OPINION: Pomona, riot gear police is the opposite of de-escalation and ‘dialogue’

On Friday, April 5, students occupied Pomona College’s Alexander Hall in a protest condemning the administration’s removal of a ‘mock apartheid wall.’ Pomona had 19 of them arrested.

The last thing that comes to mind when sounds of nearly two dozen police cars are blaring at the heart of campus is that your own college president has authorized a call for police on peaceful student protesters.

In fact, the first thing that comes to mind is far worse. My friends who aren’t on social media first thought there had been a shooting on campus.

Instead of considering the traumatizing effect of seeing waves of fully-armed police in riot gear storm a campus building Friday evening in response to a peaceful protest, Pomona College President Gabi Starr allegedly requested that students be arrested after having already authorized a call to local police. That’s not to discount the trauma those who interacted with police experienced first-hand after organizing a peaceful sit-in. 

The overwhelming response from police makes me wonder what it was that Pomona and Campus Safety had said to evoke such an aggressive response to peaceful protesters. It makes me question why anyone in leadership would think soliciting a fleet of 22 police cars across five jurisdictions — Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, La Verne and Covina — was appropriate or necessary.

Other colleges and past Pomona administrations tell us that it didn’t have to go this way. 

After Vanderbilt University recently suspended 16 students for a sit-in resulting in the arrest of three students, internal campus security escorted students out of the building they had been occupying, rather than Nashville police who only became involved after the fact. 

When Pomona students occupied a building twice for two days apiece in 1993, the then-president responded far differently, instead opting to implement a task force to ensure the college moved forward with student concerns in mind as well as with strengthened involvement. President Starr did the same — also without the use of full riot gear police — after a four-hour sit-in for student workers took place in 2019.

The college knows how to handle student protests in Alexander Hall without police because they do so nearly every semester. They have proven that they are capable of responding internally just as they and many other colleges have done for years.

Yet, this week, the decision to call the police signals a turn in policy that isn’t on par with past approaches or how the college could have chosen to respond.

This time, they chose to call police. 

With such a strong response, it seems like admin’s main intention was to intimidate students from exercising their right to free speech, especially at times when their opinions may not align with that of the administration. 

This is despite the fact that the student movement’s call for divestment from Israel is overwhelmingly supported by students, something President Starr’s administration has conveniently dismissed, unlike many of her predecessors, detracting from international human rights groups’ recognition of an ongoing genocide of Palestinians taking place as we speak — and Pomona’s finances are contributing to it.

If upcoming events, such as 4/7 Day, had become a source of concern for administration, with the activist art in mind that had prompted the sit-in in the first place, it’s on them for making it one. It’s hard to imagine something more in the ethos of the liberal arts college experience than the intersection of art and activism — just take a look at any semester’s course catalog.

Recent TSL reporting revealed that student activists had already coordinated plans to work with the college by removing the encampment they had set up alongside the art installation days earlier, as well as with ASPC to ensure the art would not interfere with both groups’ 4/7 Day events.

Instead, Pomona admin put students in danger past the arrests themselves.

Rather than show consideration for the arrested students’ well-being, Pomona immediately revoked swipe access to dorms and campus buildings, meaning that as soon as police released students from the Claremont jail, the first thing on their mind was finding a roof overhead for the night and food the next day.

For reference, the Claremont Police released the last students early into Saturday morning, around half an hour past midnight, seven hours after police had first arrived on campus. This meant several students had to scramble to figure out their next moves regarding their hopefully temporary solution for off-campus accommodations.

Calling for an excessive police force and embracing the militarization of campus — despite knowing what the imagery of police brutality and incarceration conjures in the minds of students, staff and faculty, and particularly the non-white 5C community —  is heartless. 

This is especially salient given that student protestors had never become violent, per numerous TSL reports and my own experience witnessing the protests.

Both Pomona and Campus Safety know all too well that when police arrive on campus, what happens next is outside anyone on campus’ control.

Calling police meant that any risks associated with their presence, such as confrontation with students or revoked visas and deportations for international students would now be plausible. 

If Pomona regrets firing 17 undocumented workers in 2011, it’s again not apparent because they risked putting students in a similar position yet again.

Under President Starr’s administration, Pomona justified kicking out a housing insecure student in a matter of days, yet has done little to address internal doxxers and off campus counter protesters that have shown up to campus over the last six months.

From a legitimate campus safety standpoint, Pomona’s recent tendency to dole out punitive responses to some protesters over others, rather than uniformly or none at all, just doesn’t add up, or seem fair to everyone involved.

The issue isn’t that Pomona lacks the ability to support all their students — it’s that they’re choosing not to. 

In the following days, more information will come out on what led to Friday’s escalation. Admin will need to look inward and evaluate all the individuals and policies responsible for such a strong police response in the first place.

Some of the policies that could have served as a safeguard don’t even exist yet. 

When asked last semester about on-campus “private detention” policies, which determine whether Campus Safety places individuals under citizen’s arrest until police are called, Campus Safety told TSL they did not have any policies.

In November, a professor was arrested on the grounds of trespassing during a pro-Palestinian rally during work hours. He told TSL that Campus Safety never told him they had placed him under private arrest, something TSL had to confirm through public records as Campus Safety initially said they had not.

With two instances of excessive police presence within six months, it’s imperative that the college and Campus Safety have a set of criteria that determine when police should be called and private arrests should be made.

If the Pomona administration or Campus Safety have any real remorse for the arrest of one of its professors like it says it does, it doesn’t feel that way. Calling police on students indicates the exact opposite, indicating an excessively punitive pattern from current leadership on both fronts. 

Pomona can start to amend the situation by dropping the charges and halt the suspensions and campus bans altogether. Pomona can also acknowledge the implications the call to police had on the campus community.

To  show it cares about its students, faculty and staff, Pomona administration should start by questioning why Claremont Police denied those who had been arrested access to legal counsel and never even read students their Miranda Rights, per Los Angeles Times reporting.

Unlike Pomona, Pitzer College announced Sunday they won’t pursue suspensions but will instead work with Pomona to help their students finish their cross-campus classes, an alternative Pomona could consider as well.

Many students in Claremont are on financial aid, so expecting them to fend for themselves until then — or depend on the support of the few off-campus Pomona students, or that of their professors — is pathetic at best. Where does admin think these students are right now?

In the next few days, arrested students have the chance to appeal their interim suspensions, a process which relies on the decision making of the Pomona Student Review Board. Faculty, admin and students involved with the interim suspension process should act to tone down admin’s unwarranted response to students’ rights to exercise free speech and protest. 

If mending a relationship with a distraught campus is important to admin — and it should be — the college should explain why it chose the course of action it did and how it will ensure the unnecessary and overwhelming police presence will not happen again while taking the student body’s support for divestment seriously.

Pomona can and should let students get back to learning — and allow them to actually put said learning into praxis, as liberal arts colleges purport to preach.

Jenna McMurtry PO ’25 served as TSL’s editor-in-chief from May to December 2022. Having previously reported for the news desk, Jenna covered last semester’s arrest of a Pomona College professor. She loves calling Claremont home for college, except in times when police are hastily called to campus and students lose access to dorms and dining halls for standing up for what they believe in.