October 10, 2025 2:16 am

Campus Safety, EmPOWER Center respond to reports of harassment on Scripps campus

By Anne Reardon 1297 Views Campus Safety, Empower Center, Malott Commons, scripps harassment

Scripps College students have reported being repeatedly approached by two non-5C-affiliated males who have lingered around Malott, making them feel uneasy. Scripps Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault and the EmPOWER Center were informed of these incidents on Sept. 3.

On Sept. 25, Campus Safety was informed that the males were back on campus at Scripps’ Bowling Green Lawn. The unidentified individuals were walking around as Be Well Thursday was taking place, a monthly wellness fair facilitated by Scripps Advocates, the EmPOWER Center and the Sallie Tiernan Field House.

Sally Glaskell SC ’27, an EmPOWER Center intern and Scripps Advocate, said she watched Campus Security walk the men off campus.

“The campuses are public and everybody has the right to be [here] and they’re beautiful, like I would spend time on the campuses even if I wasn’t a student here,” Glaskell said. “But after they’ve been talked to multiple times, harassing people who present as female, they haven’t shown that they know any of the students, [it is unsettling].”

Miriam Akhmetshin SC ’26, Scripps Advocates co-leader, expressed similar concerns.

“When we’re on our own college campus, we expect to feel safe, to be in the comfort of our peers, our community, and not outsiders, especially at a historically women’s college,” she said. “The [harassment] is a mirroring of an experience that we have in our daily lives, but we might not expect to find here in Claremont.”

Laura Muna-Landa, the assistant vice president for communications & community relations at The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS), discussed the incidents in a Sept. 12 email to the college community.

“The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority,” she wrote. “[TCCS] Department of Campus Safety is aware of the September 3, 2025, report involving individuals not affiliated with The Claremont Colleges who approached students near Malott and engaged in harassing behavior that caused students to feel unsafe.”

Muna-Landa added that while officers were dispatched and made contact with the individuals, the perpetrators ultimately left campus before more information could be gathered. She also reiterated that the 5Cs are private property where harassment is not tolerated.

“If the individuals return, Campus Safety will take appropriate steps, including issuing trespass notices to bar them from campus,” she said. “We encourage students to remain aware of their surroundings, secure their belongings and take advantage of available resources such as the LiveSafe App and the safety escort service.”

Akhmetshin said that harassment can induce fears about personal safety, bring up past traumas, cause sleep loss and affect one’s attention span and capacity to be present in friendships, class and routine activities.

“All of our students deserve to feel safe on campus, and if that’s not the case, if they’re feeling harassed, then there are steps that need to be taken to prevent that, and we hope to be there as a support resource to the many people who have been impacted by this,” Akhmetshin said.

Gaskell said that these incidents disrupt what generally feels like a secure environment at the consortium.

“It’s a reminder that these campuses are really good in the sense that I personally feel pretty safe and my first instinct when somebody comes up to me is that they don’t have any bad intentions,” Glaskell said. “[However, these instances] can induce anxiety. I’m sure that people who have been approached are probably more on the lookout for these people, which can obviously lead to stress.”

Glaskell also encouraged community members to attend Advocates’ support hours, as they are trained to help and ready to address any issue, large or small.

“There’s a reason why we chose this close-knit community,” Akhmetshin said. “We’re here to look out for another, that means not letting random people you don’t know into the dorms, not doing things that could jeopardize the safety of your peers. So we encourage everyone to, if they see these two individuals, to call Campus Safety, because they are aware of the situation.”

Attached below are more advocacy and support groups across the 5Cs:

The EmPOWER Center