Pomona College faces ongoing pressure for divestment as academic year comes to an end

Though on-campus activity and disruption at Pomona College have quieted down since most students left campus at the end of the semester, conversations and questions surrounding Pomona’s investments in “corporations complicit with war crimes and other human rights violations committed by the Israeli government in Israel/Palestine” carry on into the summer. 

Pomona has faced escalating pressure to divest from such companies from pro-Palestine movements, such as an encampment held on Marston Quad which forced commencement to be relocated, and the subsequent protest at the new graduation ceremony which was held at the Shrine Audfgabitorium in Los Angeles.

“Pomona blew over a million dollars to move graduation instead of conceding to our demands,” a May 12 Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) Instagram post reads. “They can’t keep this up – we can and we will. We are not just one school or one action. We are an international movement that has wreaked havoc on the powers that be.”

On Friday, May 3, Pitzer College agreed to disclose its investments in weapons and military manufacturers following a similar student encampment on its Commencement Plaza; however, Pomona has yet to make any such agreements.

The same day Pitzer agreed to disclosure, PDfA hosted a virtual press conference to discuss Pomona College’s faculty voting in favor of a resolution calling on the college to divest from 11 corporations — Barclays, CAF, Caterpillar Inc., Chevron, Elbit Systems Ltd., HD Hyundai, HIKVision, Intel, JCB, TKF Security and Volvo — that they stated fit this description.

The conference, held on Zoom, gave the floor to four Pomona faculty members and one Pomona student, Sinqui Chapman PO ’27, who was of the 20 5C students arrested on April 5. Each provided statements on the ongoing efforts of both faculty and students in support of Palestinian liberation and divestment, before the conference opened up to questions from attendees.

Erin Runions, Pomona professor of religious studies, explained the significance of the faculty vote and the next steps in the push for divestment.

“We asked for divestment from the 11 firms that the BDS movement has widely accepted as contributing to violations of Palestinian rights and we asked for the [Board of Trustees] to give us a deadline by the end of their meeting in October,” Runions said. “The next steps here are for [Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr] to step up and say that she is going to pressure the board and for the board to listen to the community and do the right thing.”

Devlin Orlin, Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) president, expressed concern about the “governance of [the] college“ following a May 7 meeting between students, faculty and the Investments Committee of the Board of Trustees in which Starr shed light on Pomona’s investments.

“President Starr disclosed in this meeting that of the 10 companies that the recent faculty resolution called for divestment from, Pomona College is directly invested in one company and may be indirectly invested in others through broader exchange traded funds and hedge managers,” he said in an email to the Pomona College student body.

On April 18, ASPC hosted a town hall on divestment in which Sam Glick, Chair of the Board of Trustees, spoke to the board’s vision on future divestment.

“To say that we’re going to single out one country, Israel or otherwise, and divest from them is something that we think is contrary to the mission of Pomona College as we think about moving that forward,” Glick said. “We want to bring people closer and not the other way around. Those are principled demands we should have. That is the consensus of the Board.”

Despite resistance from the board and administration, Runions emphasized the increased role faculty will take in calling for divestment, specifically when asked about possible action over the summer without the presence of student organizing on campus.

“Our first step was to get the vote,” Runions said. “We have a lot of planning to do going forward, but rest assured we will definitely be putting pressure on the president and the board. This is not something that will languish. This is something that we will continue pushing.”

Another faculty member, Kouross Esmaeli, professor of media studies at Pomona College, emphasized the crucial role the Board of Trustees plays in the issue of divestment, and the importance of board members being educated on “what’s going on in the Middle East” and the arguments for divestment.

“I think that basic kind of education, which is what we’re here to do, is what the trustees need,”  Esmaeli said. “If they show themselves unwilling to [engage in] dialogue with us, I think that will actually, in the long term, not serve them well. I think we’ve placed ourselves in a situation where education and dialogue is what we’re asking for and if they refuse it then they will have exposed themselves.”

Phyllis Jackson, professor of Art History at Pomona College, stressed the previous points of Runions and Esmaeli regarding the importance of continued efforts of education and discourse on the subject. 

“These are long-term projects, this is really just a baby step and that we have much work to do, but that a lot of that work is about people being willing to change as opposed to arguing for their position as being what already is established and what is right and should continue,” she said.

However, the lack of action from Starr and the board has already proved to discourage many. Chapman expressed the feeling that direct disruption and community action are the most impactful ways of supporting Palestinian liberation.

“There can be no productive dialogue or negotiations with administrators while Pomona funds genocide,” Chapman said. “There can be no business as usual while Pomona funds genocide. If you have been waiting for an explicit call to action, this is it.”

Despite students leaving campus for the summer, Chapman called on community members to expand the movement and increase the pressure on Pomona. She also recognized the impact faculty solidarity has on student movements.

“Students, faculty, staff, workers of the 7Cs and news media, we ask you to utilize your positions of power that you have and what methods of disruption are available to you,” Chapman said. “We wanted to just appreciate the faculty for standing with us and our demands.”

In an email announcing the press conference, PDfA contextualized the vote within a wave of faculty support for student protests nationwide.

“This faculty vote is the latest in a series of historic motions from U.S Universities supporting divestment from Israeli apartheid,” the email read. “Faculty, globally, will continue to stand united and call for divestment, question university investments in military spending, fossil fuels and Israeli apartheid, and democratize the ethical and financial choices of the academy at every chance.”

This email referenced other institutions such as University of Michigan, Brown University, Northwestern University and Amherst College that have faced various successes and negotiations among faculty, students and administration regarding divestment.

Though faculty and student movements have garnered recent success and change, Esmaeli expressed concern for the state of higher education in the U.S., as students and faculty lack executive power compared to that held by administrations and boards of trustees.

“I think what this movement on our campus and across campuses across the country in the world is showing is the fundamentally undemocratic nature of American universities,” he said. “The fact that the students and the faculty, who are the two biggest forces on campus, do not actually have power, any power over the way our institution is run and where the investment for our institution is placed, I think is kind of becoming visible to a lot of us.”