On Saturday, Dec. 9, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr sent an email to the Pomona student body condemning what she described as “two unacceptable incidents involving intimidation and conduct intended to physically restrain a student” that occurred the previous day.
The incidents she referenced took place on Friday, Dec. 8 at a series of protests organized by Pomona Divest Apartheid, at which students demanded that Pomona divest from companies supporting the Israeli government and called for a ceasefire.
The first protest began at 11:19 a.m., when 51 students walked into Pomona’s Estella Laboratory to interrupt a private Admissions Office event attended by various high school counselors, demanding divestment and ceasefire.
Protesters with red-painted hands brandished signs while denouncing what they described as Pomona’s attempts to shut down student activism, its “prioritization of white and western bodies,” its lack of attention to dining hall staff and its treatment of professors of color.
The students concluded their speech with one asserting that “Pomona has a long legacy of being on the wrong side of history.”
“We are here today as history repeats itself because Pomona’s nearly three billion dollar endowment is funding a genocide in Gaza,” a speaker said. “We are here today because when we have protested this egregious violence Pomona has violated their self proclaimed values and has instead suppressed student voices and their right to demonstration. In reality, Pomona has yet again chosen to ignore the blood on their hands.”
Just three minutes later, by 11:22 a.m., protestors left the building. One high school counselor at the event asked protestors, “why are you wearing masks?” and proceeded to follow students out of Estella and repeat the question.
In her email, Starr stated that this counselor had subsequently been “subjected to abusive and harassing online behavior aimed at their professional reputation.” According to Starr, this harassment included the registration of the counselor’s work email on pornographic and “other extremely disturbing” websites.
She attributed this harassment and “doxxing” to an unspecified social media account who she said published the counselor’s name, claiming that the account had malicious intentions.
“This action was clearly designed to punish the visitor to our campus for their inquiry, while sending a message to others who would engage in speech that was not in strict conformity with the protestors’ goal,” Starr wrote.
In a Dec. 12 statement, Claremont Undercurrents — who later identified themselves as the social media account who published the counselor’s name — argued otherwise. They suggested that, while they did include the counselor’s name in the caption of a video of the protest, they did not intend to cause harm.
“We in no way anticipated that reporting the counselor’s name would lead to harassment,” the statement reads. “We condemn the use of our reporting to personally doxx or harass any individuals.”
Undercurrents also stated that, after consulting with an attorney from the Student Press Law Center, they came to the understanding that their reporting did not constitute doxxing.
They later reuploaded their video of the protest without the counselor’s name.
During the afternoon on the day of the protest at Estella, at 4:00 p.m., 213 students gathered outside of Pomona’s Walker Beach for another protest and sit-in that would last until 7:30 p.m. that evening. Participants began by placing Palestinian flags representing each of the 2,913 Palestinian children killed between Oct. 7 and Oct. 26 on the grass lawn.
By 4:15 p.m., participants relocated to Frary Fountain, where one student opened with a speech explaining the purpose of the protest.
“We are here today because to wake up every morning and watch a genocide unfold before our eyes is not normal,” the student said. “It is not normal to have to justify how many of the 20,000 Palestinian martyrs are children under the age of five, how many are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. But, we are part of institutions who are not only watching the same genocide as us — they are funding it, and none of these appeals to human life have moved them.”
In saying this, the student alluded to Pomona’s investments in companies and manufacturers that support the Israeli government; investments which have come under fire in previous weeks as students and community members at the 7Cs have increasingly advocated for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The student then criticized Pomona administration for “systematically [villanizing] any and all students who dare to stand against genocide,” specifically calling out Starr for the various emails that she has sent out over the past few months regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“It is insane that, when asked to condemn the genocide in Gaza, Gabi said that it’s ‘not her place,’ but it only took her three days to condemn the ‘terrorist attacks in Israel,’” the student said. “She has still not said the word ‘Palestinian,’ only ever ‘terrorist’ and ‘Hamas.’ She is actively choosing between worthy and unworthy victims.”
Then, at 4:40 p.m., just twenty minutes before Pomona’s annual “Frary Potter Dinner” was scheduled to begin, 35 protestors at Frary’s North Side began a series of chants. These included: “Israel Bombs. Pomona Pays. How many kids did you kill today?” and “What do we want? Divestment! When do we want it? Now!” among others.
Meanwhile, at Frary’s south side — where 122 participants stood in the crowd and 56 sat as a part of the sit-in — one student gave a speech to open Frary Potter Dinner at 5:00 p.m. By 5:32 p.m., students received an email from Executive Chef Travis Ellis stating that Frary was closed due to protest activity.
At 6:15 p.m., two students began to take turns reading the names of children killed in Palestine since Oct. 7 that were not completed during the die-in at Marston Quad. Afterwards, an 18 minute audio clip highlighting Palestinian voices was played for both north and south side protestors. The clip included testimonies from several Palestinian activists and journalists regarding their lives in Gaza and calling for help.
The sit-in ended at 7:30 p.m., when the canceled Frary Potter Dinner was originally scheduled to end.
Starr’s email the following evening sparked controversy across campus as protest participants shared their own experiences of the event. One of Starr’s most frequently criticized and contradicted claims stated that a student attempting to enter Frary was “blocked and grabbed.”
