On March 27, Pomona College received a letter from the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce requesting detailed documentation of “campus antisemitism incidents,” including a list of all student conduct cases opened since Oct. 7, 2023.
Signed by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), the letter cites key inciting episodes, including the Associated Students of Pomona College’s referendum on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the student occupation of Alexander Hall that led to the arrests of 20 students, the student demonstration outside of Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr’s house, the graduation disruption facilitated by Pomona Divest from Apartheid and the student protest in and occupation of Carnegie Hall.
The letter follows a cascade of investigations and escalating concerns of antisemitism at Pomona over the last several months, including the “failing” ranking by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a warning from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights and a lawsuit filed jointly by the Brandeis Center and the ADL.
The letter requested that Pomona respond with several specific documents by April 10 in order for the committee to evaluate on-campus antisemitic incidents and the college’s responses. These involve all documents related to disciplinary actions against students at the Carnegie protests and the demonstration outside President Starr’s house, including “suspensions, expulsions, and written or verbal reprimands.”
It also asked for information on any reported antisemitic incident since Oct. 7, 2023, including the date, a description of the incident, the school of any involved students, the case status, any actions taken to date, the students’ standing and whether they had prior disciplinary actions.
In the face of this letter, Acting President Robert R. Gaines released a statement to the Pomona community on March 30 affirming the college’s plans to evaluate the committee’s requests and to cooperate with the investigation.
David Menefee-Libey, Pomona politics professor, also responded to the letter in an email to TSL, referencing the Trump administration’s targeting of higher education and commenting on the danger that such an investigation poses to students.
“Those national government leaders are targeting all of us, but especially students and their freedom to study what they choose and to build safe, supportive communities of open and challenging inquiry,” Menefee-Libey wrote.
Ezra Levinson PZ ’27, an organizer with JVP at the Claremont Colleges, echoed this sentiment, citing concerns over the goals of the letter.
“This inquiry is clearly not about antisemitism,” she said. “It’s about investigating and stifling political dissent on university campuses and in this country.”
Levinson added that the letter sets a precedent for the 5Cs “to repress student speech … [and] the speech of its faculty and staff, and change itself to be a place where … dissent can no longer be practiced.”
The Academic Council of JVP similarly expressed concern over the message, addressing their concerns in a March 31 letter to Walberg and Owens that criticized their representation of antisemitism at Pomona.
“The charges are baseless and reflect a profound and materially harmful misunderstanding of antisemitism,” they wrote. The letter also asserted that their interpretation of antisemitism detracts from the ability of protesters “to advocate in solidarity with the urgent struggle for Palestinian freedom and equality.”
JVP is not the only group addressing the letter. On March 30, a petition calling on Pomona to protect the privacy of its students following the release of the letter began circulating. It has been signed by 379 as of April 3, but aims to garner 10,000 by April 5.
The privacy of students is something that other community members have expressed concern over as well. Menefee-Libey noted that the letter “ask[s] for a large amount of information about individual students at Pomona College in a way that seems … to violate the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.”
FERPA, passed in 1974, protects student information and upholds privacy in educational information. Although Gaines wrote in his statement that Pomona “has the important legal obligation” to protect student privacy, the college’s webpage on student records privacy details that Pomona may disclose information from a student’s educational records to third parties under certain conditions. According to Pomona’s policies, information such as student discipline files may be shared in the course of federal evaluations of educational programs.
Despite this, Gaines wrote in his statement that the college would maintain student privacy.
“I want to assure you that we will uphold Pomona’s unwavering commitment to protecting the release of personally identifiable student information consistent with the relevant privacy laws,” he wrote.
In another statement released on March 31, Gaines reiterated that “the College will not expose student identities unless obligations to the law stipulate otherwise — and that is not the case at this time.”
This second statement follows the unauthorized distribution of flyers on campus alleging that Pomona planned to reveal the identities of students who had received disciplinary action to Congress, as well as the circulation of a Claremont Undercurrents Instagram post with the same claims. Gaines shared a third statement on April 3 emphasizing that the college would uphold privacy laws, including FERPA.
However, Gaines noted in his March 30 statement that Pomona cannot control what information is released online by news and social media outlets.
Pomona Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Avis Hinkson did not respond for comment when asked how Pomona plans to cooperate with the investigation while protecting its students’ identities. She also failed to respond when asked whether the disciplinary action information of non-Pomona 5C students who received campus bans after the Carnegie protest would be shared.
Similarly, the Dean of Students’ office at Scripps College did not respond for comment when asked if the institution would protect its students’ privacy. Pitzer College’s Dean of Students office pointed to Pitzer President Strom Thacker’s March 30 statement to the college community but declined to comment further on the matter.
In the message, Thacker wrote that the Pitzer administration “has been following the situation and its potential implications for our community closely.”
Thacker also assured the college’s commitment to protecting student privacy, when applicable, and explained that Pitzer intends to continue to uphold its core values.
Despite the concerns of a number of students and community members, the letter to Pomona has garnered positive support from some Jewish community members.
“Unfortunately, many Jewish students at the Claremont Colleges have felt that the colleges have become a hostile living and learning environment in the past few years,” Noah Rinsler PO ’26, the vice president of Haverim, said in an email to TSL. “We hope that putting a federal spotlight on universities’ handling of antisemitism will incentivize all universities, including the Claremont Colleges, to act more swiftly when antisemitic incidents occur and make a concerted effort to be welcoming places for Jewish students.”
The letter in particular has prompted discussion over the future of student protection both at Pomona and across colleges and universities in the United States.
“There is no need for the Congressmen to launch the intrusive, disruptive, and potentially illegal demands they make in the letter,” Menefee-Libey wrote. “I hope that the leaders of Pomona College will object, do their best to resist and slow this process down, protect all members of our college community as best they can, and reach out to allies in building support and protections for US higher education more broadly, not just Pomona.”
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