states up quite nicely to fight what might be the scarier Trump 2.0 administration,” she said.
In the last century, the Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, has been frequently utilized to implement progressive social policies. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, was passed using this power. Since the mid-1990s, conservative Supreme Court justices have been pushing back against
progressives’ use of the Commerce Clause to their advantage. Now, however, this limit imposed by conservatives may in turn obstruct them from restricting abortion on a larger scale.
“If Republicans do try to pass a ban on abortion, they have to use the Commerce Clause as their rationale,” Hollis-Brusky said. “If the Supreme Court is going to be consistent with its own conservative precedent, then there’s a strong likelihood that they would have to strike that down.”
Hollis-Brusky moved on to argue that the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, which reinforced state independence and forbade the federal government from co-opting local officials for feder-
al programs, may impose obstacles to Trump’s immigration policies.
“If the Trump cabinet intends to commit to mass deportations, they would likely require the cooperation of local law enforcement to share information or help them carry out deportation raids,” she said. “And the whole idea behind sanctuary states is not denying the federal government has this power, but if you’re going to do this, you can’t make us cooperate with you.” Attorney generals in blue states, she added, could also use litigation to deter policies from the Trump administration and mitigate their impact.
Michael Fortner, associate professor of government at CMC, also joined the discussion. In response to a student’s concern about the survival of democracy, he drew on the lived experiences of his Black heritage and urged people to rise above pessimism.
“I come from a people who have not experienced real democracy, people who have faced institutions that are prejudiced against them,” Fortner said.
“Our response was to have a radical empathy for the democratic project in this country. What you need to do, I think, is draw upon those sources of people who have been beaten down, who’ve never had democracy, but persevered and kept perfecting this union.”
Hollis-Brusky concluded the session by suggesting everyone take care of themselves and hold compassion for others.
“I am going to work in whatever ways I can to mitigate what I know will be damaging to a lot of people I love and people in my community,” she said. “I’m going to do the work. I’m going to lock arms with others who want to do the work.”
ANDReW YUAN • THe STUDeNT LIFe
Following a Pomona College Judicial Council (JBoard) hearing, Claremont
SJP was found guilty of six violations of Pomona’s student code of conduct and received seven sanctions as punishment.
COURTESY: THE OPEN ACADEMY AT CLAREMONT MCKENNA
My greenbox and me
EMILY KIM
The weather is getting cooler, the days are getting darker and the semester is racing to an end. I am honestly so tired, both physically and emotionally.
While in past semesters I would go months constantly eating in the dining halls with my friends without greenboxing — the act of taking meals in a reusable to-go box — this semester, and especially the last month, has been different. In order to give myself space to sit with my thoughts and feelings, I’ve found myself greenboxing more.
It’s become a rather calming ritual: greenboxing from Frary in the mornings and then sitting crosslegged on the floor of my room, nibbling on a bagel and sipping a triple shot cappuccino.
As I eat, the only sounds around me come from the steady whirring of the ceiling fan and the occasional early riser walking outside of my window. Though it may look funny, sitting on the floor is rather intentional on my part. I need to physically remove myself from my desk, even if I’m only a couple feet away, in order to avoid the temptation to work while eating. For 20 or so minutes before I begin the rest of my day, I can just sit and eat in silence. I throw my phone on my bed, too, so that it is out of sight.
I didn’t realize how much I needed this time until I started greenboxing in the mornings. Granted, I’ve spent time alone in my room before, but always while doing something — whether that be studying, reading for class or planning club activities. Throughout my last three years in college, I’ve never really given myself the time and space to just sit in the web of my feelings. I’ve felt so many things, especially as of late — shock, confusion, anger — at what’s been happening in the 5Cs, the country and the world at large. It feels weird to just continue with my normal routine. Lately there have been many days where I’ve just felt off. Speaking to my other friends, they feel similarly weighed down by thoughts and feelings, yet the demands of school and life here keep coming. What do we do with this? How are we supposed to trudge through the rest of the semester?
SHIXIAo YU • THe STUDeNT LIFe
That is why I have been particularly grateful for my greenboxed breakfasts this last month. As I sit in the quiet of my room, I can grapple with my own thoughts. I can let whatever I’m feeling that morning wash over me without getting distracted by people chatting away or typing furiously on their laptops. This time with my bagel (or sometimes yogurt and granola) and cappuccino has become my time to sit, breathe and think. It wouldn’t really be right to say that this time alone energizes me. I still go about my day feeling tired, and the heaviness from everything going on still lingers. But it’s comforting to know that I don’t have to ignore these feelings — that at least each morning, in the presence of my breakfast, I can dwell freely in the confusion and the anger. And that my triple shot cappuccino can give me the caffeinated boost I need to meet with people, go to class and accomplish the tasks of the day.
I’m still working through how to give myself time and space to think and feel these things more consistently, because what I am not trying to say is that thinking through anger and frustration is to be confined to a set meal time each day. The ritual of greenboxing breakfast has simply helped me get through the recent tumultuous weeks of the semester, and I believe that it will also get me through the rest.
So if you, too, are feeling tired, heavy, are hurting or confused, I encourage you to find ways to hold more space for yourself in the remaining weeks of the semester. Maybe that looks like greenboxing a meal here and there, sitting on your floor and just eating in pensive silence. Maybe it looks like something else.
Whatever it is, everyone please take care of yourselves in this last stretch of the fall! If you’re at Frary in the mornings, say hello. I’ll be by the espresso machine filling up my to-go cup.
Emily Kim PO ’25 is from Irvine, California. Her favorite cough drop is the Ricola lemon mint flavor even though they do nothing to assuage her persistent, pesky cough.
The consequences of female body horror in ‘The Substance’
ANNA PETERSON
I have to say, I love Letterboxd. Along with Spotify, it’s my pride and joy — something that I look forward to impressing other cinephiles with. It’s also the app I consistently turn to for browsing others’ watchlists and checking out new movies.
I vividly remember when I first heard about “The Substance,” a film about an aging aerobics star coming to terms with Hollywood’s beauty standards. While browsing Letterboxd, I came across an image of Margaret Qualley in a neon pink leotard with a high slicked-back ponytail.
Letterboxd users raved about the film in countless satirical reviews, calling it “Barbie for people who listen to Charli XCX.”
“Girl you injected mountain dew straight into your bloodstream, what did you expect to happen,” another review commented.
“Oh, this movie seems fun,” I thought to myself. It was not. Letterboxd tricked me. Instead, I found myself watching two hours of body horror, sensory overload and plenty of gore to go around.
But, I loved it.
On her 50th birthday, aerobics star Elisabeth Sparkle is abruptly fired from her job. In the midst of this turmoil, a lab offers Elisabeth a substance that promises to transform her into a better version of herself. Chaos ensues.
She injects herself with a syringe of mysterious green liquid and a younger, enhanced second body, “Sue,” sprouts from her back to take over the
aerobics show. The Substance instructs Elisabeth to alternate her consciousness between the two bodies every seven days. However, as time goes on, the two bodies start to clash for more control, and Elisabeth’s original body begins to deteriorate as Sue disrupts the balance.
“The Substance” initially reminded me of movies like “Perfect Blue,” “Black Swan” and “Helter Skelter,” which tackles similar issues around industry pressure. While each of these films had its own mindfuck hallucinogenic feel, “The Substance” takes it a step further by placing the audience under direct sensory assault with close-ups of shrimp being eaten, spines opening and blood spurting.
With its surreal approach, the movie managed to be both hilariously absurd and deeply unsettling.
The body horror in “The Substance” serves as a visceral metaphor for the relentless dissection of women’s appearances and the lengths to which we alter ourselves to meet societal standards. By displaying physical mutilation and grotesque transformation, the film confronts the painful, often violent ways women are pushed to reshape, refine and even destroy parts of themselves in the pursuit of beauty and acceptance. Through exaggerated, graphic imagery, “The Substance” forces us to confront how normalized and accepted these extremes have become.
Why does such mutilation remain a familiar, if uncomfortable, part of our cultural landscape?
Yet, the film’s use of body horror seems to have a dual nature. Although it aims to critique
beauty standards, “The Substance’s” on-screen torture of women also risks undermining its feminist intentions. Graphic depictions of women suffering or being mutilated, even for symbolic purposes, can reinforce harmful tropes rather than challenge them. This imagery mirrors a cultural fascination with female pain, presenting the suffering of women as a spectacle rather than as a call for empathy or critique.
Instead of empowering women by exposing societal pressures, the excessive focus on their pain can reduce women to mere objects of suffering, ultimately failing to provide a space for agency or resilience. This paradox highlights the delicate line between critiquing misogynistic standards and inadvertently perpetuating them through sensationalized or exploitative portrayals of female suffering.
Ultimately, this tension drives us to question how far we can push the boundaries of genre and symbolism without reinforcing the very systems we critique. “The Substance” compels us to reflect on the real consequences of societal expectations and the cost of self-transformation.
In an era where every TikTok video centers on “glowing up” and “getting ready with me,” it’s crucial to recognize how mainstream media is influencing societal pressure around beauty standards. While it may be disturbing, “The Substance” challenges audiences to critically examine how we are actively being harmed by norms surrounding women’s age and appearances.
Anna Peterson SC ’25 is from Scottsdale, Arizona. She studies politics but spends her free time making Spotify playlists, writing Letterboxd reviews and drinking too much coffee.
Chakaia Booker and Essye Kempler on sculpture, printmaking and the legacy of Robert Blackburn
“I just fell under [her] spell,” Victoria Sanchez Lewis, director at Pomona’s Benton Museum of Art, said, explaining why she invited Black artist Chakaia Booker for an artist talk.
On Nov. 8, Essye Klempner, director of programming and partnerships at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (RBPMW), spoke with friend and colleague Chakaia Booker. Klempner and Booker met at the RBPMW in 2009. They shared their artistic journeys and reflected on the legacy of master printmaker Robert Blackburn.
Booker, known for her large outdoor sculptures and black and white abstract prints, discussed her process and inspirations alongside Kempler, whose own printmaking focuses on organic forms like leaves and grasses.
Most notably, Klempner’s exhibit at the Gazebo Gallery in Kent, Ohio features bird baths with ominous sculpted figures swimming, standing and bending over into the water — reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti’s “Walking Man” series.
