By Maya Olson PZ ’25 and Ben Lauren PZ ’25

In response to a sit-in by student protesters’ inside Pomona College’s Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7, Pomona College administration has invoked mass disciplinary measures, placing 12 Pomona students on interim suspensions — immediately removing students from campus and revoking housing and access to dining halls — and banning dozens of Scripps and Pitzer students who they allege were involved in the protest in some capacity. Then on Oct. 16, Scripps administration implemented new surveillance measures at Denison Library in response to a planned study-in.

Student calls for divestment came a week before the United States sent a THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system to Israel, valued above $1 billion and created by Lockheed Martin, alongside 100 soldiers.

POMONA COLLEGE SUSPENDS 12 AND BANS DOZENS

On Oct. 7, 2024, over 400 5C students walked out of classes and rallied at Pomona College to demand Pomona’s divestment from “all weapons manufacturers and all institutions that aid in the ongoing occupation of Palestine.” After the rally, over 100 entered Carnegie Hall, commencing a sit-in for multiple hours during which some protesters sprayed graffiti and damaged audio-visual units at Carnegie.

Pomona’s decision to mass suspend and ban students comes after a year of increased surveillance and punitive measures taken against protestors by the college. Last semester, Pomona initially placed interim suspensions on every Pomona student arrested for performing a sit-in inside Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr’s office on April 5. All non-Pomona arrested students were banned from campus as well, but still permitted them on campus to attend any classes at Pomona, which they are not allowing for students banned for attending the Oct. 7 protest.

As of now, this makes it unclear whether non-Pomona students can receive Pomona credits if banned from campus this semester, or whether they can remain employed at Pomona campus jobs. The Outback has not yet received a response from multiple requests for comment.

Upon appeal, Pomona has since only lifted two of the 12 interim suspensions. In an Instagram post on Oct. 18, Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) — who shared posts in support of the protest — claimed the 10 students whose appeals were denied came with “no reason given.”

Interim suspensions remain in effect until students have their Judicial Council (JBoard) hearing 10 business days after suspensions are announced. Students then present to the JBoard, made up of students. However, any decisions made by the students can be overridden by a two of three vote for administrative overturn. Two of the administrators on JBoard are Associate Dean of Students for Student Development and Leadership Brandon J. Jackson and Associate Dean of Students & Dean of Campus Life Josh Eisenberg, who were at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7 tearing down posters put up by protestors and trying to identify protestors.

In an Oct. 12 post, PDfA condemned Pomona for the suspensions, claiming the majority of them are BIPOC, first-gen, and low income, and accusing the school of targeting students for wearing keffiyehs and masks and for racially profiling students. 

Pomona has not responded to The Outback’s request for comment on these allegations. 

In another post later that day, they stated three of the suspended students are first-years, criticizing the use of interim suspensions for punishing them before attending a JBoard hearing.

“These freshmen have been on campus for less than 2 months and Pomona is stripping them of their housing, food access, and support networks!!,” PDfA wrote in the post. “How is suspending freshmen for attending a publicly announced rally, without any due process, in line with ‘dialogue’ or ‘restorative justice?’”

Meanwhile, on Oct. 15, Avis Hinkson emailed letters signed by Starr to dozens of non-Pomona 5C students, primarily at Scripps and Pitzer College, informing them that effective immediately, they were “banned and designated persona non grata from Pomona College” for the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year. Banned students are prohibited from stepping foot on campus grounds, including inside academic buildings, dining halls, residence halls, or anywhere else on Pomona campus.

“This prohibits you from participating in classes or any other activities in person,” Starr wrote in the ban letter to a student. “You may make arrangements with faculty to continue coursework in other modalities (e.g., via Zoom), at the sole discretion of the faculty member, while your ban is under review.”

The threat of potential arrest comes despite a vote by Pomona faculty last April following the arrests of 20 students at Alexander Hall, in which they voted, “[Condemning] the present and future militarization and use of police on the campus.”

Starr added in her letter, “should you violate this ban, representatives from the Claremont Colleges will immediately notify TCCS Campus Safety Office and the Claremont Police Department,” despite the faculty vote.

The bans also come after an Oct. 10 faculty meeting in which Starr stated she would not call the police as it was up to the campus to enforce discipline, and another faculty member encouraged “consequences.”

In her letter, Starr provided students with Pomona’s reasoning for the ban, claiming it was a result of students’ “presence during the events inside Carnegie Hall on October 7, 2024.” 

The letter concluded with Starr’s sign-off reading, “with fervent hopes for peace in this world.”

