At least 18 students face suspension after protest at Pomona College
More than a dozen students face immediate suspension after a protest at Pomona College on Friday.
According to student-led activist group Pomona Divest Apartheid, the demonstrators were protesting the removal of a “mock apartheid wall” that was created by students on Pomona College’s Marston Quad.
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“Eight days after students at the Claremont Colleges erected a mock apartheid wall on Marston Quad, college administration forcefully removed the students’ piece of protest art,” Pomona Divest Apartheid said in a media statement. “The apartheid wall was an installation art piece intended to ‘illuminate Pomona College’s complicity in the face of an illegal occupation and genocide’.”
Video of the protest at Alexander Hall taken by Samson Zhang shows police officers detaining demonstrators and escorting them down a staircase.
A release issued by Claremont Police Department officials late Saturday morning stated that approximately 100 to 150 protestors had gathered outside the President’s office, while a further 30 to 40 had “stormed inside the building and taken over the President’s office.”
About half of the protestors left the property on their own free will after police arrived and ordered the crowd to disperse, law enforcement officials said. The remaining protestors were “given multiple lawful orders and adequate time to leave” by officers but they still refused to leave, so arrests were made at the request of Pomona College administrators, Claremont police added.
Video of the protest at Alexander Hall taken by Samson Zhang shows police officers detaining demonstrators and escorting them down a staircase. (Samson Zhang) Video of the protest at Alexander Hall taken by Samson Zhang shows police officers detaining demonstrators and escorting them down a staircase. (Samson Zhang) Video of the protest at Alexander Hall taken by Samson Zhang shows police officers detaining demonstrators and escorting them down a staircase. (Samson Zhang)
The school’s president says that the students refused to identify themselves and verbally harassed staff, including using anti-Black racial slurs when speaking to an administrator.
Students from the other Claremont Colleges will also be banned from Pomona’s campus and subject to discipline on their own campuses.
An Instagram post from Pomona Divest Apartheid indicates that 20 students were arrested, 19 of whom were charged with trespassing and one with obstruction of justice. That report was later confirmed by the Claremont Police Department, who said that all arrestees were booked and released with a written promise to appear in court.
While the 20 students were being booked, a large crowd gathered outside the police department demanding their release, officials said, adding that no arrests were made during the second demonstration.
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A statement from Pomona College said that they do uphold the right to free speech and to protest within college policy, but officials would not permit the presence of “masked, unidentified individuals on campus refusing to show identification when asked.”
“We [will not] stand for harassment of visitors or racial slurs shouted at college employees, all of which have taken place this week,” the statement read in part. “Anyone involved in these violations found to be a Pomona student is subject to immediate suspension and required to leave our campus.”
Pomona College President Gabi Starr called the protestors’ actions “actively destructive of the values that underpin our community,” adding that the students occupied her office on Friday “under false pretenses.”
The full letter from President Starr can be read here.
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