Pomona students to vote on divestment from the ‘apartheid system within the state of Israel’ via ASPC referendum

Between Monday, Feb. 19 and Wednesday, Feb. 21, the ASPC will host a vote on a student-led referendum regarding Pomona College’s investments in Israel and whether Pomona should disclose their holdings and divest — sell their holdings — from “the apartheid system in the state of Israel.” The referendum, which was proposed by Divest Claremont Colleges and endorsed by 34 other on-campus student organizations, will be held via a confidential ballot system sent to students’ email addresses.

The referendum was created for the purpose of gathering the opinions of the student body. It contains five distinct questions and seeks to offer insight into student views on divestment, disclosure and academic boycott.

“Divest Claremont Colleges has requested this referendum to provide an outlet for students to formally express their opinions regarding the institution’s relationship with the apartheid system within the state of Israel,” an informational sheet on the referendum reads.

This is not the first time Pomona has seen student action backing calls for divestment. The college has had two major student divestment initiatives in the past: one called for divestment from South African apartheid in the 1980s and 1990s, while the other called for divestment from fossil fuels in spring 2022. Neither resulted in Pomona’s withdrawal of investments, but they did result in protests, student activism and, in the case of fossil fuels, a referendum which revealed that 88 percent of students voted in favor of a resolution to divest.

On Thursday, Feb. 15, student organizers held a teach-in at Walker Beach to educate community members about the referendum’s purpose and to explain why they believe it is necessary to bolster the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus. Approximately 45 students gathered at the event while organizers distributed blankets, masks and “Vote yes for divest” pins.

At the teach-in, organizers gave a presentation that explained what the BDS movement is, discussed the history of referendums at Pomona and outlined the topics that the new referendum will cover.

They began this presentation with a request that people use certain language when discussing those who have died as a result of Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

“All civilians who are killed by the Israeli Defense Forces are considered martyred because ‘murdered’ does not capture the full political context of their deaths,” the presenting organizer said.

The organizers then went over several recent news stories to provide attendees with context and, with what they explained as, a “political grounding for what is at stake [with this referendum].”

At one point during the teach-in, organizers called attention to the Pomona College Investments Office’s mission statement, which states that “Pomona’s endowment exists to support the College’s mission to enable students to identify and address their intellectual passions.”

One organizer argued that, by investing in Israeli companies, the college has failed to do this.

“Our intellectual passions aren’t located in investing with the escalating apartheid system, so we understand that Pomona needs to stop prioritizing profit,” the organizer said.

Pomona Chief Communications Officer Mark Kendall, however, suggested that Pomona’s endowment serves to benefit the student body by supporting a wider range of students.

“Pomona’s endowment exists to fund the college’s mission and makes it possible for Pomona to recruit and enroll students from all backgrounds and provide excellent financial aid,” he wrote in an email to TSL.

On Feb. 16, the day after the teach-in, President Gabrielle Starr emailed the Pomona community criticizing the referendum, noting that her concerns about it were “deep.” She specifically condemned the referendum’s focus on Israel, suggesting it had antisemitic implications. 

“For many years now, the only nation on which ASPC has focused its activity is the world’s only Jewish state,” Starr wrote. “This singling out of Israel raises grave concerns about the referendum’s impact on members of our community. For this reason, and even though I know our students do not intend this, the referendum raises the specter of antisemitism.”

Starr instead suggested that, rather than cutting ties with the state of Israel, the College should work to connect more deeply with Israeli and Palestinian universities.

“To exclude anyone from the pursuit of knowledge on the basis of the country in which they live is contrary to our mission,” she wrote. “American and global institutions, should, far from participating in academic boycotts of other institutions, be seeking to engage deeply with Israeli and Palestinian universities in the coming days and years.”

According to Starr’s email, she had recently been in contact with the elected members of ASPC and had both listened to them and expressed her concerns. However, several of these members, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, later suggested in an interview with TSL that their conversations with Starr had been relatively one-sided.

“[The referendum] is purely symbolic and useless in [Starr’s] eyes because she just doesn’t think we’ll ever divest,” one ASPC member said. “She wasn’t listening to us; we were listening to her.”

One leader of Divest Claremont Colleges, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, expressed a similar frustration. They explained that their numerous attempts to meet with Starr in the past had been met with either no response or with unproductive staff interactions. They also described feeling ostracized by Starr’s emails, especially with her claim that the referendum incites ideas of antisemitism. 

