On Jan. 19, the management team at Scripps College’s Motley Coffeehouse met with their staff advisor, Adriana di Bartolo-Beckman, to address a series of complaints made the previous semester about “pro-Palestinian activity” at the Motley.
According to one student manager, who asked to remain anonymous in order to maintain job security, the complaints mainly came from faculty members and Scripps alumni who felt that pro-Palestinian activity at the Motley had turned the space into one in which “not everyone [felt] welcome.”
The complaints followed a burst of protests, vigils, statements and teach-ins that dominated the 5C community during the fall semester in response to the Israeli government’s ongoing siege in retaliation to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel; since then, over 25,000 people in Gaza have been killed.
In criticizing the Motley — where students hung a variety of posters reading “Free Palestine” in support of Palestinian liberation and campus organization, Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) hosted several events, including educational and solidarity-focused gatherings earlier in the academic year — the complaints suggested that the student-run coffeehouse had adopted a pro-Palestinian stance that contributed to a hostile environment on campus.
Responding to these complaints, di Bartolo-Beckman, who also serves as assistant vice president for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Office at Scripps, provided Motley managers at the Jan. 19 meeting with a list of demands that they were expected to meet before the Motley’s reopening in early February.
These demands included creating a new meeting request form, enforcing the college’s posting policy within the Motley, and releasing a statement of inclusivity.
Some students felt that these demands reflected attempts by Scripps administration to limit or control pro-Palestinian activism on campus. A second student manager who was present at the Jan. 19 meeting explained that, while di Bartolo-Beckman communicated the demands with the Motley’s management team, she did not necessarily appear to be the one behind them.
“When we asked her about it, she said it was from people above her,” the manager said. “She didn’t clarify who, but it definitely wasn’t her directly.”
The manager expressed her frustration with what she viewed as the administration’s attempts to stifle pro-Palestinian organizing on campus, arguing that the Motley is an inherently political space in which students are encouraged to share their views, even if said views are not unanimously agreed upon.
Indeed, the Motley has served as a hub for political discourse and student activism on campus since its inception back in 1974. In its mission statement, the Motley states its aim to offer students a space to engage in productive discussions and participate in community events.
“The Motley’s mission is to provide a center for intersectional feminist dialogues, highlight local vendors and sustainable global supply chains and support on-campus organizations through community events and sponsorships,” the statement reads.
The manager highlighted the political nature of this mission statement and suggested that the new policies being enforced at the Motley raise concerns of censorship on campus.
“I think it’s pretty ridiculous that administration would try to invoke this kind of censorship on the Motley,” she said. “The Motley has always been a political space and it’s never really tried to oppress any sort of political viewpoint.”
The demands introduced by di Bartolo-Beckman, however, imply that this perspective is not shared by all members of the Scripps community.
One of the demands required the Motley to create a new meeting request form for student groups seeking to hold recurring meetings in the space. The student manager stated that this demand was likely made in response to the weekly meetings of SJP last semester, which were held from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays.
The student manager, who explained that the Motley already had a meeting request form last semester and that SJP had submitted it in order to reserve their weekly time slot, expressed some confusion over the purpose of creating a new form. The manager expressed frustration about where she felt the demands were coming from.
“There’s really been nothing preventing other groups from being able to apply for weekly club meetings or events and such,” she said. “We don’t think that administration really has set up these demands very well and they’re just kind of reacting to the backlash they’ve received from alumni and faculty. I don’t think they know how our events work because [the new meeting request form] is basically the same [as the old one].”
The student manager further suggested that this perceived lack of substance within the recent demands implies that the Scripps administration has ulterior motivations for enforcing them. She specifically highlighted the statement of inclusivity — which she described as being a “public apology” — that the Motley head managers were asked to create and hang within the space.
“It’s just kind of a way for administration to publicly humiliate the Motley and use it as an example because a lot of other organizations on campus, like the Scripps Store and dance department, have had a lot of similar backlash and struggles,” she said, noting that those organizations had not been asked to release a statement.
According to di Bartolo-Beckman, however, the statement and the new policies being enforced at the Motley are meant to promote inclusivity within the space.
“The Motley has always and will continue to be an inclusive space where all Scripps students, staff, faculty and alums are welcome to meet, connect and collaborate,” di Bartolo-Beckman wrote in an email to TSL.
Both student managers commented on how the new demands would affect the Motley’s staff, specifically commenting on the poster policy. While students were previously free to hang up whatever posters they chose to in the Motley, all posters now have to be approved by the Office of Student Engagement beforehand. Any posters that do not comply with these regulations must be removed by Motley staff members.
“We told [administration] that we weren’t comfortable with that,” the second manager said. “They kind of replied that they didn’t feel comfortable or safe taking out posters either … they kind of just started pushing those demands and safety risks on students instead of the administration.”
Despite criticisms of these new demands by the Motley’s staff members, the student manager explained that they had to satisfy them.
“In the end, the situation is that we have around 40 employees, not including the managers, and [administration’s] demands are kind of strict in that they won’t let us open unless we follow through,” she said. “It’s kind of hard for us to do anything else.”
As long as the Motley’s management team satisfies the demands, they plan to host an opening night party on Thursday, Feb. 8 and to resume regular hours the following day.
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