OPINION: We will not tolerate collective punishment: Suspended students speak out

Addendum: This piece was drafted before we were notified that 10 of us Pomona College students facing disciplinary actions were unilaterally suspended for the rest of the academic year by President G. Gabrielle Starr. Starr applied her executive authority as president to execute these suspensions and remove us from campus, denying us our right to go through Judicial Council (JBoard) proceedings. After multiple requests for evidence, we have been met with silence and dismissal by Pomona’s administration. We have not been presented with any evidence identifying us at Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7. Our only way to influence this decision is to write an appeal, for which we have been provided little to no guidelines for how we can argue that we should not be suspended. The suspension letters we received appear identical, proving that we are not treated as individuals but as victims of collective punishment. We have chosen to publish this piece, as it reflects the unfairness of the process and its negative impact on us and the community at large. 

On the morning of Friday, Oct. 11, 18 Pomona College students received letters from Starr. 12 of us were interim-suspended and banned from the Claremont Colleges due to our alleged involvement with the student protest on Oct. 7, while the other six of us received notice that we were under investigation. As of Oct. 22, two more students were issued interim suspensions and are scrambling for housing and clarity.

Over 480 Claremont students decided to walk out of classes and rally on Oct. 7, yet Pomona College is indiscriminately punishing individuals without providing evidence or maintaining fair procedures. The administration is arbitrarily holding us responsible for property destruction — destruction we did not perpetrate — to deter student organizing for Palestine and divestment. Of the students targeted, most are first-generation, low-income (FLI), and/or students of color who rely on financial aid and on-campus employment. 

The administration’s penalization of students who are primarily of marginalized identities without providing any evidence or explanation for their decision raises the specter of racial profiling. If the administration denies us any reasoning for their decisions, how can we know that we were not targeted because of our ethnic and racial backgrounds, gender identities or visibility in marginalized spaces? 

The untimely notice of our interim suspensions, a brief Friday morning email from Starr, left us with just eight hours to pack our essential belongings and leave campus for the foreseeable future. For those of us who had the “privilege” of being on campus when we received the suspension notice, clothing, medicine, and personal belongings were considered, packed, or sacrificed before leaving. However, many of us were already away from campus for fall break and unable to access our belongings. Many of us still cannot access essential items two weeks after the fact. 

As one suspended student stated, “My flight was waiting to take off for fall break when I received notice from President Gabi Starr that I was interim-suspended immediately and would be banned from campus without a trial or due process. That flight was one of the most isolating and crushing experiences I have ever had.” 

Those of us who had planned to stay on campus were left scrambling to figure out what to do next — where we might sleep that night, where our next meals would come from. In the blink of an eye, Starr indefinitely stripped us of housing, access to food, on-campus jobs, education and our community.

Starr’s decision to notify us on the Friday before fall break, our first moment in weeks to unwind from the stressful and rigorous academic schedule at the 5Cs and a time when many students would be off campus, was a calculated action to minimize student response to our removal. This decision compounded our turmoil and anxiety and provided cover for her outrageous abuse of power. 

In our suspension letters, Pomona’s administration gave us a 36-hour window to appeal these sanctions to the Preliminary Sanction Review Board. After being disoriented by our displacement from campus and the stress of finding somewhere to stay, we worked tirelessly to compose appeal letters explaining why our sudden removal from campus was unfair and disproportionate to our situations. We delved into our struggles to convince Pomona that we deserved to be allowed back onto campus, detailing our immense physical and mental discomfort, financial instability, and vital participation on campus. Instead of providing evidence of wrongdoing, Pomona’s administration demanded that we, as predominantly marginalized students, beg them not to strip away our access to fundamental human rights like food and shelter. 

Only two of the 12 students had our interim suspensions overturned. The rest were denied with no explanation.

Now, 10 of us are indefinitely cut off from access to housing, dining halls, classes, on-campus jobs, extracurriculars, student health services, libraries, and more, all for charges for which we have not been found guilty. 40 percent of suspended students are FLI, and 70 percent are students of color and/or SWANA. We depend on our campus jobs, housing, and food for safety. Due to this indefinite suspension, we have become seniors without necessary post-grad support and freshmen who have been ripped from our foundational first year, not two months into our first semester. Many of us are thousands of miles away from home and now isolated from our support systems and our community, unable to continue our lives as college students.    

