By Ben Lauren PZ ’25

Though the first rainy day in weeks threatened to turn away the crowd at El Barrio Park, dozens of students, faculty, and staff from the Claremont Colleges rallied against the Pomona College administration in response to six weeks of unprecedented punishments doled out by the school.

On Friday, Nov. 15, several 7C students who were suspended or banned by Pomona for their participation in the Oct. 7 Carnegie Hall takeover held a press conference off campus at El Barrio Park calling for “the immediate reinstatement of students with the assurance of financial aid and a refund of the missed semester, the overturning of suspensions and bans with their expungement from students records, and immediate divestment from the genocide of Palestinians.” The first major public gathering against Pomona since the Oct. 7 takeover, for those in the community affected by Pomona’s actions, many students are hoping this represents a turning point for the future of protest on campus.

The conference came just days after the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Palestine Legal, the National Lawyers Guild, the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, and the Asian Law Caucus threatened to file legal action against Pomona for its unprecedented wave of punishments.

In a legal letter penned to Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr, Asian Law Caucus Staff Attorney Kanwalroop Kaur Singh stated, on behalf of the five organizations, that Pomona’s actions were in violation of California’s Leonard Law, which gives added protections to first amendment rights at private colleges and universities.

“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,” Kaur Singh wrote in the legal letter. “This is, in effect, punishing the act of protesting itself.”

Oli Rizvi PO ’27, the Associated Students of Pomona College’s Board of Trustees representative for student affairs, who spoke at the conference, described why Pomona’s collective punishments pose a threat to the rights of all students.

“What Gabi Starr did totally disrupted the precedent for protest because suddenly, you are responsible for the actions of everything involved in the protest,” Rizvi said. “If I go to sit-in here on [Pomona’s] Walker Beach, and people start digging trenches, then I’m liable because I shared my intent with them, and I’m liable to be punished as they would be.”

Since Oct. 7, the threat of administrative retaliation has curtailed the extensive protesting seen on campus over the past year — Rizvi cited seniors telling him “they’d never seen Pomona without a protest for so long”; however, Fia Powers PZ ’25, a banned student who also spoke at the press conference, explained in an interview with The Outback how a potential filing could work to reinvigorate organizing on campus.

“As students, we’ve felt that we are powerless and we should be afraid and scared to do anything,” Powers said. “So for [organizations] as big as Pal Legal and the ACLU to say something [is really validating] … This is an abuse of power, an overreaction, and is not legal.”

For Powers, seeing students come out in numbers to the press conference returned hope that students can still find ways to express dissent against Pomona.

“I think it’s important that we’re showing Pomona that we’re not afraid anymore,” Powers said. “Protesting has always been integral to the culture at the 5Cs and we haven’t really seen a crackdown like this [before] … It makes it clear that these institutions want to pick and choose what injustices we stand against, and standing up for Palestine is just not one of them. This repression and response is just even more reason for folks to show out.”

Still, while Rizvi is hoping the potential legal action can clarify how the college can address protest, he was more hesitant to say protesting is back in full swing.

“Friday, you had this kind of resurgence, but at the same time, it [was] off campus,” Rizvi said. “The appetite to [find alternative ways to protest] is so low because [Pomona’s] set this standard that you have the potential to be suspended. The stakes are high.”

Rizvi added that while the press conference was centered around the speeches of suspended Pomona students Francisco Villaseñor PO ’25 and Daniel Velazquez PO ’25, it may be harder to mobilize after suspended students are removed from campus entirely. He stated that since Pomona has paid for suspended students’ flights home, many have already left.

“It was basically like [Pomona said], ‘Fuck off, you’re done,’” Rizvi said. “So they’re all gone. Some might have stayed, but most have gone home. So the people that we are advocating for are gone.”

Powers echoed this sentiment of fear and fatigue throughout the colleges, referencing a second wave of emails sent to banned students, revealing the evidence levied against them — for most students, if they were on the building’s Wi-Fi — and announcing they had just three days to appeal a new ban that would bar them from taking any classes at Pomona for the remainder of their college careers. Regardless, Powers remains optimistic about the effectiveness of community engagement, highlighting the feeling of seeing students come out to the press conference.

“After the repression and fear that’s been happening for this past month, these letters that we’ve gotten, and the appeals that we’ve had to write — to just kind of exhaust us — it felt like our community was actually showing up,” Powers said. “I would really urge people to keep showing up to anything they can, because we genuinely do need all the support we can get. It was really wonderful.”

Rizvi was additionally confident in the potential lawsuit against Pomona forcing them to give up some ground on the severity of their punishments, but also revealed that Pomona is fully prepared for legal pushback.

“[Starr] met with legal counsel to make sure [the suspensions] were on the books,” Rizvi said. “Pomona is very good at settling … They don’t fight [lawsuits against students] … the Board probably wouldn’t allow that … that’s kind of the rule.”

Until then though, Rizvi advocated for alternative forms of political action from the traditional protest, which could also work to engage more apolitical students on campus.

“Frankly, we need to rethink the forms of protest we do on campus,” Rizvi said. “Something we got from Friday is that there are loads of people who are super keen to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, but also that still advocate for their cause that they’re passionate about.” 

At the same time, he remained concerned that Pomona’s punishments are setting a precedent that any action taken against them could be considered “disruptive” to their academic mission.

Nevertheless, Powers offered some alternative ways for students across the Claremont Colleges who feel anxious about retaliation from Pomona to still get involved and support suspended and banned students.

“I would urge folks to reach out to their friends or neighbors and check in; start talking about what’s going on and how we can support each other, and really mean it,” Powers said.

She also referenced The People’s Fund, a mutual fund in Claremont aiming to “support people building power in Sudan, Gaza, and Eastern Congo” by redirecting funds directly to communities in those countries on the ground.”

“We, as students and community members, have direct and indirect access to immense wealth,” they wrote on their fundraising page. “The wealth of the western world is stolen through capitalism, settler-colonialism, and imperialism. Students and community members are well positioned to redistribute a small portion of this stolen wealth to revolutionary struggles.”

Powers described some of the ways students can support their work.“I encourage folks to donate,” Powers said. “There’s also a lot of markets around campus that keep popping up … Yesterday [they hosted] a talk with Dr. Mohamed Abdou, so there’s ways you can educate yourself as well.… the profits will go to the People’s Fund and directly help people in Gaza.”

Willa Umansky PZ ’27 contributed reporting.