Protesters inside Carnegie Hall.
Pomona College issued interim suspensions to twelve students involved in the October 7th takeover of Carnegie Hall. Protesters occupied the building for nearly five hours, demanding that Pomona divest from Israeli affiliated companies.
A joint post by the dissenting groups declared: “We disrupted business as usual for this genocidal war machine college, which has refused to divest from the zionist entity which has martyred over 200k+ Palestinians and 2000+ Lebanese people.”
This disruption included extensive vandalization and property damage, resulting in dozens of students and professors being forced to vacate their classrooms and offices. Carnegie remains indefinitely closed as staff work to repair the damage. Classes have been moved online and to other buildings. Faculty with offices in Carnegie have been relocated to temporary arrangements.
At the regularly scheduled faculty meeting on October 10th, discussion centered around the Carnegie takeover. Divisions among the faculty were apparent. One faculty member commended the administration’s decision to refrain from calling the police. Others raised concerns about the failure to transfer policy into action, observing that “Rules without consequences are just suggestions.” Some, including President Gabi Starr, were visibly emotional.
Last spring, protesters occupied President Starr’s office, which ended with Pomona’s administration calling in law enforcement. Twenty students were arrested, only seven of whom were enrolled at Pomona. The administration faced immediate backlash in the aftermath of this decision. Several groups, including the Associated Students of Pomona College, the school’s student government, condemned the administration through emails to the entire student body. Additionally, Pomona faculty voted to censure the administration for the “present and future militarization and use of police on the campus.”
At the closing of the faculty meeting, Starr made clear that the only situation in which the police will be called is if there’s a physical threat to people on Pomona’s campus. “I'm not calling the police to enforce discipline on campus. We have to figure out how to enforce our own discipline,” Starr noted.
Later that day, the Faculty Executive Committee released the following statement:
"The Faculty Executive Committee condemns the actions of the protesters who occupied and vandalized Carnegie on Monday.... The sudden occupation of the building, the expulsion of its legitimate inhabitants, and the wanton destruction that ensued, are antithetical to that communal project. The fact that this occupation took place on October 7, a day that should have inspired a very different kind of gathering, only added insult to injury. It is time to reassert our collective commitment to preserving Pomona College as a place of learning, utterly rejecting every effort to subvert its educational mission."
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. Of the approximately one hundred protesters that have been identified thus far, less than 25% are Pomona students. The rest are from the other Claremont Colleges, predominantly Scripps and Pitzer Colleges. These students will be banned from Pomona’s campus, but will be allowed to work with professors to continue any coursework until the appeals process is over. Should their appeal fail, they will be fully withdrawn from any classes at Pomona.
One individual unaffiliated with the campuses has also been identified, with Starr stating that they will face a campus ban and that the College may take further legal action.
The first wave of disciplinary letters was sent out October 11th, with twelve Pomona students receiving interim suspensions. Students will have the opportunity to go through the appeals process, but will not be allowed to attend classes in the meantime. Pomona Divest from Apartheid has urged students who receive one to reach out to them for support. A statement released by President Starr advised that “within the scope of the student code, and commensurate with individual circumstances, sanctions will range widely, including campus bans, suspension and expulsion—a step we do not take lightly.”
A recent post from the involved student groups declares, “Pomona can’t identify who did property damage so they’re resorting to mass racial profiling.… At fascist Pomona College, You can be suspended for attending a rally.”
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