Around 30 students picketed the entrances to Pomona College’s Frary dining hall at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 10 — chanting, holding cardboard signs and drumming on buckets. The demonstration, organized by the Claremont Student Workers Alliance (CSWA), encouraged 5C students to boycott the dining hall and advocate for the reinstatement of recently fired cook Rolando “Rolo” Araiza.
Picketers said the boycott directly pressured Pomona to rehire Rolo, asking students to spend meal-plan money at the other colleges. They added that making noise in the picket line drew attention to their cause, something other forms of demonstrations may not accomplish.
“I think you can do a lot of talking, but I think when you really start singing and yelling is when you can really get your message across in different ways,” Una Marie Lake SC ’29 said.
Tag: student protests
OPINION: We stand in solidarity with our students
The Intercollegiate Department of Ethnic Studies at the Claremont Colleges stand in solidarity with students in the wake of President Starr’s action to circumvent the established adjudicative process through executive action. These professors unite in calling for Pomona’s administration to embrace the values and ethical commitments to restorative justice, reconciliation and deliberative mediation as core educational principles rather than enforcing retributive, punitive and suppressive tactics by circumventing judicial processes