Image via Flickr. Copyright CampusGrotto.
On Thursday, September 5th, a booklet featuring anti-semitic tropes appeared at the table of Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC), Pomona’s student government body, during the 5C club fair. According to a school-wide email from ASPC’s executive board, the pamphlet was not produced or intentionally distributed by ASPC.
The booklet was reportedly left by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), another student organization that had set up their materials on the wrong table. When they relocated to make way for ASPC, they left copies which ASPC reportedly failed to notice. “We did not realize and were not notified of [the booklets] until after the club fair,” the ASPC executive board wrote.
The booklet is nearly forty pages long, and includes written and graphic elements. The cover shows a masked woman wearing a keffiyeh below large text reading “Mask Up, We Need You.” The image is subtitled “Palestinian Solidarity, COVID-19, and The Struggle for Liberation.”
The document claims that “pandemics are a tool of the colonizer,” and presents COVID-19 safety measures as critical to “Palestinian liberation.” It also alleges that Israeli military efforts and COVID-19 are “part of a larger blueprint for amerikkkan-israeli colonization and imperialism…. By bomb or by pathogen, these attacks on Palestinian life are man-made, intentional policy choices, ones intended to consolidate wealth for the mis-rulers of the world.”
Word of the booklet spread when a Jewish Pomona student encountered it and shared its contents with Haverim Claremont, a Jewish student group. That night, Haverim published a statement criticizing the booklet and demanding that ASPC apologize. They also demanded that SJP be banned from the Claremont Colleges, and its leaders face “severe disciplinary consequences.”
On September 10th, Avis Hinkson, Pomona’s Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, sent a school-wide email announcing an investigation into the booklet’s appearance:
“In accordance with our policies, Pomona College is committed to maintaining an environment free of discrimination and harassment. Several community members have raised concerns about antisemitic content in a booklet distributed at the 5C Club Fair. An investigation regarding this incident was launched last week and will continue for the next few weeks. Out of respect for the investigation and to avoid community harm, we will not publicly share the booklet.
It is the College’s duty to protect free speech, but we will not tolerate discrimination in any form. When an exchange of ideas involves discrimination, the College must and will take appropriate actions.”
An hour later, the ASPC Executive Board sent out another email which disclaimed and denied knowledge of the booklets.
The email did not include an apology, but the ASPC president apologized the next day at an ASPC Senate meeting. “I don’t think that the role of ASPC is to issue an apology that says that Zionism is an integral part of Judaism,” he noted. “But I still think that pamphlet is not necessarily something on campus that I would be proud was on that table, and it was a mistake, and so here is my apology.”
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