“I was mostly a painter [at first],” Klempner said. “I painted from life. I didn’t want to paint from reproductions or photographs, so I would say I’m still an observational based artist, but I’m not painting anymore. I am making mostly ceramics and prints.”
The NYC-based workshop welcomes everyone to learn to operate the press with the assistance of monitors and dedicated staff.
“We haven’t changed our prices since the ’90s, and this is in honor
of Robert Blackburn, where he wanted to make sure that people could have access no matter what,” Kempler said.
Klempner described how Blackburn was constantly immersed in the rich cultural spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. As a child, Blackburn attended the Utopia Children’s House, a daycare where kids could explore arts and crafts; renowned dynamic artist Jacob Lawrence famously attended. Utopia Children’s House provided Blackburn with a community that celebrated Black artistry and expression. Blackburn developed a distinct Cubist style. Continuing the Harlem Renaissance’s redefinition of the avant-garde art movement,
Blackburn’s work celebrated the beauty of Black faces, bodies and experiences.
Klempner displayed an interview of Dindga Mcannon, a member of the workshop since its inception in 1947.
“There were no possibilities for Black artists in New York, [so Blackburn] just decided to make his own,” Mcannon said.
Known for her post-industrial style, Booker crafts massive, often ominous sculptures from found materials. Sculptured black webs can tower up to 35 feet. Although she held a few apprenticeships in ceramics, Booker gravitated towards what would become her signature style: working with tires
and found materials. Yet Booker’s introduction to art was sewing.
“I grew up doing a lot of sewing, and textile [that] was my first sort of art form,” Booker said. “I’m still continuing to produce [textile] work. I sculpt myself with cloth every day before I start working, so it’s always a part of my process.”
Booker has worked with rubber for nearly 30 years. In the 1980s there was “less money, lots of garbage,” as she put it. Tires were just one component of the discarded materials that covered the streets of Manhattan’s East Village, where she still resides today.
Booker’s works dismantle the tire’s uniformity and distort its vocation. The dystopian “Serendipity,” a weaved tire piece in the shape of an outsized question mark, interrogates consumerism and environmentalism. Juxtaposed with the streets of Newark, New York, a rural upstate town, the piece prompts passersby to consider their role as urban consumers.
When asked what inspires her as an artist, Booker simply said, “Getting up every day and continuing to work.” Perhaps her most monumental work is “Shaved Portions,” a 35-foot-tall tire sculpture that currently stands in NYC’s Broadway plaza between 39th and 40th street.
“Shaved Portions is a powerful work … it urges [viewers] to contemplate the effect of waste and how it is interconnected with our common societal experinece,” Barbara A. Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance said in an
article introducing its release. When asked what she keeps in mind when making these sculptures, Booker emphasized awareness of surroundings.
“You’re creating a world,” Booker said. “You have to always be thinking about, ‘Is it hanging from the ceiling? Is it standing up on its own? Is it gonna be on a wall?’ You have to [prepare] what that thing is going to structurally be … With outdoor work you always have to be thinking about the weather and the elements as well.”
Booker’s prints extend her artistic language into two dimensions: flat and vertical. Showing a similar response to her approach and materials, her printmaking is an imitation of her sculpture method where she uses chisels, drills and routers to disfigure woodblock surfaces.
“[I realized] it was [very important] to make 2D work along with your 3D work,” Booker said.
Booker’s prints draw from similar artistic language as that of her sculptures.
“Using the energy that you have, people can appreciate what it is you do in different materials [it’s important] to expand the conversation, in whatever way [you can],” Booker said.
It is crucial for the RBPMW to collaborate with artists who recognize that the print shop is a community, not their own studio — a value of utmost importance.
“We can’t shut down the studio because there is a famous artist,” Klempner said. “It is not a private studio.”
CoUrTeSY: beNToN mUSeUm oF ArT
IZZY YOUNG
Printmakers and sculptors Chakaia booker and essye Klempner spoke about their artistic processes, inspirations and reflected on Blackburn’s legacy.
emmA CHoY • THe STUDeNT LIFe
Mastering the art of saying ‘no’ in college
NORAH MANNLE
My first semester of college I attended parties at least twice a week, spent hours under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the library and still muscled out a two-hour deep clean of my room every Sunday. I went home for winter break exhausted. When I came back for my second semester, two things became clear: Managing a schedule in college is hard. Maintaining boundaries is even harder.
Focused on finding friends my first semester, I developed a “say yes” mentality. Want to go to Santa Monica this weekend? Yes. I know you have a midterm to study for, but do you want to squeeze in a two-hour group run to Target? Yes. Want to pregame Green Beach on Thursday? Yes. Are you still OK to go out Friday and Saturday as well? Yes.
This mentality carried over to my classes. Despite my lethargy, I struggled with asking for extensions or assistance in office hours. After all, I had always been able to do it all in high school. Why would I need a break?
Between academic pressure and trying to meet new people everyday, I was consistently clocking in only a few hours of sleep each night. It got to the point where I was running off of adrenaline everyday. I was bound to burn out.
That burnout happened in the second semester. I could no longer wake up in time for classes after working in the library or talking to my friends all night. I insisted that I only needed six hours of sleep, but instead slept for 12. With assignments slipping through the cracks and my mental health at a
low point, I needed to make a change. The first step was committing myself to saying goodnight to my friends in a timely manner. Next, I set a timer to stop work at midnight, preventing myself from staying up until 3 am working on an essay and pushing my
Philz Coffee opens location in Claremont Village
Philz Coffee, a popular San Francisco-based coffee chain, opened its first Claremont location on Nov 13. The café, which is located next to La Popular on West Bonita Avenue in the Claremont Village, hosted a Soft Launch Community Opening on Nov. 12, where students and Claremont community members alike signed up and received tickets for a free coffee and free food item.
Originally founded by Phil Jaber in 2003 in San Francisco’s Mission District, Philz Coffee has 70 locations nationwide and seven signature blends. Their specialty coffees include items like Mint Mojito, Ginger Snap, Iced Coffee Rosé and Oatmeal Cookie Cold Brew. Winter seasonal offerings include Winter Bliss, a cinnamon and nutmeg Ghirardelli Mocha coffee and Gratitude, a walnut, caramel and dried citrus coffee.
The café offers both indoor and outdoor seating. Its interior boasts colorful muraled walls, light wooden furniture and an elaborate coffee bar. Light instrumentals accompany the hustle and bustle one would expect at a local coffee joint.
“I like the murals on the wall. It’s a good study spot. Lots of tables,” Maria Lechuga, a local Claremont resident, said.
The question is: will Philz Coffee become the new Claremont hot spot? Or does it have to compete with the other cafés in close proximity, such as Nosy Neighbors, Starbucks Coffee, Iron & Kin, The Coffee Bean and Last Drop Café, before it can claim the title? Students had mixed opinions.
“I think it could be a little cozier,” Louis Layman CM ’26 said. “It feels a little corporate right now.”
“I’d probably come back for like, a quick, like, pick me up in the Village but probably not to study,” Lechuga said.
Participants at the Soft Launch had a variety of perspectives to offer. Many described their coffee and breakfast burrito reviews graciously, adding points because they were free.
“I can’t really discern what’s going on in this burrito, but it’s a good free breakfast,” Bryan Soh CM ’25 said.
Dedicated Philz fans gave rave reviews.
“I’ve been going there for years when I was in college in Irvine,” Lechuga said. “So this is really awesome and the closest Philz before this one was Anaheim’s like 20 minutes away.”
Philz Coffee fits into the Claremont Village’s current offerings. When asked what Phil from Philz Coffee would look like as a person, students jumped to respond.
“He would probably be bald. He wears a baseball cap and also has a little hoop [earring],” Serena Li PO ’26 said.
“[He’d be] a 5’7” man with a handlebar mustache, slight beard … he’s a granola man who wears like vests and hiking boots, specifically Merrills,” local resident Kirsten Chan said.
“Phil would go to Pitzer,” Emily Gao PO ’26 said.
bleary eyes to a breaking point. Setting this boundary significantly helped my time management.
I decided to stop worrying about whether or not I would lose friends if I chose to stay in once in a while. My closest friends, I realized, had been made over spontaneous coffee
and dinner dates or by breaking a sweat together on the treadmills at the gym, not necessarily through drunken hellos. While going to parties with my friends was still sometimes the highlight of my week, if I needed a Saturday to rest and catch up on homework, I refused to let myself
feel FOMO. After making these changes, speaking to my professors about my concerns and needs came easily. I was honest with myself and asked for extensions when I was feeling overwhelmed. Fortunately, college professors are much more understanding than our high school teachers claimed they would be, and every time I spoke to my professors I was met with empathic leniency.
Most importantly, learning to set boundaries also helped me grow into myself.
Before, I had really struggled with defining “College Norah.” “Highschool Norah” had spent more hours studying than passing time with friends, and “College Norah” wanted the opportunity to spread her wings. With all the social pressure that I put on myself in the first semester, I had lost control of my academics, and in many ways my agency. Setting boundaries not only helped me alleviate this pressure and regain my discipline, but also allowed me to reevaluate how I wanted to approach college, and what kind of person I really wanted to be.
Freshman year brings many new challenges and lessons, and one of the most important is learning to set boundaries for yourself both socially and academically. College is the perfect opportunity to hone this important life skill before we are thrust into our adult lives. The work towards self-improvement starts now.
Norah Mannle CM ’27 hails from the suburbs of Washington D.C. In her free time she enjoys long walks, critiquing new coffee shops and skiing.
emily Bender on AI as a ‘stochastic parrot’
On Nov. 12, Emily Bender
voiced skepticism about the purported benefits of large language models (LLMs) in her lecture, “Don’t Try to Get Answers from a Stochastic Parrot,” the third and final lecture in Harvey Mudd College’s Nelson Distinguished Speaker Series.
“We have to keep in mind that when [LLM] output is correct, that is just by chance,” Bender said. “You might as well be asking a Magic 8 ball, right? People think that retrieval augmented generation is going to make it better, but … paper mache of good data is still paper mache.”
Bender, a computational linguist and linguistics professor at the University of Washington, explored the limitations and ethical concerns surrounding LLMs, machine learning models designed to generate human-like text based on vast amounts of training data. Bender, recognized in TIME Magazine’s first 100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence (AI), is the author of the upcoming book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.”