While Starr stated that this incident was documented on video, no such video was provided upon request by TSL. Moreover, despite the alleged existence of video evidence, numerous protest participants denied Starr’s claims that a student was physically restrained from entering the building.
Conversely, they argued that several students attempting to enter Frary initiated physical contact with protestors, grabbing, kicking and stepping on them.
“Gabi Starr stating that a student was ‘blocked and grabbed’ in an incident documented on video is ironic given that the student was the one who forcibly made their way through the sitters,” one protestor, who requested anonymity due to safety and doxxing concerns, said in a correspondence with TSL.
Some students said they felt that Starr’s email sought to protect this student while simultaneously villainizing protesters and portraying their efforts as violent.
“Seeing Gabi Starr’s email where she said that we physically blocked and restrained a student who crossed the line of sitters infuriated me, especially as one of the sitters who was stepped on and whose head was grabbed,” a second anonymous protestor said in a correspondence with TSL. “The student who was crossing the sitters almost kneed a student in the face and broke another sitter’s sunglasses.”
Other protesters echoed these frustrations, arguing that their actions were far more peaceful than they were portrayed as being in Starr’s email. Another anonymous participant described protestors as engaging in a positive community of care and safety.
“It’s really weird seeing Gabi’s email vilifying student protestors,” a third anonymous participant said in a correspondence with TSL. “Lots of moments were filled with joy and camaraderie. Everyone checked in with each other to ensure safety and care, people even offered accessibility items like ear plugs and snacks. It was very clear plenty of thought and care was put into safety.”
However, protesters said the role of Campus Safety (TCCS) did not contribute to their security, arguing that its members engaged in certain inappropriate behaviors — such as photographing, videoing and laughing at participants — that they said contributed to an unsafe environment.
“It was deeply painful and upsetting to listen to testimonies of Palestinians … then see/hear admin and camp sec reactions,” a fourth anonymous protester said in a correspondence with TSL. “I was crying. They were joking around and trying to film students’ faces.”
These criticisms of TCCS are especially pertinent following the recent arrest of a Pomona College faculty member by TCCS, which greatly upset some members of the Claremont community.
Citing the Claremont Colleges’ demonstration policies, Starr’s email addressed student interactions with campus safety at the protest and the implications of the cancelation of the Frary Potter Dinner.
“It is also unacceptable under our demonstration policies that access to the building was blocked, which in this case forced hundreds of students to find somewhere else to eat and led to hundreds of pounds of food going to waste,” Starr said.
Several protesters questioned Starr’s claim that this food was wasted.
Stefanie Howard PO ’26, coordinator of the Draper Center’s Food Recovery Network, explained that volunteers typically come in on Saturday afternoons to pick up five to six trays of leftover food from Friday night dinners at Frary. The Saturday after the protest, however, she was told that there were no leftovers.
Howard contrasted the outcome of Frary Potter Dinner to that of a dinner cancellation at both Frary and Frank in November.
“I also did the delivery the day following the campus-wide blackout when all the dining halls had to close for dinner, and both Frary and Frank had food packaged from the canceled dinner,” Howard said in an email to TSL. “I ended up transporting 30 trays of food to Cotorreo which is a much larger amount than we usually deliver, which was because of the canceled dinner. But it was not the same in the case of the canceled Harry Potter dinner.”
Mark Kendall, Pomona’s chief communications officer, stated that much of the food prepared for Frary Potter Dinner could not be saved or redistributed because of its failure to meet public health regulations.
“The college was able to save a portion of the food for use at other meals,” Kendall said in an email to TSL. “Most of the food had to be thrown out, however, because it did not meet requirements for donation in accordance with public health regulations.”
Students also questioned the claims that Starr made regarding her receptiveness to meeting with protestors, in which she stated that “I and other administrators have repeatedly offered to meet when protestors have come to Alexander Hall, but these offers have been refused.”
A fifth anonymous student involved in the Dec. 8 protests suggested that this was not true.
“Multiple delegations, including one to Jeff Roth with over 400 students in attendance, have sought to directly communicate demands with administration,” the student said in an email to TSL. “Small groups have also brought the demands directly to Alexander Hall and been denied meeting with Gabi Starr by her secretary and instead redirected to Jeff Roth a total of 5 times: Oct 23, Oct 24, Oct 25, Nov 3 [and] Nov 7.”
When asked about these dates, Kendall reaffirmed Starr’s claim that she had previously offered to meet with protestors and emphasized her continued interest in meeting with them.
“Student protestors were offered meetings with President Starr more than once, and she has met with students during her open office hours and on emailed request (as well as once without appointment when students came to her office with demands),” Kendall said in an email to TSL. “Her offer for dialogue stands, and our hope is that demonstrators will participate in discussions on the issues.”
Student protesters suggested that, despite Starr’s email and the various claims made within it, they plan to continue their efforts.
“We know that [Starr’s] claims against us are baseless because we watched the event unfold first hand,” a sixth anonymous protester said in a correspondence with TSL. “These claims will not discourage us and we will continue to protest peacefully in solidarity with our friends, brothers, and sisters facing genocide in Gaza. We are everyone and no one and we will stand together to demand Pomona College divest from genocide until they meet out demands.”
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