The 7C ban policy permits Pomona to ban students without providing evidence or any form of JBoard hearing. Additionally, the ban appeal process — in which students have five business days to write a letter of appeal — requires that it be sent to Hinkson, who has been critical of the language used by protesters over the past year. It is up to the Pomona Dean of Students Office to determine whether the appeal is approved or denied.

Starr also announced that student groups “affiliated with this incident” are being investigated by the college as well.

“As always, we have due process on our campus, with opportunities for appeal,” Starr wrote.

As of publication, it is unclear how Pomona is identifying students. Students who claim varying levels of involvement in the protest, including some who claim they never entered Carnegie Hall and members of the press, have been banned.

According to the Claremont Independent — though TSL could not confirm this with Pomona, nor did Pomona Communications respond to The Outback’s request for comment — over 100 students were allegedly identified inside Carnegie Hall, which would be approximately all of the students that entered Carnegie.

“Identifications of participants in Monday’s events are being made primarily through security camera footage, photos and videos taken during the occupation, and bodycam footage from a Campus Safety officer who remained inside Carnegie,” the Claremont Independent wrote.

Many non-protesting students entered the building and engaged in taking photos of students protesting in an attempt to identify them, in addition to making TikToks, as well as attempting to encourage the administration to identify student protestors via Instagram accounts. In a deleted Instagram post, it was discovered that students inside the building were found to be taking photos of protesting students for faculty identification purposes, encouraging punitive measures against them.

PDfA responded to the student suspensions, calling out Pomona for engaging in intimidation tactics and enacting collective punishment in an Instagram post on Oct. 13.

 “It will not work,” PDfA wrote, “Repression only breeds resistance.”

DENISON LIBRARY IMPLEMENTS NEW SECURITY PROTOCOLS IN RESPONSE TO PROTESTS

On October 16, the Scripps community received an email from Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Mary Hatcher-Skeers, stating that, “new entry protocols will be implemented at Denison [Library].” These protocols include requiring students to tap-in using a Claremont ID — previously students had to show their IDs but not scan them — and submit their bags to be checked. Only “study materials” will be allowed inside, and Campus Safety officers have now been placed outside both entrances.

In the email, Hatcher-Skeers indirectly referenced the Oct. 7 sit-in at Carnegie Hall as directly influencing the college’s decision.

“Scripps College’s Principles of Community encourage and embrace freedom of expression while also calling on our community to balance individual freedom with sensitivity to and awareness of the rights of others,” Hatcher-Skeers wrote. “The escalation observed during recent campus protests violates these principles and has provoked fear and concerns about protestors assuming control of College spaces.”

Hatcher-Skeens also stated these new restrictions were a preventative measure for a planned study-in at Denison protesting Scripps administration shutting down the Motley Coffeehouse.

“Scripps College has an obligation to protect the wellbeing of all members of the community, to create a safe working environment, and to protect the academic spaces that are vital to our educational mission,” Hatcher-Skeens wrote. “Student organizations have published a planned ‘study-in’ at Denison Library this week. All students at the Claremont Colleges are welcome to study in Denison Library. However, to protect against the escalation that has recently occurred, new entry protocols will be implemented at Denison.”

Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) responded to the new restrictions in an Instagram post on Oct. 18.

“Scripps College is surveilling Denison Library in direct response to our planned study-in,” Claremont SJP wrote. “Admin would rather waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on increased surveillance rather than divest from genocide… the repression we face here at the Claremont Colleges… does not mirror even a fraction of the harrowing loss in Gaza, and the repressive nature of the apartheid state which these very institutions fund and strive to uphold.”

In a response by the student staff of the Denison posted on Instagram by the 5C Prison Abolition Collective and the Claremont Student-Workers Alliance, they wrote that they were not given any advance notice of the new protocols, and that the library’s outdoor courtyard was restricted and Campus Safety officers confiscated water bottles. They criticized the Scripps administration’s closure of the Motley, aligning themselves with the 50 workers who were fired from the coffeehouse.

“This reaffirms ongoing campus-wide sentiments that student spaces at Scripps are under attack, amplified by the sudden surge in Campus Security presence throughout campus community spaces,” the Denison student staff wrote. “It is also indicative of a larger trend of Scripps administration’s failure to value the contributions of student workers.”

They additionally claimed that BIPOC and undocumented students will thus feel less safe in the spaces, attendance of the library is plummeting, and the new policies are contradictory to the purpose of a library.

The student workers added these policies are a blatant example of the Palestine Exception to freedom of speech, questioning if any type of demonstration in support of Palestine would be allowed under Scripps’ guidelines.

“We, Denison student employees, strongly oppose the administration’s decision to increase sürveillance at Denison Library,” they wrote. “We welcome student organizing movements in solidarity with a Free Palestine, including the study-in. We question, if a silent study-in causes such a response, what protest is considered acceptable?”