Kyle Thompson, a member of the faculty organizing committee for the lecture series, spoke in conversation with Bender. He said Bender brings a distinct perspective often neglected in existing conversation around LLMs, typically dominated by those in computer science.
“If we think about what LLMs are, it’s about language and how we use language and whether these machines can use it the way we can,” Thompson said. “[Bender] can pinpoint the exact problem, clarify it very concisely and do it with some pizzazz.”
Bender emphasized the difference between natural languages and the text generated by large language models, hence terming it a “stochastic parrot.” LLMs stitch together linguistic forms in a pattern-based manner, similar to the imitative tendencies of a parrot, Bender said. By contrast, natural language is symbolic — pairing form and meaning.
“When we are using language, we usually can’t experience the form without the meaning, because we interpret it so fast,” Bender said. “On the other hand, the only thing a large language model can learn is about form, sequences of letters and punctuation, and what’s likely to go next.” Bender critiqued large corporations who promote LLMs, arguing that environmental and social costs do not offset potential future benefits. She explained that the speculative mentality of AI leaders directly contradicts the sinuous scientific process.
“Are there any other areas of technology or science where we evaluate what’s happening now based on an imagined future?” Bender said. “[It] seems like AI somehow gets this pass … they can cite ‘the future,’ and therefore any limitations now are moot. It’s distressing.”
Bender highlighted a fundamental distinction in information retrieval between platforms like Google and Wikipedia and large language models (LLMs), focusing on the importance of information provenance. “Google directs its users to sources, so we can place its origin in the information landscape,” Bender said. LLMs lack such identifiable sources.
“With [LLMs], otherwise known as synthetic text extruding machines, you get a sequence of words that you interpret and make information out of, but you have no idea where they came from,
and they didn’t actually come from anybody,” Bender said. Beyond ethical and informational concerns, Bender discussed the hidden environmental costs of LLMs, particularly the heavy resource demands of cloud infrastructure. “The Cloud” is the current system of storing data at off-site locations.
“The Cloud sounds light and fluffy and clean and far away,” Bender said. “[They] are actually enormous data centers that have a lot of hardware in them, that run on a lot of electricity and that require water for cooling, clean drinking water that can’t go back into the water supply.” Throughout the talk, Bender utilized provocative language regarding AI, claiming that ChatGPT has “ersatz fluency.” In her view, even the phrase “artificial intelligence” gives too much credit to the technology.
Attendee Mira Kaniyur HM ’26 was surprised that Bender presented her concerns about AI in an information literacy context.
“[The talk] was a lot about how [we’re] losing out on certain skills by relying on AI, not just writing skills but information literacy,” Kaniyur said.
Attendee Gautam Agarwal, neuroscience professor at Keck Science Center, took away many cautionary lessons from the lecture.
“I learned to be much more careful about my use of these tools and how excited I am in promoting these to my students,” Agarwal said. Bender believes that language is one of the most powerful weapons humans have against the corporate grip on AI.
“There’s a lot of commercial interest behind wrapping [AI] up as shiny and exciting,” she said. “One of the tools that people who don’t have billions of dollars have … against that [commercial interest] is descriptive, evocative language.”
ANANYA VINAY
ANANYA vINAY • THe STUDeNT LIFe
CoUrTeSY: CLAremoNT vILLAGe mArKeTING GroUP
GEORGIA ALFORD
In the final Nelson lecture on Nov. 12, computational linguist Emily Bender critiqued large language models as “stochastic parrots,” arguing that they mimic language without understanding.
San Francisco-based coffee chain Philz Coffee opened a location in Claremont Village on Nov. 13, to the excitement of students and local residents.
Arts & Culture
Stop calling ‘Naomi’ the Japanese Lolita
On a random school day in 2021, my friend Clara ran towards me with a book in her hands.
“Anna, you need to read this,” she said, showing me the cover: “Naomi” (1925), by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki. “It’s the Japanese Lolita!”
Both Clara and I were curious about Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” (1955), although we’d never even read it. At the time, those two 14-year-old girls were beginning to look for more challenging, more daring novels. “Lolita,” we knew, was a historically banned book in Brazil. An unspeakably obscene novel about a pedophile.
But Nabokov still felt too adult for us. Tanizaki, however, seemed friendlier. “Japanese Lolita” sounded like a watered down version of “Lolita” — one we could consume more easily.
So we began “Naomi,” embarking on the story of Jōji, a 28-year-old electrical engineer from a wealthy family who is instantly drawn to Naomi, a 15-year-old waitress from a lower-class background. Fascinated by her Western looks and sophisticated mannerisms, Jōji decides to adopt and educate Naomi to become his ideal wife. However, as she grows older and smarter, the unequal power dynamics of their relationship start to shift in her favor.
They are both stories of grown men unnaturally attracted to young girls, but can you really compare “Naomi” to “Lolita”? As I kept reading, I completely forgot about “Lolita.”
Clara and I would meet up every few days or so to talk about the book. At first, we thought that Jōji was a weirdo and Naomi was a girlboss. Then, we felt bad for Jōji and got annoyed at Naomi. By the end of the book, we had differing opinions: Clara thought Naomi was evil; I thought she was cunning and amusing. I was so enamored with Tanizaki’s sarcastic writing style that I went on to read more of his works. After that, I moved on to other modern Japanese authors, like Mori and Dazai. By that point, I’d forgotten all about classic Nabokov and the infamous “Lolita.” Tanizaki had bewitched me and dragged me into the world of Japanese literature. This fondness for Japanese literature led me to take a class called “Tokyo as a Metaphor” this semester where, coincidentally, we studied “Naomi.” So, four years after I first
read it, I revisited the book. But this time with a different focus: the city of Tokyo. I learned that the novel was written within the context of the modernization of Japan. Jōji, being a young man from a traditional agriculture-based family in Japan, had moved to the rapidly urbanizing Tokyo hoping for better job opportunities. There, he meets a teenage Naomi who “resembled Mary Pickford” and had a Western-sounding name — love at first sight. He decides to rescue her, a lower-class woman, from an unavoidable fate by educating her in English and piano. It becomes increasingly clear how Jōji and Naomi serve as allegories for Japan and the Western, especially American, world. Jōji falls in love with Naomi, but is slowly overpowered by her. Traditional Japan falls in love with modern
Western culture, but is slowly overpowered by it.
Reading “Naomi” the second time around, I returned to an old question with a different tone: How could anyone ever compare “Naomi” to “Lolita”? Now aged 18, a little older and hopefully a little wiser, I decided to face “Lolita.”
I was met with a tragic and overly descriptive novel about a man in his thirties who becomes obsessed with a 12-year-old girl. “Lolita” is horrifying because Nabokov’s unreliable narrator almost convinces us that this is a love story between two people who love each other — and not a story about an adult man who kidnaps and sexually abuses a child.
“Naomi” and “Lolita” are both stories of grown men unnaturally attracted to young girls. But after that, the similarities stop.
So did my friend dub “Naomi”
the “Japanese Lolita”?
In my home country of Brazil, we have a concept called “complexo de vira-lata” (mutt complex), which is a collective feeling of inferiority amongst Brazilians in regards to our culture when we compare it to the cultures of the “developed world,” namely, North America and Europe. Although this feeling of inferiority is supposedly self-imposed, it doesn’t come out of nowhere: Growing up in Brazil, the books that were presented to me as “classic literature” were mainly American or European, not Latin American, African or Asian — even though I lived in a Latin American country.
I was set up to think that Nabokov’s “Lolita” would be more important than Tanizaki’s “Naomi.” The nickname “Japanese Lolita” grabbed my attention because by approximating “Naomi” to a Western work, I unconsciously valued it more.
Now that I see how the plot of “Naomi” itself tackles precisely this issue, its senseless comparison to “Lolita” feels both ironic and fitting. Calling “Naomi” a “Japanese Lolita” only dilutes the value of its story. It sets up expectations for the novel to be similar to “Lolita,” which it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be. “Naomi” was never meant to be similar to “Lolita” — the latter didn’t even exist when the former was published. We should be able to read these two incredible works and appreciate them in their own specific contexts, without having to put one or the other down.
So, please don’t call “Naomi” the “Japanese Lolita,” just go read it instead!
PO
is from
Anna Ripper
Brazil. She has recently been into watching Éric Rohmer movies.
sCAMFest showcases 5C and soCal a cappella groups
On the evening of Nov. 9, Pomona’s Bridges Auditorium drew back its curtains for the Southern California A Cappella Music Festival, known more commonly as “SCAMFest.” The annual event featured performances from twelve 5C a cappella groups, one dance troupe, Groove Nation and groups from UCLA, USC and UC Davis.
Claremont Shades hosts the SCAMFest every year. Harold Fuson PZ ’26, emcee of the event and president of the Claremont Shades, said event preparations begin at the end of each spring semester.
“We reached out to the Big Bridges team about when the best date for SCAMFest would be in May, and reserved the auditorium then,” Fuson said.
Clustered lines of families, friends and students stretched back 30 yards as audience members waited for the auditorium to open
its doors.
“This year, we did something different and invited all the Claremont a cappella groups to sign up for shifts to sell physical tickets, so I also made sure everything was set up for that,” Fuson said.
Each a cappella group prepared two arrangements of two to four songs. The human voice covers every aspect of the music, including percussion and bass. In addition to vocal performances, they rehearse choreography and block their set.
“The week of SCAM, we’re in dance studios every day fine tuning everything and running the set as a whole so that we feel confident with everything,” Fuson said.
SCAMFest tickets were in high demand; lines streamed out onto the nearby Marston Quad and fans poured into Bridges’ mezzanines.
The event also draws a large number of a cappella fans from UC Davis, UCLA and USC.
“At the beginning of the fall semester, I reach out to all of the groups and officially invite them,” Fuson said. “I love getting to chat with the groups from UCLA, USC and UC Davis. We only get to interact with them once or twice each year and so catching up with them is always fun.”
The night began with the Claremont Shades, the festival’s host. The dynamic group started the show strong, drawing especially loud applause for their vocal imitation of Hozier’s “Too Sweet.”
The group picks out songs for the fall semester in the semester prior, leaving time for people to arrange, and votes for songs that would make a cohesive set.
Claremont’s Mood Swing, donned in black and yellow, brought the tempo down with a powerful rendition of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac.