“President Starr [wrote] about how she cares so deeply about fostering dialogue,” they said. “When you are villainizing organizers, you are absolutely not fostering a space to have open dialogue where we feel safe to engage.”

The leader of Divest Claremont Colleges said that Starr’s criticisms of the referendum’s definitions — which were provided on the informational sheet for terms such as “divestment” and “apartheid” — similarly prevented community members from having open dialogue.

In Starr’s email, she had argued that the referendum’s definitions were not truly neutral and that they consequently prevented people from having productive discussions.

“The referendum provides no path for informed debate or discussion while offering as settled ‘definitions’ a set of highly debatable and hotly contested propositions, and thus ignores the principles of good governance and the educational mission of our community,” Starr wrote.

In contradiction to Starr’s suggestion, the Divest Claremont Colleges leader explained that the definitions used in the referendum came from neutral sources. The definition of  “apartheid,” for instance, was taken directly from the United Nations.

“[Starr] is attempting to characterize the referendum as this extremely one-sided game that is pushing students into a certain direction,” they said. “Really, we were extremely careful to use … very specific language just based on what major human rights organizations have said about what’s happening in Palestine.”

Some community members also criticized Starr’s call for students to engage with Israeli and Palestinian universities.

“We cannot ‘engage’ with our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza if literally nothing remains of Gaza’s basic infrastructure and educational landscape,” the Claremont Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) wrote in a response to Starr’s email, which they shared with TSL.

FJP also commented on Starr’s concerns about unintentional prejudice and the “specter of antisemitism” in ASPC’s hosting of the referendum.

“The BDS movement is explicit in its rejection of all forms of racism and antisemitism,” FJP wrote. “President Starr’s insinuation that this referendum singles out Israel and is therefore antisemitic is a tired tactic used to silence critics of Israel, smear boycott supporters and deflect attention from Israel’s current violent assault against Palestinians in Gaza.”

Similarly, a Feb. 18 email from the Jewish Voice for Peace – Los Angeles (JVP-LA) addressing Starr criticized her portrayal of ASPC and the Pomona student body as antisemitic by engaging with Divest Claremont Colleges’ referendum.

“ASPC’s focus on the Israeli state is a response to that state’s Jewish supremacism, which is to say, its existence as an ethno-supremacist state,” they wrote. “This social justice focus is fundamentally no different than that of activists who opposed the earlier apartheid state in South Africa. The most heinous thing here is that your false charges of antisemitism attack and undermine criticism of the Israeli state at a moment when that state is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. We all should be united in working to stop, rather than shield, that genocide.”

They criticized not only Starr’s charges of antisemitism, but also her failure to recognize the experiences of anti-Zionist Jewish, Palestinian and Arab students.

“Put simply, you present yourself as caring about Jewish students and their safety, but you render invisible and thus harm your many anti-Zionist Jewish students, as well as your [Palestinian] and Arab students,” they wrote.

Despite the backlash that Starr is currently facing for her email, Kendall suggested that the college would not change its stance.

“Whatever the results of this symbolic move, our values won’t change,” Kendall wrote in an email to TSL. “We will continue to pursue thoughtful dialogue and mutual respect. We will continue to welcome scholars and students from around the world, including Israel. We will continue to open doors and seek common ground.”

Still, student leaders emphasized the importance of voting on this referendum.

“I know that with actions like President Starr sending emails like these, it can be kind of demoralizing and it feels like we can’t accomplish anything with this administration,” the Divest Claremont Colleges leader said. “But at the end of the day, the power is with the students.”

The ASPC members agreed, explaining that the referendum was widely supported by students and that their votes mattered.

“The fact that [Starr] is even emailing means that she is scared, which means that we do have power,” the first ASPC member said. “Don’t let anyone make you feel like your vote is insignificant.”

They also emphasized that voting would be a safeguarded process.

“Votes are truly 100 percent confidential,” the first ASPC member said. “Your name is not involved. The only reason you have to log-in on the ASPC website is to prove that you are a Pomona student. It is truly confidential and on top of that, protected.”

Voting opens on Monday, Feb. 19 via a digital ballot that will be sent to all Pomona students via their school emails. There will be five yes-no questions related to Pomona’s current investments and whether the college should divest from stocks backing Israel. Voting closes on Wednesday, Feb. 21.