I care too much about politics. I collect campaign materials from candidates all over the country, follow and volunteer in local elections that are not local to me and track most mid-sized to major policy proposals that pass through Congress.
July 3rd was one of, if not the most, grim days for me since Trump’s inauguration.
The issue that garnered thousands of headlines across multiple weeks: H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill”Act, passed on a 218-214 vote in the House of Representatives.
Within an hour of the bill’s passage in the House, I witnessed the craziest email to ever bounce into my inbox. Gabrielle Starr sent out a clickbait-y email titled “Happy Independence Day,” just to express gratitude for the passage of H.R.1, and most specifically, Section 70415.
The section is an amendment to excise taxes owed based on the student-adjusted endowment. It claims that institutions with fewer than 3,000 tuition-paying students are not applicable educational institutions that must follow the amendment.
In summary, we (as in all five colleges in Claremont enrolling less than 3,000 students) don’t need to pay more taxes on our endowment.
The bill initially faced holdoffs from GOP senators and representatives alike, with concerns surrounding “excessive spending” — concerns that magically disappeared after minimal pork-barreling and a Donald Trump meet-and-greet autograph session in the White House — so much for a party of small government and fiscal conservatism.
To say the bill is controversial is an understatement. It strips healthcare and SNAP benefits from millions after shoving eligibility paperwork down people’s throats, slashes Medicaid and CHIP benefits by $1.02 trillion, cuts Medicare funding by $490 billion and rids 22.3 million families of access to food.
It thoroughly changes federal financial aid, Pell Grant eligibility and student loan limits, and it gives the most significant tax cuts to the top 5 percent earning between $264,455 and $649,004. In comparison, the income of the bottom 20 percent is reduced by 2.9 percent and gives a 100 percent tax credit for private school donations while setting aside just a fraction of that tax credit budget for funding Title I high-poverty schools.
Don’t get me started on repealing most climate change initiatives, using “small business” as a buzzword to give Silicon Valley startups a tax break, and sending $170 billion of our tax dollars straight to immigration and border enforcement for more domestic terrorism throughout migrant communities.
Unfortunately, I can go on for days. Surprisingly, the bill has some strong supporters!
Refer to @ginalassiter9010’s comment on Mike Johnson’s speech: “Thank you Jesus!!!💖 Thank you President Trump ! Thank you Mike Johnson for Your Beautiful Speech and Your Walk with the Lord🙏✝️🕊️🇺🇸🇮🇱💖”
Also refer to Gabrielle Starr, the president of Pomona College: “This is welcome news to begin the holiday weekend. I hope you enjoy a fabulous 4th of July and thank you for all that you do to advance our extraordinary mission.”
Unsurprisingly, none of the four other schools within walking distance celebrated Section 70415 or the bill’s passage, despite their enrollment size being smaller than Pomona’s. It is infuriating to think that we chose to thank every single individual on the ad-hoc government relations team that lobbied and worked for the bill’s passage.
I do not plan to sit here and write about Pomona’s fiscal responsibility as an institution. The section is debatably a net positive for the Claremont Colleges, as less endowment money is being taxed per student.
I am, however, raising concerns about Pomona’s inability to direct its attention and resources to students affected by pressing federal changes.
It’s hard to believe that any current, prospective or alum of Pomona College was on the edge of their seat waiting for Starr’s email to acknowledge H.R.1 following its passage. We are not the Brookings Institution. We are not The Daily Show with Gabbi Starr and Jon Stewart.
All of this is to say I do not expect Pomona College to make political endorsements, issue condemnations of government policy or criticize individual political actors. Nonetheless, Pomona ought to serve its enrolled students before it celebrates the balance of its endowment.
Bob Gaines, the interim president during Starr’s spring sabbatical, understood this better than she. He provided updates to Pomona students amid the controversial decision on the Hill as funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health were cut; alerted students as the department of education advised Pomona to stop using DEI (and race in specific) as a consideration in admissions; notified students of ICE’s presence on college campuses nationwide; reassured students on Pell Grants funding and provided external resources for international students facing struggles with visa. Gaines even covered the possibility of an increased endowment tax on nonprofit colleges and universities — which is apparently the primary federal policy enacted by Trump & Co. that Starr found essential to address.
Starr quickly burned through the goodwill created by Gaines with this cold, tasteless email following the devastating passage that will impact millions of families in the coming years. There should be no avoiding “federal politics” after the emails we received this past spring.
I fully understand that President Starr will have fewer personal investments affected after H.R. 1 than the average American.
Her publicly disclosed salary is in the sweet spot of receiving a substantial tax boost, she is likely not on food stamps or Medicaid benefits and she probably doesn’t plan on taking out student loans or enrolling her kids in a Title I high school in the area.
But is an ounce of empathy for the hundreds at Pomona, and for millions around the United States, impossible for her?
Pomona is an institution that takes pride in being one of the most diverse in the nation. It is also an institution that boasts placements into some of the nation’s top post-graduate programs. All these feats and ribbons that we get to hang in Sumner Hall are products of a student body that feels empowered and supported by our school and country — Starr’s second email back from her sabbatical signals that many of us are currently receiving neither.
When a policy caps a Pomona student’s ability to take out loans for a PhD, limits their family’s ability to get an extra roll of bread and a carton of milk with EBT or refuses to acknowledge the impact of climate change for a planet that is our future, that should be a glaring red flag for anyone in Alexander Hall.
To Starr, however, those life-defining changes were merely considered “controversial” provisions, to be addressed in an email two weeks later. Any acknowledgment of what Pomona students lose access to was a footnote to the money that Alexander Hall holds onto for investment back into their portfolio (which is a rabbit hole I refuse to enter).
Even in her follow-up email after her initial celebration of the bill, the inability to recognize the far-reaching impacts of the bill for low-income families and students beyond its implications for financial aid seems to be the result of poor PR training. I felt like I could see right through her when she said, “we are only addressing the impacts on higher ed, because that’s what affects our students directly.”
So, to be crystal clear, President Gabrielle Starr, acknowledging that my grandmother’s nursing community center is losing federal funding, is not a political statement. But a statement claiming that you care about the bank balance of the school while turning a blind eye to the expenses of the well-being of your tuition-paying students’ families is.
You drew a line that we did not ask for, and you now stand on a side that alienates your student body.
What you see in The New York Times manifests materially for many families around the country, though it likely affects you very little. As the president of a school that proudly enrolls members of said communities, the least you ought to do is show them a gesture of support during these times. Yet, you knowingly did the opposite.
Pomona students aren’t asking Gabbi Starr to declare for the 2026 midterms, or run a law review that produces summaries for every policy, ever. Pomona merely wants a president who will not abandon its students’ values and struggles to keep an extra 2 percent of the endowment.
Jun Kwon PO ’28 does not know his major, but knows that one should go to vote.gov to register to vote for the 2026 midterms. He also thinks it’s ridiculous that student newspaper op-eds are the target of federal scrutiny and investigation — this was not the eagle-screeching Land of the Free that he was promised growing up.
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