Then, the Spokes — a hot pink, all-women group from UC Davis — took the stage with an upbeat solo performance of the 1975’s “Oh Caroline” and a mashup of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” and Goyte’s “Somebody that I Used to Know.”
Claremont’s One Night Stanza, decked in light pink and denim, performed next; the audience clapped to the rhythm of their a cappella rendition of “Forget You” by CeeLo Green. The group’s choreography was playful and energetic.
Claremont’s all-women Blue and White, who seemed to lift pieces from dynamic, powerful artists drew applause for their arrangement of Chappell Roan’s smash-hit “Good Luck, Babe!”
UCLA’s white and pink Scattertones took the stage to loud cheers, bringing the energy with an outstanding performance of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Wor-
ry Bout a Thing” right before the show’s intermission.
“You get to know the different groups and you get to know their personalities and their performance style,” Serena Li PO ’26 said. “So my friends and I definitely have our favorites. We come and we know what to expect.”
As the performances went on, the audience seemed to get louder and louder, the energy rising with every lively arrangement. Performances from USC and UCLA were met with chants and cheers from visiting students in the audience. The one dance group of the night, Claremont’s Groove Nation Dance Crew, performed a hip-hop set after intermission. The performance of Timbaland’s “Give it to Me” and a four person routine to Ciiara’s “Level Up” were crowd favorites.
Claremont’s Black a cappella group Earth Tones, appropriately dressed in shades of brown, performed next. The group drew a hush from the crowd with an incredible and sincere rendition of Daniel Caesar’s “Superpowers.”
Claremont’s After School Specials (affectionately known as ASS) featured cheeky choreography for Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer” and multiple impressive solos in their rendition for SiR’s “Six Whole Days.”
USC’s SoCal VoCals took to the stage with a stunning vocal performance of Sade’s “Pearls” that left the audience speechless. The group featured technically polished arrangements.
Claremont’s silver-clad Midnight Echos got cheers for their performance of SZA’s “Saturn.”
The purple Ninth Street Hooligans — who opened and closed each arrangement with their signature comedy sketches — had the audience clap along to their rendition of Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors.”
“My boyfriend is in the Hooligans,” attendee Delaney Post PZ ’26 said. “The Hooligans is the comedy a cappella group on campus … They sing and also make jokes and it’s more like a fun performance.”
Finally, UCLA’s all-men Bruin Harmonies closed out the night with a powerful arrangement of “Pass on By,” the group’s first original song.
“I’m always blown away, a little bit, by how good these groups are,” Li said.
“It’s really amazing to see people that you go to class with and see in the dining hall just come on here and really be in their element.”
ANNA RIPPER NAIGEBORIN
SHIXIAo YU • THe STUDeNT LIFe
Naigeborin
‘28
São Paulo,
AMELIA BERTSCH
SArAH
SCAMFest brought together 5C a cappella groups, a 5C dance troupe and guest groups from UCLA, USC, and UC Davis for a vibrant
On ‘turning Black’: Multiracial identities in politics
It is no coincidence that former President and President-elect Donald Trump’s recent comment that Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” after having been “Indian all the way”echoes the same speculation around President Obama’s race during his campaign and presidency that Trump spread years earlier.
The language of Trump’s “[I] s she Indian or is she Black?” is largely similar to an NBC article “Obama’s true colors: Black, white … or neither?” When a multiracial person enters the political sphere, they disrupt a space that has historically been white and homogenous. Despite all contemporary knowledge about genetics, heredity and identity, it is apparently unfathomable that a person can be of more than one race.
Indeed, racial identification produces so much debate precisely because it has little to do with science and more to do with arbitrary social constructs, causing racially mixed individuals to adopt strategies to resolve the “issue” of their identity.
Obama and Harris took different paths, with Obama leaning towards singularly identifying as Black, and Harris identifying with her different backgrounds. Both are valid ways of coping with a society that treats complex identities as complications, but Harris’ approach represents a step towards a more holistic identity expression.
Obama’s adoption of a singular identity is evidenced by reporting “Black” in the U.S. Census rather than both “Black” and “white.” The public reinforced a singular identity by calling him the first Black president of the United States, not the first biracial president of the United States.
The inclination to place multiracial individuals into binary categories is largely rooted in essentialism, or the belief that category membership is static and innate. It is also hypodescent: the tendency, when picking a singular category of one’s identity, for people to automatically choose the more marginalized group.
This explains why people label Obama as “Black” rather than “biracial” or “white,” since Blackness is perceived as “subordinate” to whiteness in the American racial hierarchy. So although Obama is roughly as Black as he is white in terms of heritage, both the public and Obama himself default to the Black label.
With Kamala Harris, the relevance of hypodescent is less certain, as Blackness is not so clearly socially subordinate to Indianness as it is to whiteness. Accordingly, others are more likely to acknowledge both aspects of her identity.
In line with others’ perceptions of her, she flexibly expresses her racial identity rather than singularly identifying as Black or Indian. The response to Trump’s question, “[I]s she Indian or is she Black?” then becomes less binary, and the essentialist view where everyone is assigned to a singular category is disrupted. Harris’ complex racial identity is not a matter of changing her
race at will; it’s a testament to the fluidity of race, especially for individuals with diverse heritage. The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity is a helpful tool for understanding Obama and Harris’ different approaches to race. It proposes that four main factors contribute to racial self-identification: salience (how relevant race is in a given context), centrality (how much a person emphasizes race as part of their identity), regard (how positively or negatively a person feels about their racial group) and ideology (what they believe about how people in their racial group should act). For Obama, race was more
salient and central to his position in the political realm. The United States had never had a Black president before, so Obama’s Blackness became the most remarkable aspect of his identity. With Harris, on the other hand, both her race and gender were remarkable because we had never had a woman of color hold office as vice president. Furthermore, Obama is remembered as the first Black president, while Harris is the first female, Black and Asian American vice president. The multiple “firsts” in her title inherently divide focus, while Obama’s singular “first” allows for a clearer central position. This could help further explain why Obama tends to identify as solely Black, while Harris identifies more flexibly.
Despite external pressures to choose one race, as with Obama identifying as solely Black or Harris “turning Black” in the national political sphere, these individuals often have a nuanced understanding of their identities. Harris, for example, embraces both her Black and Indian heritage and, in doing so, can express the fullness of her identity without having to pick a static category. In politics especially, people will have to get used to the presence of complex identities in historically homogeneous spaces. What has long been posed as a “problem” of identity is, in fact, an opportunity. The diversity of background, experience and identity that figures like Obama and Harris bring to the political realm isn’t just a step forward — it’s essential for representing our country’s diversity.
Jasmine Harrison PO ’27 is an English and psychology major from Los Angeles. She enjoys reading, crocheting and doing ballet in her spare time.
What my messy breakup with social media taught me
PARKER DEVORE
If the media cycle is the beating heart of culture, the lifeblood of today’s media landscape is novelty and referentialism. Trends and countertrends pump cultural viscera endlessly, cycling and recycling it through new capillary means.
The niche online communities that result create cultural hypertension: pressure to refine your taste. Devouring glib Letterboxd or Goodreads or RateYourMusic reviews; Pair of Kings podcast posts; video essays. These seemingly bottomless personal reservoirs of culture that we dive into can be rewarding, but enjoyment is secondary. Legend says that if you get deep enough, there lies an unmapped Atlantis: correct taste. But in the meantime, you can always be more niche, more archive, more based. These communities and spaces give us a feeling of kinship at the push of a button, the swipe of a finger. Once conditioned, to go without these bottomless outlets of culture can feel hypoxic; ending the transfusion of trend is dizzying, like stepping off a treadmill. The world moves around you, but you stand still, feeling irrelevant and left behind.
Niche online cultural spaces provide affirmation and guidance on the pursuit of this ever-elusive “correct taste,” but if we lose these digital guides, how do we know we’re consuming the right content?
Online, you are your subculture. Currentness is currency. To know the Jeremy Allen White Calvin Klein ad is to know masculinity. To watch “Love Lies Bleeding” is to know film. To follow Raf Simons on Instagram (and DM him every week or so asking for an internship) is to know the fashion industry. If you’ve seen the “right” one, you’ve seen ‘em all. To love culture is to know it better than everyone else. To maintain this love, one must further pursue auto-tactile didacticism: constant new culture you
can touch, place in your collection and anchor your identity to. Find out what Twitter says, and do it. Forfeit your humanity, become a skinjob. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe ... I don’t wear clogs, I wear mules. Interlinked. I listened to the new Charli XCX remixes. Interlinked. With Instagram, interlinked. It feels comfortable to be in community with those who share niche interests, to be fed constant talking points and be current. Only 24.5k followers on my favorite meme page means that I am part of the enlightened few. Only some will get it. As consumers, we build our identities around the products, media and circles that we surround ourselves with. We use these cultural products as tools to express who we are and what we believe in. I am Jack’s Acne Studios jeans; I make Jack seem esoteric to female religious studies majors at Green Beach. Without access to information about these things that we choose to interact with or avoid, it’s hard to express yourself, or understand how others are expressing themselves. To know media is to fill one’s bandoliers with social ammunition and one’s wallet with cultural currency. I got rid of Instagram nearly a year ago now, and dropped TikTok a few years before that. Yes, I am holier than thou. It’s been a gradual divorce, and I still look at Instagram occasionally on Safari. Feeling naughty, I am greeted by the spin cycle. Looking through the window, I catch glimpses of once-familiar logos, colors and patterns, transformed into strange writhing shapes. Logo T-shirts for cool bands and blank T-shirts from cool brands are the stock of the broth — stained with the sweat of superiority.
Though I mock them, I owe a great deal to the online media spaces that filled my past. I used to pride myself on my connection to all of
these niche cultural landmarks. I knew the “it-shoe” and the “it-bag,” the new album and the soon-to-be big artist. What car LeBron bought. What bike Vingegaard rode — hell, even what socks he wore. I took part in shaping these online spaces as much as they shaped me, and I liked it. Giving that up was nerve wracking. I didn’t know how I could retain my sense-of-self as someone who was fashionable, into music — someone who was metropolitan. One might ask why I would ever eschew this cornucopia.
