I write this letter full of sorrow, rage and pain. I write as a white man who has the incredible privilege that my family may still be able to attend graduation on Sunday. But I hope my words may resonate with other seniors and families beyond myself who have not been afforded that same privilege and may voice what they feel they cannot — and that they may motivate some protesters to reconsider their actions in light of the harm they are causing.
I support Palestine wholeheartedly. I support all the demands of Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA). I believe Palestinians deserve liberation, I want to see a free Palestine within my lifetime, and I want to see an end to Israel’s apartheid and abhorrent oppression of all Palestinians. I believe that disruptions and protests here in the U.S. are a necessary component of that liberatory process. We are watching what amounts to a purposeful genocide against Palestinians, especially as Israeli forces push their way deeper into Rafah despite the potential for high civilian casualties.
Yet I cannot in good conscience agree with the way that PDfA has gone about continually attempting to disrupt and cause the cancellation of Pomona’s graduation. The current call to action against Pomona’s graduation on a national scale is, in my mind, the final straw. I know my words will be polarizing and I may face ostracization for what I say, but I feel it must be said.
While Pomona administration is hardly blameless for their ineffectual response to demands for disclosure, divestment and an academic boycott, this particular action has not benefited that call. Admin has not been meaningfully impacted by demonstrations this past week and will not be impacted by disruptions soon to come. The pressure they feel is not to divest; it is to ensure that graduation can still happen.
Those impacted most by PDfA’s attempts to cancel graduation are primarily lower-income and first-generation students whose families do not have the means to adjust their travel itineraries to accommodate a shift in the time and location of commencement. I have spoken with many friends and peers who have been devastated that their parents will no longer be able to watch them walk because rearranging their schedules would be too costly. I have even heard of students returning their caps and gowns early because they themselves have already booked flights and can no longer attend graduation.
International students have also been impacted to an extraordinary degree. I’m sure that many of their family members who hoped to be in attendance likely had to secure expensive visas. I’m sure they were excited to celebrate their children, grandchildren, siblings, cousins or nephews who have worked so hard for the past four years to get to where they are now. Now, they’ve been robbed of any opportunity to do so and all their endeavors to be supportive of their graduating senior have proved worthless.
Even beyond that, almost every single one of the students graduating this year did not have a proper high school graduation due to COVID. My own graduation was entirely virtual. While I hardly felt anything at that time due to the numbness that had crept into my veins as I watched the world around me come to a halt, my mom shed all my tears for me. She had been robbed of any opportunity to celebrate me. My dad could hardly manage her emotions while simultaneously grappling with his own. Their only consolation was that they would eventually see me graduate from college. Now, I’m not confident they will even get that opportunity.
I can imagine my story is not the only one of its kind.
I deeply resent Pomona administration for choosing not to listen to student and faculty demands for divestment. I loath their decision to change the location and time of graduation at the expense of many of those in our community who deserve a joyous celebration.
However, while Pomona’s administration is no doubt culpable for their disastrous decision-making, it would be utterly idiotic to suggest that PDfA has not had a direct hand in causing the pain graduates and their families currently feel. The consequences and scrambling that we as a class and our families and friends are experiencing during what is meant to be a momentous occasion is appalling. I cannot help but feel anger for PDfA, even if they played only a small part.
Beyond the harm caused by Pomona’s relocation of graduation, the planned disruption at Shrine Auditorium directly endangers the families of graduates. The Los Angeles Police Department’s inevitable presence at Shrine poses a direct and undeniable risk to students and parents who are undocumented, who are immigrants and/or who are minorities. All of them may face inadvertent repercussions should police turn their ire away from protesters toward all those present at the event.
I do not wish to see, nor do I wish for my family to see my peers (and possibly their families) brutalized and arrested by police, as we saw on April 5th at Pomona. As much as I disagree with PDfA’s planned disruption, I do not want police to injure my peers, even those who choose to protest.
It is also evident that the call for “No graduation as usual anywhere” only really applies to Pomona, and even then, only to a small group of Pomona seniors. “Graduation as usual” — or at least a rough approximation of that — has happened at Pitzer, Scripps, Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna Colleges. I wouldn’t be surprised if several non-Pomona seniors who have participated in the encampment on Marston Quad have even gone and attended their own graduations. It is frustrating and so deeply upsetting to feel singled out as the only graduating class to truly receive no graduation, no celebration, no culmination.
To me, it feels as though I, my peers, and our families have become “the enemy” that this action is supposedly aimed at, not the administration.
PDfA has consistently deflected any responsibility for their disruptions by silencing dissenters. They claim that “Discourse about protest tactics… is a distraction.” In reality, this claim only serves to shield PDfA from any criticism rightly leveled against them for their actions. They have constantly demonstrated that they do not care to hear from their community, and in doing so have lost support among so many of their peers. They have monopolized what it means to be pro-Palestinian, and cannot bear the burden of the consequences of their actions.
This protest has also lost the support that the Palestinian cause has had both at Pomona and beyond. So many of my fellow seniors who I have spoken with have expressed frustration with the encampment and continued attempts to cancel graduation. So many seniors would have happily participated in a disruption during graduation (as seen at Pitzer) in an effort to put pressure on Pomona’s administration to divest and call attention to Israel’s current genocidal campaign in Gaza. So many seniors now do not see how this action meaningfully impacts administration or helps Palestine.
It is infuriating to feel that, instead of administration being punished for their failure to divest, graduates have had to bear the brunt of the consequences for that failure. Attempts to disrupt graduation have only driven a rift between members of our community. Protest should garner support among the people for a given cause, not drive them away.
The fight for Palestinian liberation must be one that invites all to participate, not one that alienates them.
I know that I will face retaliation for saying all this, and many of you may no longer wish to be my friend, but I am done pretending that PDfA represents the desires of the senior class. They do not effectively serve the interests of the Palestinian people. I can only hope that maybe one day they may recognize the harm they have caused.
Kevin Carlson PO ’24 is a senior at Pomona who graduated from high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is hoping to one day have a normal graduation.
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