On Friday, April 5, 20 Claremont Colleges students were arrested during a peaceful protest at Pomona College by local police department officers and booked in the Claremont Police Department (CPD) — 19 of them on trespassing charges and one on charges of obstructing an officer. This action comes all too soon after CPD arrested a Pomona faculty member last semester on trespassing charges, after bringing their class to observe an anti-apartheid die-in protest at Big Bridges Auditorium.
But I want to do what few so far have done and take this incident out of the context of the BDS movement and Israel-Palestine.
I want to ask, what does Pomona’s response to campus protests say about them as an educational institution?
Its response makes it abundantly clear that Pomona does not support academic freedom and students’ right to freedom of speech.
President Gabrielle Starr’s escalation of the situation on April 5 by calling the police was unwarranted. This unnecessary level of enforcement was blanketed by a notification sent by Campus Safety, which read, “Police activity at Pomona Campus, Alexander Hall. Please stay away from the area where law enforcement personnel are present. There is no threat to the community.”
What reason was there for this escalation, besides silencing voices speaking on one of the most contentious issues in the world? Would the response to a protest of this nature differ if students were speaking for another cause?
Let’s dissect the rhetoric of the Campus Safety notification and figure out what “threat to the community” even means.
Testimonies from detained students describe instances of police resorting to physical force under the guise of “protecting” Pomona administrators. Violence is coming from police, meaning that, in the eyes of Campus Safety, the “threat” is 7C student protesters; the “community” is Pomona administrators.
This vital clarification directly opposes students’ academic freedom and freedom of speech. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that there shall be no “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Academic freedom is, according to Inside Higher Ed, “[the] protect[ion] [of] faculty members and students from reprisals for disagreeing with administrative policies or proposals.”
As a private institution, Pomona is not directly subject to the First Amendment — it is, however, subject to California Education Code’s Leonard Law. The Leonard Law protects free speech rights for students at private colleges and universities.
According to Pomona’s website, Leonard Law prohibits the college from “subjecting any student to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that is protected by a student’s First Amendment and other free speech rights.”
Pomona violated these student rights on April 5 — not just those of student protesters, but also of the student press.
“[Starr] turned to campus police and told them, ‘please detain this individual,’” a member of a student press organization stated in an Instagram post by Pomona Divest from Apartheid. “Three campus police grabbed me (two on each arm, one on my torso) and dragged me outside … they closed the door on my body. One of them then kneed me in the gut and shoved my chest, pushing me out again before locking the door. They saw me and closed the door on me again, then elbowed me in the face. I fell to the floor due to the impact.”
For those of us who are members of student media organizations at the Claremont Colleges, this is a chilling story.
These tactics of press suppression — tactics that are becoming all too familiar in the United States — are unlawful. Claremont College community members have the responsibility and right to advocate for our campuses to become a better place. This is a practice that should be welcomed, not stamped out.
If the Pomona administration perceived their current investment practices as unproblematic, then a protest wouldn’t be deemed threatening. The escalation of calling the police on Friday night proves just how scared Pomona administration is of student voices — fear born out of a knowledge that they are doing something wrong, but also a lack of integrity to make the necessary changes.
As if violating state and federal rights weren’t enough, Pomona is also actively going up against its own mission statement.
“Pomona students are inspired to engage in the probing inquiry and creative learning that enable them to identify and address their intellectual passions,” the statement reads.
As residential campuses, learning at the 5Cs does not stop in the classroom, but is continued through praxis and student action. If students aren’t able to manifest our learning into action, then why are we even learning at all? The April 5 protesters were “inspired to engage in probing inquiry,” and they were addressing their intellectual passions through demonstration.
Like many others, I am discouraged and outraged by Pomona College’s handling of a peaceful, student-organized protest. Our students should be encouraged to explore their intellectual interests and to take action to advocate for good — not thrown in the back of police cars for it.
We, as a cross-campus community, must not tolerate the actions of President Starr or Pomona administrators unwarrantedly militarizing Pomona’s campus and attempting to silence our voices.
Regardless of whether or not your beliefs align with those of the April 5 protestors, we are united under our commitment to intellectual freedom, intercultural understanding and shared responsibility to challenge the status quo. We should all be equally outraged by the college’s violation of our rights and values.
I call on all of our community members to condemn the actions of Pomona administrators on April 5 and to advocate for “The Claremont Colleges Policies and Procedures” — the document that governs demonstration policies at the Claremont Colleges — to be reviewed and revised by representatives of faculty, staff, administration and students across all 7Cs to ensure better protection — a revision where we choose for responses to be constructive, not destructive to our community.
Most of all, I am calling on you President Starr.
Will you persist in fostering division, or will you be a unifying force that stands with us to uphold the Claremont Colleges’ commitment to co-creating a better future?
The choice is yours.
Aaron Matsuoka PZ ’26 is one of TSL’s copy chiefs and believes in co-creating community as a holistic collection of faculty, staff, administration and students. He loves the Claremont Colleges and hopes that we can all work towards a more transparent community that supports our shared values and welcomes the questioning of our current systems.