It would be wrong to say that I was the hippest, the most in touch. I’ve always been a comfortable cultural cast away. I didn’t grow up liking TV much, had a hard time recognizing celebrities and never followed sports. So when social media began to bore me, it wasn’t a surprise but more of an inevitability. The novelty had worn off.
After finally leaving Instagram, when people began to ask me if I had heard or seen something, it wasn’t new to say no. As I drifted away from social media writ large, I expected a gradual descent into apathy about my previous passions. In some ways, my fears have materialized — I now can hardly get a finger on the pulse of things I once was an encyclopedia on. I haven’t bought nearly as many new clothes, because I don’t know where to look for them, so I repeat outfits day after day. I used to pour over Pitchfork for songs to pad my Spotify liked songs list, each more obscure than the last. Lately, I’ve been into the Beatles and Rihanna.
With my departure, I see the march of culture less consequentially. It’s true that I’ve missed the boat, but from down here on my desert island, it looks like It’s on a different course than I believed it to be when I was on board. In the whirlpool of the media cycle, it was hard to recognize that
I was going in a circle. When I had my nose an inch from these cultural outlets, everything seemed exciting and impossibly large. It seemed like the latest trend was always more visionary, more creative, more relevant.
After I left social media, rather than a march toward excelsior, it seemed more like a cycle. The pace of social media obscured the circular goal of the march.
Much of the fun of interacting with new things was just that: newness. With the glow of novelty extinguished, the features of last month’s hot topic began to look sallow and creased. On board, I didn’t care; I always had something new fed to me to replace it. I wasn’t even sticking around long enough to watch it happen. My closet ballooned, I made a new playlist every other week and I had the library of Babel for a watch-later list.
I felt like I was part of an iterative process. I was developing my style, my opinions, evolving, and theoretically getting closer to my core: the ultimate, perfectly curated taste. In reality, the core was ephemeral: constantly changing with every new “it-thing.” I had frenziedly joined this incessant chase, not realizing I was after my own tail.
The only requirement for an “it-shoe” was that it was different from the last it-shoe, and that you didn’t have it yet. As Stanley cups and Sambas replaced Nalgenes and New Balances, the chase continued. When I stepped away, I finally surveyed the culture I had made my identity. Some of it was bad, much of it good. But I found that, after the fire of novelty had dimmed, the newer stuff was not much better than the older —— just different. My collection of it-things became … things. My new life as a castaway meant that, while I had all this wreckage and refused to sort through, I had all
the time in the world to do it. While staying up-to-date with every cultural cairn took a lot of time, I don’t claim that I spent my time much differently once I stepped away.
The time I once dedicated to scrolling hasn’t been replaced by thorough mindfulness routine, cold showers or early morning studying. Instead, I finally have time to sort through all that culture I accrued with a newfound perspective. When I gave up on keeping up, I stopped looking for where he inserted the blade, and I started feeling 22. I couldn’t try to like what was cool, and dislike what was basic, because I was out of touch with both. I was forced to enjoy what I enjoy. I don’t think about my next pair of shoes, because I love my current ones. Giving up the chase of the novelty fix has allowed me to work through the massive reservoirs of cultural artifacts I collected and look at them outside of their intended context online by bringing them into the context of my life. If they fit, great, but if the change in setting has made them unseasonable, I let go.
I began to work through my movie list, and began to thin out my dresser. Through the process, I rediscovered lots of things that I had given up on, or simply forgotten about. I still had, and I still liked these things much more than I thought I would. I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t have enough culture, or not the right culture. I had all I needed.
I won’t claim that my new lifestyle is somehow cooler than being cool, and that by being so out of touch I have somehow worked my way around to cultural relevance, horseshoe style. That would miss the point — you only have so much space in your life. Even though I have given up coolness, I now allow space for whatever else might inhabit its once-warm nook. Like that movie where Tom Hanks is on the desert island, I admit I have become overly attached to my shrunken pile of cultural crap. Eventually, I’ll run out of things to read, watch and wear, but I don’t see myself diving back in any time soon. Like a rollercoaster, the media cycle is most fun the first time around, and every subsequent time, the ride just seems slower. Ask yourself: are you seeing new details each time around, or is your head just spinning from the speed? The pace of culture can make consumption into a near-spiritual experience, with every tiny thing imbued with endless meaning and importance by the sheer newness — but at a certain point, new meaning is hallucinated. I enjoyed my time on the ride, but I also enjoy being off of it. Although I miss the detail an up close view afforded me, I believe it’s more beautiful from afar. So next time you feel out of touch, unfashionable and uncool, give a thought to what it might be like to stay that way for a while. If you don’t like it, don’t worry: the boat is moving in a circle, so you can always get back on next time around.
JASMINE HARRISON
SASHA m ATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE
SASHA m ATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE
Western fashion deserves cultural appreciation
LISA GORELIK
Slow down there, cowboy! Have you also caught the bug of Western fashion infatuation this season?
Me too. Western fashion is currently going through a huge revival. Cowboy boots, hats, boot cut and flared jeans, bolo ties and turquoise jewelry are breaking through onto fashion runways and the mainstream media alike. Wanna-be cowboys and cowgirls are emerging from the shadows of our campuses, but they seem to be embracing the Western fashion items without realizing the problematic ties and significance in country culture these trends hold.
This fashion deserves to be celebrated, appreciated and honored by our meaningful participation in it. But it has to come from the acknowledgement and understanding of where these symbols of American culture originate from.
If you are curious about dabbling in Weste rn fashion, there is some history as well as certain rules and conventions that you should be aware of before galloping away.
Original Western fashion defined by iconic symbols of cowboy boots and hats were appropriated by white Americans from Mexican, African and Native American cultures. It is a widely agreed upon, but often disregarded historical fact, that the first cowboys were people of color.
In the 1600s, Spanish colonizers brought the first cattle to present day Mexico, and enslaved Northern African men to tend them. The vaquero methods of ranching were then adopted by Mexican and Native American peoples, many of whom brought these practices to areas of the modern United States such as Texas and the Southwest.
The iconic image of the American cowboy has been unjustly white-washed, and most aspects of Western fashion, as well as ranching and horseback riding styles, can be traced back to vaqueros: the original cowboys.
The invention of the cowboy hat is often attributed to John B. Stetson, a hat-maker from Philadelphia in the late 1800s. Yet his designs were almost certainly based off hats worn by enslaved Fulani people from West Africa. Meanwhile, the history of cowboy boots remains entangled with an array of cultures and time periods from Mongolian soldiers in the 13th century to Civil War soldiers in the United States.
It is unfair and simply untrue to label Western fashion as “white culture” and not take its historical and cultural roots seriously. By
choosing to pigeon-hole and stereotype country fashion, we are only perpetuating the cycle of historical erasure and cultural appropriation. It is time that we started respecting Western fashion and honoring its origins. At the same time, nobody should feel discouraged from participating in the Western fashion movement because of the style’s connection and significance to many cultures and communities in the United States today. Western wear is an integral part of America’s fashion history, but it is important to wear it with respect and understand the customs around it. Because Western wear was developed to be practical for ranching and horse-riding, each style of hat and boot evolved with its own customs and conventions, creating different cultural settings for each style and garment. There are hundreds of variations of boot styles: square, round, snip or pointed toe, leather or rubber outsole, Roper or Fowler heel, cowboy, Western, fashion, work boot — the possibilities are endless. Generally speaking, square, rubber-soled, shorter heeled boots are reserved for everyday wear, while tall, leather,
pointed toe boots are more formal and should be worn for special occasions. Whatever you do, just make sure to wear a pair of bootcut, cowboy cut or flared jeans with your boots — steer away from the straight leg ones — that will bring you some dirty looks at the local honky-tonks.
There is etiquette around cowboy hats that wearers should follow, such as taking your hat off inside, and making sure to handle it by the crown and not the brim so as to not damage its shape. Most importantly, don’t let anyone else see the inside of your hat. It’s bad luck if they do.
Cowboy hats are seasonal: Straw hats are worn in the spring and summer, and warmer, felt hats come out in the winter months. Felt hats are also more formal than straw hats, so if you are going to a formal event in the summer, bring out the felt — but not if you’re going to a wild rodeo.
Perhaps the most important rule about cowboy hats originates from the proverb “A Man’s Hat is His Castle,” meaning do not ever touch another cowboy’s hat. Do not even ask them to touch it. I once witnessed an oblivious tourist ask to try on a cowboy’s hat
in Fort Worth, Texas. Let’s just say that when he responded to the request, all etiquette rules went out the window. Don’t ask why, just don’t do it — it’s tradition. Another cornerstone of Western fashion that holds deep cultural significance is turquoise jewelry, as the stone is believed to have protective powers in Navajo culture. Although turquoise jewelry has been adopted into the fashion mainstream and used in other styles of jewelry outside of Native American traditions, it is still important to support Navajo artists when purchasing Navajo jewelry. This means seeking out pieces made by Navajo silversmiths and to support their work and honor their traditions. This is difficult, as real handcrafted turquoise jewelry is expensive. But by purchasing cheap, fast fashion turquoise jewelry, you are taking away business and harming these independent jewelry makers sharing their cultural traditions with the world. You can always invest in cheaper alternatives, like pieces that showcase a smaller turquoise stone and use steel instead of silver, and still own a piece of the beautiful jewelry style. Colonialism has homogenized
the diverse roots of Western wear and erased the cultural history, significance and traditions around these clothes and jewelry. We should acknowledge and learn about the history of Western fashion because it is a coalescence of diverse cultures in America, and we should honor it by respecting the traditions behind it.
So before you commit to those cowboy boots, do your research. Look up the different boot styles and what they are used for. Support authentic boot, hat and jewelry makers by investing in brands that have a long historical tradition behind them. Learn about the conventions of the clothes that you wear, especially when they have such deep cultural ties like those of Western fashion.
Following this framework will not only help you understand and appreciate your clothing even more, but it will also ensure that you don’t get laughed at if you decide to visit some cowboy spots in the Southwest — you don’t want to look like a store-bought cowboy.
Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM ’25 is from Moscow, Russia. She is uber excited about the upcoming Black Friday deals at Boot Barn.
Edgar Chacon CM ‘28 Joseph Oli PO ‘27
It happened again. Donald Trump, a convicted felon, secured a decisive victory in one of the most intense and expensive elections in American history.
