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What started as a peaceable pro-Palestinian demonstration on Friday afternoon at Pomona Faculty, rapidly devolved after protesters stormed after which occupied the school president’s workplace. By the tip of the night, 19 college students had been arrested and booked by riot-gear-wearing native police forces.
Eighteen college students had been charged with misdemeanor trespassing, and one with obstruction of justice, in keeping with the Claremont Police Division. Police from Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, and La Verne responded to the scene.
The protest began over the school’s dismantling of a chunk of student-erected pro-Palestinian protest artwork on the Claremont campus, which had been standing since March 28.
The 32-foot-long, eight-paneled “apartheid wall” exterior the Smith Campus Heart was a bodily and inventive protest designed to focus on “the unequal remedy of the Palestinian folks dwelling beneath the brutal situations of the unlawful Israeli Occupation,” and underscore the administration’s refusal to heed the need of scholars, who voted in February for the school to divest from firms seen as aiding Israel.
“Civil disobedience and peaceable protests by college students had been met with tactical gear and assault rifles,” wrote members of the Claremont Consortium College for Justice in Palestine in an announcement concerning the occasion. “College students who’re scheduled to graduate in lower than a month are being threatened with suspension for non-violent protest. This response is shameful.”
A letter despatched out Friday by Gabrielle Starr, the Pomona Faculty president, described the state of affairs as “an escalating sequence of incidents on our campus, which has included persistent harassment of tourists for admission excursions.”
She stated protesters had refused to establish themselves to campus authorities, and had verbally harassed workers, “even utilizing a sickening, anti-black racial slur in addressing an administrator.”
On Friday morning, college students had been instructed the campus can be taking down the wall. Many college students had been tenting there because the wall was erected in late March, in keeping with Heather Ferguson, a professor of historical past at Claremont McKenna school. That’s one of many 5 undergraduate campuses — together with Pomona — that collectively, with two graduate colleges, make up the Claremont Faculties. She stated they’d already packed up up and disassembled their encampment the night time earlier than, in anticipation of rain.
Eve Oishi, a professor of cultural research at Claremont Graduate College, stated she stopped by the wall late Friday morning to drop off books and snacks for the few college students sitting at a desk close by. They requested she deliver “unhealthy snacks,” she stated, as a result of all of the donations they’d been receiving had been wholesome snacks, similar to granola bars, fruit and nuts.
The wall consisted of eight wood panels together with maps of Palestinian territory since 1946, and huge lettering with phrases similar to “Disrupt the Dying Machine,” “Apartheid Faculty; We’re all Complicit,” and “Smash Imperialism, Lengthy Reside Int’l Solidarity.”
Oishi stated the wall “was not extremely uncommon in any respect” when it comes to the sorts of artwork, installations and protests typically seen round campus. “I don’t perceive why it was seen as such a risk.”
At round 1:15 p.m., three pick-up vehicles pulled as much as the wall, and school workers acquired out and started taking it aside , in keeping with Ferguson and a scholar, who requested to not be recognized for worry of retribution by the administration.
The dismantling was executed “in preparation for occasions scheduled on Sunday, and consistent with our coverage,” wrote Starr in an announcement, describing the “occupiers” as masked, which is in opposition to school coverage.
It was at this level, alleged Starr, that the scholars “proceeded to verbally harass campus workers” and used a racial slur.
Based on an announcement from the Claremont Consortium College for Justice in Palestine, school workers eliminated half of the set up’s panels, whereas college students “protected the opposite panels from removing.”
Ferguson and the scholar stated different college students and college started to assemble in solidarity and to bear witness. They stated a crowd of fifty to 70 folks started chanting pro-Palestinian rallying cries, similar to “Free, free, free Palestine,” “Israel bombs, Pomona pays, what number of youngsters will you kill immediately?” and “Gaza, Gaza, head held excessive, we are going to by no means allow you to die.”