Pomona administration has not presented us with any evidence of our involvement. We cannot return to campus and continue our lives as students, all while Pomona administration remains silent about our cases. As of Oct. 20, over a week after we were interim-suspended, Pomona’s administration had not communicated dates for the first steps of the disciplinary process to all of the suspended students. Instead of adjudicating fairly and transparently, Pomona’s administration has left us in bureaucratic limbo. 

Pomona is still trying to “identify” students involved in the Oct. 7 protest. The same process that Pomona has used to allege that we were at Carnegie Hall can be weaponized against any other student. This process can easily be used to arbitrarily target and endanger the health and safety of marginalized students without presenting evidence of wrongdoing.

No suspended student participated in property damage nor knows who vandalized Carnegie Hall, yet we are being punished as external threats and scapegoats that cannot be reasoned with. We are your classmates, your friends, your coworkers and your students. Now, we are victims of collective punishment inflicted by Pomona’s administration, and this unjust punishment could be dealt out against anyone the administration chooses with no evidence. Starr is forgoing any semblance of fair process by refusing us the space to defend ourselves or the evidence that Pomona’s administration claims to have against us. 

As suspended students, we are physically and emotionally isolated from our campus community. Instead of focusing on classes and making the most of Pomona’s plentiful resources, we are dealing with the constant pressure of awaiting further news from Pomona in impermanent housing arrangements. Instead of embodying the restorative practices and academic continuity that Pomona claims to prioritize via the JBoard, Starr has decided to unilaterally deprive us of our right to our intellectual community. She is resorting to intimidation and fear tactics. But we are not afraid.

We are outraged at Pomona’s use of collective punishment to suppress protests in support of Palestine. Instead of embodying her purported values of sustained dialogue and community building, Starr has opted for extreme punishment and abuse of power. We are also very aware that the punishment we are facing is a violation of First Amendment rights aimed at stifling any protests for solidarity with Palestine. 

Starr is actively repressing students in response to the community’s Pro-Palestinian activism, clear evidence of the Palestine Exception. The Palestine Exception is the uniquely severe suppression of Palestine advocacy in higher education, omitting Palestine from definitions of freedom of speech and legitimate activism. Students at the Claremont Colleges have historically held mass protests, occupied buildings and disrupted college operations to push their administrations towards justice, for causes such as divestment from South African apartheid, establishing ethnic studies departments and providing resources for students of color. In all of these cases, the administration has pushed back. Now, we are being targeted in the midst of the ongoing fight for Palestinian Liberation.

As we face our unjust suspensions, we ask for the community’s solidarity. We demand an end to the tyrannical abuse of power executed by the administration. We demand that Starr overturn the unilateral suspensions of the 10 Pomona students and allow their disciplinary cases to be heard by the JBoard, as consistent with fair procedures and Pomona’s principles.

The Pomona administration is establishing a dangerous precedent. They are creating a Pomona where protests on campus are grounds for indiscriminately policing students of color with no evidence; a Pomona where attacking individuals and destroying our community at large is normalized. We urge you to center our struggle and recognize the administration’s logic of collective punishment to evict students without fair process. The Pomona administration is actively working to create a culture of intimidation where no one in our community is safe. 

Pomona’s repression, driven by its to-the-last-breath defense of profiting from a settler-colonial genocide, cannot continue. In whatever space you are — Associated Students of Pomona College, an affinity group, a conversation with your professors — do not let the administration intimidate and silence you. Do not let the administration stifle us into being complicit in genocide. Continue resisting Pomona’s draconian repression. Advocate for your fellow students. Keep fighting to be on the right side of history.

 

Editor’s Note: After the initial suspensions issued on Oct. 11, two more students were sent interim suspensions on Oct. 22. There are now 12 suspended students. The 10 students who had their initial appeals denied have been unilaterally upgraded to suspension without hearing for the rest of the academic year by Starr on Oct. 23. 

 

This piece was collaboratively written by some of the Pomona College students facing suspensions, bans and disciplinary action. 10 of us are currently suspended for the rest of the academic year, two are left facing interim suspensions and seven await further disciplinary actions.