As Democrats scramble to assign blame for their historic loss, many are quick to attribute blame to racism and sexism. After all, to many, Harris ran a flawless campaign — raising over a billion dollars, far surpassing Trump’s fundraising numbers — and seemingly built a coalition that bridged historic demographic divides. What’s more, she ran against an undisciplined, untethered opponent who led a campaign that seemed to compromise itself at every opportunity: trashing Puerto Ricans, threatening to repeal the widely popular Obamacare and antagonizing childless women.
But attributing such a thumping defeat to the prejudice of the American people does not tell a comprehensive story about the reality of the election. More crucially, it is a disingenuous excuse that shields the party from taking accountability for the fact that it truly offered little to a struggling populace.
For years now, voters have been fed up with the economy and inflation, and poll after poll repeatedly indicated that the economy was the most likely issue to decide their vote. It was the core issue that sank Biden’s approval rating to
Why Kamala Harris lost
record lows — levels that pundits acknowledged were historically insurmountable.
While party-insiders may have pointed to stunning metrics of economic growth — including a growing gross domestic product and a burgeoning stock market — they ignored the other set of numbers that reflected the immediate material realities of the working class. Democratic strategists turned a blind eye to the flood statistics that suggested otherwise: skyrocketing housing costs, record-high homelessness, spikes in child poverty and cost-burdened renters at all time highs.
President Joe Biden’s departure from the race provided Vice President Kamala Harris with the unique opportunity to forge a bold, new economic vision that moved past the failures of his administration. Yet instead of taking charge, Harris ran as a quasi-incumbent, claiming on “The View” that there was “not a thing” that she would change if she were president instead of Biden. And later, when she attempted to backtrack her answer after public backlash, she articulated one small difference: she would appoint a Republican to the cabinet. The answer came amid Harris’ reluctance to support the same populist policy positions she had in 2020 and her concurrent open-armed embrace of the endorsement of Dick Cheney — one of the most
When looks kill: The issue with attractive depictions of murderers on screen
ZENA ALMEIDA-WARWIN
From Jeffree Dahmer to the Menendez Brothers, true crime has taken on a new chilling angle. On platforms like TikTok and X, the genre is saturated with content that, rather than focusing on the gruesome realities of crime, seems to prioritize something else: the attractiveness of murderers and the actors who portray them.
While true crime has always had a substantial following, recent portrayals including “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” have culminated a darker wave of public fascination.
The result of this romanticized storytelling is a society increasingly desensitized to the traumatic details of real-life tragedies, often sidetracked by aesthetic portrayals. As consumers, we must remain vigilant of the ways we interact with this media. We need to resist becoming mindless viewers, unable to comprehend or empathize with complex themes and instead caring solely about what attracts and excites us.
Shows like “Monster” are marketed as eye-opening accounts of infamous murderers, but they come with an even more sinister implication. More people are hyper-fixated on an actor’s six-pack abs and sweaty shower scenes than the experiences of the roles they depict, often including backstories of neglect and abuse.
Rather than engaging critically with the realities of their crimes, many viewers are drawn to the aesthetic appeal of the actors playing these roles, influenced by what’s known in psychology as “attractiveness bias” or the “beautiful is good” stereotype.
“You tend to assume that physically attractive people also have personality traits that are good,” psychological science professor Dr. Kan said. “You think that they’re more intelligent, more socially competent, maybe more moral, which is obviously against what these serial killers actually are… [Viewers] may also incorrectly perceive them as not necessarily people they look up to, but people [whose] crimes might not seem as heinous.”
Films like “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” on Ted Bundy, along with shows like “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” and “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” bring intensely traumatic, violent histories to the screen. These portrayals confront us with devastating accounts: Bundy’s acts of unimaginable physical and sexual violence, Dahmer’s serial targeting and subsequent murder of young queer men and the Menendez Brothers’ alleged experiences of physical and sexual abuse by
universally loathed politicians in modern U.S. history.
These decisions have likely cost her, proving how out of touch her campaign was with voters. In fact, voters in Trump-supporting Alaska and Missouri have approved ballot measures raising the minimum wage to $15/hour and instituting paid sick leave — policies that Harris declined to run on because they were perceived as too far left.
What the Democratic establishment fails to grasp is that bipartisanship isn’t a priority for American voters. Instead, it symbolizes the empty rhetoric of compromise and high road ideals that serves democratic elites while leaving working people behind. More critically, it places Democrats firmly on one side of a more profound divide: the elite versus the people.
This fundamental misreading explains the Democrats’ hesitance to embrace economic populism. But perhaps this isn’t a misunderstanding at all. Through flaunting celebrity endorsements and a reluctance to adopt economically populist messaging, Democrats have struggled to shake the image of being the party of moralistic, well-educated coastal elites — an image that, in 2024, became a reality.
As we saw, such an elite and closed-off coalition failed to win on the national stage. As Sen.
Chris Murphy, D-Conn. noted, “[w]hen progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.” An ironic truth of the election was that Trump performed best with many of the voters Bernie Sanders once energized in his presidential campaigns. Sanders’s post-election analysis captured this reality. Like Trump, Sanders draws a clear line between the working class and the elites. He criticized the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs and healthcare in the U.S., condemned billions in funding for “Netanyahu’s all-out war on the Palestinian people” and called out the “big money interests and well-paid consultants” controlling the Democratic Party. Most importantly, he warned that “a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” That kind of discontent has undeniable power. But rather than channeling it toward the alienation of immigrants and other vulnerable groups, Bernie has focused that anger on Democratic Party elites who, by failing to act, have allowed oligarchs and large corporations to drive inequality in American society.
The battle for America’s future certainly isn’t over. If Trump can stage “the greatest political comeback in American history,” the Democrats can too. But it will take a party that embraces a tenacious brand of economic populism. It will take a party that speaks to the bread-and-butter issues that regular, working Americans deal with every day.
Democrats have warned that a Trump presidency would be the most dangerous in U.S. history. Now, it is up to them to rebuild a party that can protect and win back the trust of their voters in kind.
Eric Lu PO ’28 is a Politics major from Salt Lake City, Utah. He enjoys listening to Fleetwood Mac and trying new restaurants around the village.
We stand in solidarity with our students
their father. Such themes require serious and thoughtful reflection. Yet when the public’s attention is swayed, the horror is diluted, attracting younger, increasingly desensitized audiences.
In several ways, the blame doesn’t fall solely on the viewer but also on production teams who strategically cast conventionally attractive actors, knowing they will generate engagement and viewership. We saw this with Evan Peters’ depiction of Jeffree Dahmer and prior to that with Zac Efron’s film portrayal of Ted Bundy.
This fixation on attractiveness raises questions regarding whether or not we as viewers — or perhaps more broadly, our culture — actually care and empathize with the stories at hand.
This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be intrigued by true crime or attractive casts, but the blending of the two in shows depicting severe acts of violence raises ethical concerns. The solution isn’t necessarily avoiding these shows altogether, but rather being more cognizant of what we endorse with our viewership.
Ask yourself if you’re drawn to a particular series based on any critical narrative, or simply due to its capitalization of an actor’s appeal. If the latter, consider what that collective desensitization could endorse in the future of television, or in your own moral compass.
Some may argue that our fixation with attractiveness is human nature, and that there’s no harm done if viewers find Evan Peters or Nicholas Chavez attractive. But this fixation comes at a cost, distorting real trauma into mere spectacle. As producers continue to profit off of this model, media surrounding true crime will likely drift even further from respectful retellings and closer to the entertainment genre to exploit the experienced horrors of real people.
Bearing this in mind, next time you press play on the newest enticing true crime series, pause and think critically about what drew you in — if not to consider more broadly what the work stands for, then simply to gain insight about your implicit interests and values.
In a world flooded with content, we must remember that our choices matter, and as enablers of media trends and mob-like mentalities, so does our awareness.
Zena Almeida-Warwin PO ’28 is from Brooklyn, New York. A fan of Theo James, she’s watched every one of his films and shows — naturally, for their intellectually stimulating plots.
We, the faculty of the Intercollegiate Departments of Chicanx Latinx Studies, Africana Studies and Asian American Studies, stand in solidarity with our students and urge Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr and the Board of Trustees to reverse the suspensions of the 12 Pomona students charged, through opaque processes, with being present at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7, 2024. These students had their suspensions upheld late Thursday evening, Nov. 7, 2024, some for the remainder of the fall semester and others for a full year. We are dismayed that the Pomona administration has failed to adhere to established fair, equitable and transparent processes. Furthermore, the banning and suspensions from campus by Pomona College are tarnishing and disruptive to the Claremont Colleges consortium.
The 12 suspended students face harsh and disproportionate consequences meted out by an alarmingly unfair process. Their initial interim suspensions were transformed to full suspensions by President Starr, who invoked her claim of “extraordinary authority,” granted by the Pomona Student Code which states she has the capacity to “act in extraordinary circumstances in order to ensure the safety of individuals, the protection of property, and the continuity of the educational process.” Rather than litigate the case against students who attended the direct action protest that day (incidents for which a long-standing institutional process has been established to adjudicate), Starr erased the suspended students’ rights to due process through administrative overreach. The use of this authoritarian power to strip all students present of their rights is what concerns us most.
This exercise of “extraordinary authority,” which Starr has claimed on dubious grounds, sets a precedent in which the right to protest and advocate for any cause is subject to being labeled a threat to “the safety of individuals,” an infringement of “the protection of property” and a disruption of “the continuity of the educational process.” Such determination circumvents the established adjudicative process with the mere stroke of
a pen. With this new authority, students — and any expressions of activism and free speech — can be characterized as “disruptive, unsafe, and destructive.” Yet it is the Pomona administration and the Board of Trustees who have created an environment that is disruptive, destructive and unsafe for our community. Their actions set a dangerous precedent for the abuse of power through unilateral, top-down decision-making that runs counter to the ethos of shared governance and the educational charge of Pomona to foster “engaged members of society.”
The Intercollegiate Departments of Ethnic Studies, at our inception, radically restructured the institutions toward justice, equity and the deep interrogation of power. These principles continue to stand as the moral center of what we do here as educators, scholars and activists. Our pedagogy honors the historical legacies of our own communities, who spoke truth into power to defend and secure their civil rights. Our very departments and fields of study exist because of civil disobedience and student-led protests challenging a higher education status quo that violently disenfranchised most of the world by intellectually excluding and devaluing the knowledge and experiences of people of color.
of Israeli forces undergirded by military aid from our own United States. We stand in solidarity with students’ rights to protest without being racially profiled as criminals or dangerous persons due to their political stances and expressive tactics. Our students are not a danger nor a threat to our classrooms and community.
