The Pomona College Black Student Union (BSU) hosted a town hall meeting on Wednesday at Walker Beach to address recent reports of documented racism against Black students. Over 500 attendees — including students, faculty, staff and local community members — gathered to demand accountability and concrete action from the college administration.
The March 25 town hall intended to bring attention to incidents of racism reported across academic and social spaces in recent months. BSU leadership listed out multiple demands, ranging from greater accountability mechanisms to more transparency, stating that a failure of enforcement has led to greater, unaddressed harm for Black students on campus.
Pomona Dean of Students Avis Hinkson initially addressed several racism reports in a March 10 school-wide email, condemning such incidents and reaffirming the values of Pomona as a “supportive and inclusive campus community.”
On March 26, Hinkson sent a follow-up email stating that the College is continuing to investigate both new and previously reported incidents and encouraging students to come forward with information. The message described the BSU town hall as “meaningful and informative,” and outlined planned institutional responses, including bias-reduction trainings for student-athletes — some of which began over spring break — and additional programming for the broader student body to be implemented in the fall 2026 semester.
The Student Life published an op-ed on March 13 addressing the racism students experienced on campus. The BSU posted an Instagram reel later that same day, expressing that the administration had not acted sufficiently to address these concerns. The post garnered over 300,000 views and 21,000 likes, with FOX Los Angeles 11 later covering the story.
At the town hall, BSU leadership opened by delineating the recent incidents of racism on campus: Pomona College chair of sociology, Hung Cam Thai, used the n-word repeatedly in his classroom; students have been using slurs in social and athletic spaces with no disciplinary consequences; and the administration acted discriminatorily towards BSU members and enforced sanctions for alleged policy violations at a club event, a decision that was later reversed post-appeal.
The town hall centered on student experiences while highlighting a “sustained pattern of racially discriminatory conduct,” Carlineissa Jean Francois PO ’27 said.
Jean Francois, a member of BSU’s educational outreach team, said the event required several weeks of organizing after students began coming forward with incidents of racism in classrooms, social settings and interactions with faculty, staff and peers.
“We just kind of realized that the campus has an ongoing problem, and we’ve been silent and complacent too long,” Jean Francois said. “The campus identity and the culture that I was promised is not what I got.”
She added that Pomona’s institutional responsibility is to protect its students, and that a significant decrease in student trust has shaped how some view the college environment.
Another member of BSU’s Educational Outreach team, Aminah Augustin PO ’28, asked attendees to raise their hands if they had experienced or witnessed similar racist incidents. She then urged the audience to look around at the crowd of raised hands, highlighting what she described as the prevalence of these experiences.
Throughout the event, speakers emphasized that the incidents discussed were part of a larger pattern. Jeremy Mitchell PO ’27, BSU’s president-elect and current social media manager and treasurer, said students are pushing back against narratives framing these experiences as singular events.
“These are not fabricated stories, and they’re not one-off instances,” Mitchell said. “There are multiple acts of racial discrimination on this campus.”
Mitchell also said that the college’s response lacked clear accountability.
“If accountability is invisible, then it’s not accountability,” he said.
Attendees beyond the 5Cs also expressed support for students, including several California State Assembly offices, local members of historically Black Greek-letter organizations and Shonique Williams, the congressional candidate for California’s 41st district.
“I don’t think we really are clocking just how emotionally traumatic all of these anti-Black racist comments, energies, activities and behaviors are,” Maya Douglas, the district director for the California Assembly member Mike Gipson, said. “It’s a lot for the Black community to take on, but I do all that I can to be a great representative, to push the needle forward for our communities, to equip them with the resources and all the knowledge so they can take these opportunities.”
Pherell Washington PO ’29, a member of BSU, said the event reinforced a sense of collective support, both within and beyond the Pomona community.
“I learned that we are not alone,” Washington said. “There are so many different people … not just Black individuals, but so many allies who are our peers, who are our classmates.”
The night concluded with a mention of an anonymous BSU survey for community members to share their experiences or encounters with racism or discrimination across the 5Cs, and a commitment to building a support network for students within the colleges.
Members of the BSU executive board met with college administrators the next morning to discuss next steps in shaping a more inclusive campus environment and outline demands for concrete accountability measures. These measures include the creation of an independent bias-response and accountability office, clearer, more transparent procedures for handling reports of racial discrimination, enforcement-based consequences for violations and increased institutional funding and support for Black student organizations and initiatives.
This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.
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