At 4 p.m., 18 of the demonstrators entered Alexander Corridor, “beneath false pretenses,” in keeping with Starr, and made their means up a staircase and into Starr’s workplace.
Based on a information launch from Pomona Divest from Apartheid, “the 18+ college students sitting in Starr’s workplace had been barricaded in by Campus Security Officers, who positioned themselves in entrance of the exits.”
Fifty extra protesters spilled into the constructing in a second wave, after a protester unlocked a door to allow them to in. They occupied the hallway exterior Starr’s workplace.
Based on Ferguson, who was standing exterior Alexander Corridor, seven squad vehicles arrived on Faculty Avenue. However they quickly left.
Roughly 20 minutes later, a fleet of about 20 patrol vehicles arrived from a wide range of native jurisdictions — together with LaVerne and Azusa. She stated a few of the officers went into the constructing, whereas the others remained exterior.
People who went in, in keeping with the Claremont Courier and Ferguson, wore riot gear, after which exited with the arrested college students. She stated they arrested one other scholar who was exterior, however who acquired in the best way because the police had been leaving.
Social media images and movies of the occasions present police bodily pushing scholar reporters out of the room, and shutting window blinds to forestall them from documenting the state of affairs. Different movies present a chaotic and heavy police presence.
The arrested college students had been taken to the Claremont Police Division, the place a crowd of greater than 100 demonstrators rapidly grew.
The scholars’ lawyer, James “Jaime” Gutierrez, of the Gutierrez Regulation Agency, stated he was not allowed in to see his purchasers and that the police division’s watch commander prohibited his entry into the constructing. He stated he was instructed by each his purchasers and a police officer that they weren’t learn their Miranda rights.
“That is the primary time something like this has ever occurred to me,” he stated. “The place a legislation enforcement company is prohibiting me from seeing my purchasers, a lot much less a watch commander about chatting with my purchasers.”
By 12:20 a.m., the 19 college students had all been launched.
Based on Oishi and Ferguson, the scholars had been from Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer schools.
Ferguson stated the Pomona college students had been served “Emergency Interim Suspension” notices whereas in jail, and have been expelled from campus.
One scholar shared their discover with The Occasions. The discover claims the suspension was given so as “to make sure the security and well-being of members of the Faculty group…” and bans the scholar from coming into any of the universities on the campus, partaking in any in-person or digital campus occasions or actions, attending courses, consuming within the eating corridor, coming into residence halls, using libraries or given some other entry.
Suspended college students have 30 hours from receipt of the discover to petition the suspension and campus ban, which might be reviewed by a Preliminary Sanction Assessment Board.
Successfully, stated Oishi, the suspension means they had been “not allowed again into their dorm rooms. A few of them are a month away from commencement. They don’t have any place to to remain. No approach to eat, no approach to get to complete their courses.”
Ferguson stated a community of scholars and college got here collectively to seek out housing for the scholars.
She stated most of the college students establish as folks of colour, and that lots of people who had coalesced across the wall had been college students from marginalized communities who had discovered solidarity within the motion.
“It is a group of scholars who’ve discovered solace in one another and within the within the motion as a complete.”
In Starr’s assertion, she wrote that any Pomona college students concerned within the protest can be topic to quick suspension, whereas college students from the opposite Claremont Faculties can be banned from Pomona’s campus and “topic to self-discipline on their very own campuses.”
Ferguson stated she remains to be shocked by the occasions of Friday night time, however it “might be a pure part of what occurs if you name in what amounted to a SWAT workforce strategy to a peaceable demonstration.”
“No matter what the Pomona Faculty Administration thinks about this, this can be a peaceable act of civil disobedience and it doesn’t warrant such a powerful police response. It’s really terribly tough to think about why anyone would assume that may be an applicable response,” she stated.
Related protests and arrests have popped up on school and college campuses throughout the nation — together with Stanford, San Jose State and Brown Universities — within the wake of the Israel-Hamas Warfare.
Occasions workers author Andrea Chang contributed to this report.
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