We urge the Pomona administration to embrace the values and ethical commitments to restorative justice, reconciliation and deliberative mediation as core educational principles rather than enforcing retributive, punitive and suppressive tactics.
We urge the Pomona administration to embrace the values and ethical commitments to restorative justice, reconciliation and deliberative mediation as core educational principles rather than enforcing retributive, punitive and suppressive tactics.
We stand in solidarity with our students as they call upon all of us to center our conscience and ethics as educators and engaged citizens in response to the ongoing, expanding Palestinian genocide and land-grabbing imperialism
We stand in solidarity with students’ rights to protest without draconian responses that criminalize and penalize them in processes that are neither transparent nor agreed upon intercollegiate policy or subject to the whim of one college president granting herself “extraordinary authority” to decide who gets to continue their education. We are an educational institution, not a penal institution. We stand in solidarity with students as a collective of Intercollegiate Ethnic Studies faculty who prioritize the intellectual work of theory and practice. We care deeply for the well-being of our students in pursuing their educational goals and defining their roles as world citizens. Our solidarity with their First Amendment rights to public expression and protest arises from our collective academic work on the long, impactful American tradition of direct action by citizens and university students of moral and ethical conscience exercising their democratic rights. It is our duty to express dissent and demand change from institutions that uphold, fund or otherwise support practices that contribute to the oppression, disempowerment and dehumanization of any group of people.
Intercollegiate Department of Chicanx Latinx Studies at the Claremont Colleges
Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at the Claremont Colleges
Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies at the Claremont Colleges
SASHA mATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE
ERIC LU
C o U r TESY: P omo NA C o LLEGE
Athenas outlast Sagehens to clinch SCIAC championship and NCAA berth
On Saturday, Nov. 9, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) Athenas outlasted the Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) Sagehens 1-0 to secure the SCIAC Women’s Soccer Championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.
The Athenas entered the championship game with a 9-3 SCIAC record against the Sagehens holding a 10-1-1 record. Earlier this season, the Sagehens bested the Athenas in two head-to-head matchups. CMS head coach David Nolan emphasized the importance of Saturday’s win for the team.
“We said we set high standards and goals for us, and we’re here now,” Nolan said. “It was tough throughout the year because we played them twice already and they got the better of us. It’s always hard to beat the same team three times in one season.”
Vuvuzelas — loud plastic horns infamously used at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa — blared on the sidelines as spectators flocked to P-P Field, creating a loud and disruptive environment for the final.
From the first whistle, CMS found themselves comfortably in control, outshooting P-P 11-4 and possessing the ball for the majority of the first half. Sagehens’ keeper ––2023 First Team All-SCIAC Patricia De Palma PO ’27 — was kept busy but remained calm under a barrage of shots from the Athenas, with even Nolan complimenting her perfor-
mance after the game. “We got a lot of shots off, but I don’t think they’re really threatening the goalkeeper a lot, especially her,” Nolan said. “She’s unbelievable, probably the best keeper in the conference. So you have to do something special to beat her.”
P-P struggled to get the ball out of their defensive third in the first half, surrendering possession on high passes and consistently running into a tough CMS midfield. The Sagehens’ best opportunities to score came halfway through the first half. Defender Spencer Deutz PO ’25 notched two shots on goal
in the 28th minute, but both were saved by CMS keeper Sadie Brown CM ’26. With the score at 0-0, both teams entered the second half hungry for a goal, and CMS looked to capitalize on their kickoff. Just five minutes in, Riley Zitar CM ’26 sent a free kick to the far goalpost, with defender Emma Fogg SC ’25 heading the ball in the top corner of the net. Fogg, who was named Tournament Most Outstanding Athlete, spoke about the Athenas’ confidence in scoring after a series of close opportunities in the first half.
“We knew it was coming the whole first 45 [minutes] of the half, and I think it just solidified what we knew,” Fogg said. “I feel like the shots showed that we were pressing on them. We could have scored even more goals, and just that shot and goal was the cherry on top.”
Possession continued to bounce back and forth, and the opportunities kept coming for the Sagehens who outshot CMS 5-4 in the second half. The final opportunity for a lategame equalizer came in the 82nd minute on a skipping shot from
Off to a flying start: Sagehens use last minute surge to topple Slugs
JOSH GEHRING
Soaring into the season, Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) women’s basketball dug deep in the final minutes of play in their regular season opener at home on Sunday, Nov. 10 to edge out a 57-50 win over UC Santa Cruz.
Having kept all players from last year’s roster and gaining seven new freshmen, the Sagehens look to capitalize on their depth and come out on top in the SCIAC tournament this year after finishing at No. 8 last season in the conference.
According to Emily Lee PZ ’26, who led the Hens with 17 points, the first game proved to be an opportunity to showcase this depth and kickstart the season.
“We had a really young team last year, and we had a lot of close games that didn’t pan out the way we wanted it to,” Lee said. “We had a lot of potential and I think this year we’re really building off that potential.”
For Abby Homan PO ’27, who scored 13 points against the Slugs, the first game was all about managing expectations and shaking off nerves.
“We take every opponent as a tough opponent and expect the best from them every game,” Homan said. “Knowing that they were gonna be tough, we had to work through all the jitters, and we got there.”
The Sagehens came out strong in the first quarter with a lead of 19-6 which Lee noted as a noticeable improvement from the previous season.
“Last year we struggled to start really strongly in the beginning,” she said. “And this showed that we have grown to be able to start out like that.”
However, the Slugs didn’t let up for long, striking back in the second quarter to close the gap to 29-25, later tying the game at 35-35 with two minutes left in
the third quarter. Though the Hens entered the final quarter up 39-37, the teams continued to exchange leading positions until a pivotal run from the Sagehens brought their lead back up to 54-48 with only one minute of play left.
Jadyn Lee PO ’27 sealed the game with one more point from a free throw in the final minute, bringing the final score to 57-50 and adding to her total of 15 points. In the midst of a chaotic final quarter, Lee explained how she stayed focused to ultimately finish the game strong.
“I pushed through because I was like, ‘My teammates need me,’” she said. “That’s selfish if I don’t play my hardest.”
Charlize Andaya CGU ’25 scored eight points for the Sagehens and described her confidence in the team going into this season.
“Having a young team in general means everyone’s super eager and ready to put their best foot forward,” Andaya said. “I would say it’s probably some of the best energy I’ve felt in a while so I think that’ll take us pretty far.”
For the Sagehens, every game counts on their road to SCIAC dominance. Despite an exciting first win for the team, according to Homan, the team is setting its sights on future competition.
“It’s great to get the first win of the season but we’ve a lot to work on and a lot to look forward to,” Homan said. “So we’re putting the work in next practice and moving on to the next game.”
The Sagehens have backto-back games this weekend, competing against Linfield University on Friday, Nov. 15 at Chapman, followed by a game against Smith College on Sunday, Nov. 16 at home.
Maxine Davey PO ’25 but Brown, who finished the game with six saves, found yet another stop. The Sagehens made a wave of substitutions for the last few minutes in a last-ditch effort to keep the game alive but the whistle blew before they had the chance.
After the game, P-P coach Jennifer Scanlon reflected on the team’s efforts.
“We struggled the first half to have an answer to what they were doing,” Scanlon said. “I think our second half was much improved. We just weren’t, you know, clinical or dangerous enough in that final phase.”
Athena’s midfielder Kaitlyn Helfrich CM ’25 reflected on the team’s preparation for the game and the upcoming NCAA championship.
“I think it was just sticking to what we know, we can play a good style of soccer, and we came in and executed our plan today,” Helfrich said. “I think any next game we feel like we’re up to the challenge and we have such great personnel. 34 players have all been a part of this, so it’s amazing to be a part of this team.”
On Saturday, the Athenas will face Colby College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the CMS men’s soccer team –– who also won the SCIAC Championship — will face Oglethorpe University in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
On the other side of Sixth Street, P-P received a bid Monday into the NCAA Tournament and will host UC Santa Cruz on Saturday.
Sagehens beat Athenas for the first time since 2013 in five-set rivalry meetup
The Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) women’s volleyball team faced an extraordinarily special senior night, beating rivals Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) for the first time since 2013 on Friday, Nov. 8. While monumental, the game did not hold much ranking weight. CMS, who went 20-5 overall and 14-1 in SCIAC, already having clinched the SCIAC title, and P-P, who went 17-10 overall and 10-5 in SCIAC, had taken the No. 4 seed in conference.
The night began tense as the Sagehens sought to avenge their earlier 3-0 defeat to CMS on Sep. 27, which they succeeded in doing thrillingly, besting the Athenas in five sets.
The first set was a back-andforth affair, with CMS taking an early 11-7 lead behind five assists from Georgia McGovern CM ’24. P-P fought back, and three straight kills from Samantha Grabb PO ’27, Chloe Gill PO ’25 and Kellan Hayes PO ’25 allowed the Sagehens to cut the deficit to one point at 14-13.
However, the experienced Athenas regained control of the set, winning five straight points to increase the lead to 18-13. The Sagehens came within three points, but the Athenas eventually won 25-21.
While the Hens found themselves down on the scoreboard, they showed no signs of backing down. According to setter Jenny Jenks CGU ’25, it was their mentality that helped them to triumph in the match.
“Everyone played stellar, and we treated every point like it was our last and it worked out in our favor,” Jenks said. “Our next-play-
focused mentality has increased exponentially, and our relentlessness on every single point.”
P-P came out strong in the second set, roaring to a 10-3 lead behind multiple kills from Hayes and Gill. Extraordinary as their start was, the Sagehens soon found their lead threatened with the Athenas finding a 20-19 lead after five and six-point runs. Faced with the possibility of going down two sets, P-P responded and three kills from Paige Mountanos PO ’26 were enough to put the Sagehens over the line, evening the game with a 25-23 victory.
The Sagehens found yet another early lead in the third set, up 10-7 behind three kills from Gill and a pair from Grabb. Though the Sagehens extended their lead to 18-15, a four-point rally from the Athenas put them behind again. Kills from Mountanos, Grabb and Charlotte Sekerka PO ’27 would not be enough to topple CMS, who won the set 2523 and took a 2-1 overall lead.
With CMS one set away from stealing the win, the Sagehens entered the fourth set with renewed energy. A seven-point run, capped off by more kills from Gill, Mountanos and Grabb saw the Sagehens take control and run away with the set 25-12. According to Gill, the Sagehens’ refusal to quit came from a massive team effort and consistent levels of energy.
“I think all of our hard work really paid off,” Gill said. “We had a lot of energy, and a big thing that we worked on is momentum and I feel like we really applied that, and I’m really proud of everyone.”
After the massive set four victory, P-P came into the decisive set with all the momentum. This set also marked the first time the two opponents took a game to five sets since 2009.
P-P came out hot, taking a 10-2 lead; however, the experienced Athenas –– who made it to the Final Four last NCAA tournament and are ranked No. 15 nationally –– refused to go down without a fight. They closed the gap with a five-point rally, tying the game at 12-12. CMS took the lead shortly thereafter and came within two points of winning the game at 15-14.
But P-P still had one last trick up their sleeve. A Mountanos kill and two CMS attack errors were all the Sagehens needed to secure the historic victory.
For Kylie Mies PO ’25, everything seemed to come together at the right time for the Hens.
“Highlight of the season just happened right now, that was electric on senior night,” Mies said. “We had the fire, we had the grit, and we had the love.”
Following the match, seniors Hayes and Gill — who set program records for career blocks and kills, respectively — reflected on the special night and year for the Sagehens. Hayes described the team’s connection as their “greatest strength,” with Gill noting the tight-knit team environment as key to their success.
“This team means so so much to me, and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the team,” Gill said. “It starts from when I was a freshman, and being able to be a part of such an amazing culture means the world to me.”
After beating Chapman in the first round of the SCIAC tournament, P-P could not create the senior night magic, as CMS swept them in three sets to advance to the finals of the tournament. CMS will now face La Verne in the SCIAC tournament finals, with a trip to the national tournament in the balance. June Hsu contributed reporting.
The Athenas storm the field after defeating the Sagehens 1-0 in a SCIAC-winning upset on Saturday, Nov. 9.
OTTO FRITTON
Sagehen volley celebrates their 3-2 win over the Athenas on Friday, Nov. 8, beating Claremont-Mudd-Scripps for the first time since 2013.
COURTESY: CLAREMONT-MUDD-SCRIPPS ATHLETICS
Abby Homan PO ’27 goes up for a shot during the Sagehens’ 57-50 win over UC Santa Cruz in their regular season opener on Sunday, Nov. 10.
Lions rugby bear their teeth in fall season with
The Claremont Colleges men’s rugby team, the Lions, started the season with claws out, taking home wins in several major tournaments including the Bowl Championship and the Chula Vista West Coast 7s Rugby Tournament. Across both competitions, the team held a 5-4 overall record. The team will continue to fight until the end of spring, as they switch from playing 7s – where seven players are on the field at a time – to 15s, which are played as 80-minute games with 15 players on the field at a time.
The Lions play in the Division I Gold Coast Rugby Conference, which consists of schools from across the southwest. Recruiting for the Lions occurs during the fall semester; 20 players made this year’s roster.
The team attracts many athletes from other sports on campus, and many players often have no rugby experience before coming to the 5Cs; however, a few of the Lions have played on national teams and at other high levels of competition.
Among experienced players is Mate Kvirikashvili CGU ’25, who is currently rostered on the USA national rugby team. Sam Martin CM ’26 is currently playing on the Hong Kong national rugby team while studying abroad. Nick Laskowski CM ’25, Luke Laskowski CM ’27 and Tanner Holland CM ’28 all used to play on the Hong Kong national rugby team before coming to play for the Claremont Colleges.
Zachary Regala Gaa CM ’27, a player from Singapore, came to the United States to play for the Lions and since arriving has paved his way on the Claremont rugby team and the campus in general.
“It’s been a huge culture shock for me coming to America,” Regala Gaa said. “It took a lot of adjustment to get used to. However, I’ve enjoyed it
so far and have found a good place socially and academically.”
Sam Brown CM ’26, a former Canadian national team player, was recruited to play for the Lions. He was hoping to find a college in the United States and explained how Jeremy Ognall, the team director, introduced him to the Lions.
“The tight-knit community, vibrant student body and the rugby team culture at the school instantly drew me in,” Brown said. “Not to mention that the SoCal weather was a huge improvement from the Canadian weather that I grew accustomed to.”
The Lions won the Bowl Championship final on Oct. 7, their first tournament of the season. They encountered tough pool-play games at the beginning of the tournament but emerged victorious. CMC hosted the tournament, which marked the starting point of their season, and featured colleges like UCLA, UC Berkeley, University of San Diego and San Diego State University.
On Oct. 26 and 27 the Lions competed in the Chula Vista West Coast 7s Rugby Tournament. The team earned a spot in the competition’s Plate Final and beat San Diego State to take home the crown. At the end of the tournament, Brown and Kvirikashvili received all-tournament player honors. Brown recalled the Chula Vista tournament as an important moment for himself and the team so far this season.
“Getting the opportunity to compete in one of the best 7s tournaments was a privilege, and we put forth a good showing, winning the Plate Final,” Brown said. “It is always a good time when you get to travel with the boys, and it makes it even better when you come back with some hardware.”
Regala Gaa recounted feeling strong after coming off the Chula
Vista tournament, as the Lions made adjustments to their play that helped them in their following games.
“The Chula Vista West Coast 7s tournament marked a turning point for this team,” Regala Gaa said. “There was a huge attitude shift in this tournament, through which many of the new players who had never previously played really stepped up.”
The Lions have high hopes for the rest of their season, aiming to push for a national championship in their 15s season, which entails longer games than the 7s season. They’re preparing to play against the University of San Diego and Arizona State University to see who moves on to regionals.
With some fresh faces on the team, upperclassmen players like Timeo Coletta PO ’27 look forward to seeing the new additions develop as the season goes on.
“Seeing a lot of the freshmen recruits who had never played rugby before walk on and compete was a great sight to see, as we’ve all learned a lot this season,” Coletta said.
According to Coletta, the team is hoping to win a national championship in the 15s season and consequently must prepare for the tough matchups that come with the journey.
“This club has a strong history of winning titles, and we want to uphold that legacy,” Coletta said. “As we build up to the 15s season, we look forward to playing friendly matches to prepare ourselves for the knockout games in the spring.”
In 2018, the Claremont Colleges won the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) 7s Championship in Philadelphia and the NSCRO National Championship Cup in 2017 and 2019.
Brown explained how, with the
Advik Mareedu HM ’26 was ranked first in singles competition in NCAA Division III Tennis on Nov. 13. Mareedu won the national singles title at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Cup in Rome, GA, which took place between Oct. 10-13. This was Mareedu’s second time winning the prestigious tournament, considered a national championship for smaller schools. Mareedu spent the weekend stacking hardware, also winning the coveted James O’Hara Sargent Sportsmanship Award for showing great sportsmanship and embodying the spirit of college tennis throughout the tournament. During his time at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) Mareedu has been dominant. He came out of high school as a five-star recruit, landing as high as 64th in the national rankings. He became the No. 1 ranked DIII player in his first semester at CMS, and has only continued to win since. After finishing as runners-up last year, CMS will host the National Championship at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center May 19-26.
Friday, November 15
Men’s Basketball @ Pacific Lutheran University
Saturday, November 16
Women’s Basketball vs. Lebanon Valley College
Women’s XC @ NCAA Regionals
Friday, November 15
Women’s Basketball vs. Linfield
Men’s Basketball @ UC Santa Cruz
Saturday, November 16
Women’s XC @ NCAA D3 West Regionals
Women’s Soccer vs. Colby College (NCAA Division III Regionals)
Men’s XC @ NCAA Regionals
Men’s Water Polo vs. California Lutheran University
Men’s Soccer vs. Oglethorpe University (NCAA Division III Regionals)
Men’s XC @ NCAA D3 West Regionals
Men’s Water Polo @ Caltech
Women’s Soccer vs. UC Santa Cruz (NCAA Division III Regionals)
Football vs. Chapman (SCIAC Championship)
help of the other leaders, he aims to help his team achieve success while also developing players’ individual skills.
“As a captain, I want the team to perform at its best and achieve success on the pitch; however, I’m equally concerned with the development of our players off the pitch,” Brown said. “I hope that we can continue to achieve on-field success while upholding the values that our program stands for.”
Along with player leadership and team director Ognall, the Lions reap the benefits of an experienced coaching staff including head coach
Scott Bracken, previous player on the U.S. men’s national team, assistant coach Thorne O’Connell, who grew up playing in South Africa and has played for the U23 U.S. men’s national team, and attack coach Ray Egan, who has coached top programs in Ireland.
“Our coaches are extremely dedicated to the program and their extensive rugby playing and coaching career makes them excellent coaches who help the program excel at a high level,” Brown said.
Backed by the recent tournament wins, the hungry Lions will enter into their 15s season in the coming weeks.
PO ’26 was awarded the SCIAC character award for her exceptional play on the court as well as her excellence in the classroom and engagement in the community. As a setter Cespedes has notched 137 assists this season and set her in-game record with 23 assists
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and this year the honor was bestowed upon Cespedes after her tri
umphant return from a season-ending injury last year. During her time off the court, Cespedes became certified to be an EMT and was also named a team captain this year. Cespedes was also named to the SCIAC All-Academic Team during her time with Pomona-Pitzer (P-P). On Friday, Nov. 8, the Sagehens beat rival Athenas for the first time since 2013, but fell to them in the SCIAC semifinals Thursday, Nov. 14.
Football vs. University of Redlands
Women’s Volleyball vs. TBA (if CMS advances, SCIAC Tournament)
Men’s Basketball @ University of Puget Sound
Sunday, November 17
Women’s Basketball vs. Emmanuel
Men’s Basketball vs. Lewis & Clark College
Women’s Basketball vs. Smith College
SHEA JOKO
COURTESY: WEST COAST SEVENS
The Claremont Colleges men’s rugby team move into their 15s season after tournament wins in the fall.
