What started as a peaceable pro-Palestinian demonstration on Friday afternoon at Pomona Faculty, rapidly devolved after protesters stormed after which occupied the faculty president’s workplace. By the top of the night, 20 college students had been arrested and booked by riot-gear-wearing native police forces.
Nineteen college students have been charged with misdemeanor trespassing, and one with obstruction of justice, based on the Claremont Police Division. Police from Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, and La Verne responded to the scene.
The protest began over the faculty’s dismantling of a bit 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 Middle was a bodily and inventive protest designed to spotlight “the unequal therapy of the Palestinian folks residing below the brutal situations of the unlawful Israeli Occupation,” and underscore the administration’s refusal to heed the desire of scholars, who voted in February for the faculty to divest from corporations seen as aiding Israel.
“Civil disobedience and peaceable protests by college students have been met with tactical gear and assault rifles,” wrote members of the Claremont Consortium College for Justice in Palestine in a press release in regards to 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 scenario as “an escalating collection of incidents on our campus, which has included persistent harassment of tourists for admission excursions.”
She mentioned protesters had refused to determine 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 have been informed the campus can be taking down the wall. Many college students had been tenting there because the wall was erected in late March, however based on Eve Oishi, a professor of cultural research at Claremont Graduate College, had packed up and disassembled their encampment.
Oishi mentioned she stopped by the wall late Friday morning to be able to drop off books and snacks for the few college students sitting at a desk close by. They requested “unhealthy snacks,” she mentioned, as a result of they’d been residing off donated and shared granola bars for days.
The wall consisted of eight wood panels together with maps of Palestinian territory since 1946, and enormous lettering with phrases reminiscent of “Disrupt the Dying Machine,” “Apartheid Faculty; We’re all Complicit,” and “Smash Imperialism, Lengthy Reside Int’l Solidarity.”
Oishi mentioned the wall “was not extremely uncommon in any respect” when it comes to the sorts of artwork, installations and protests usually seen round campus. “I don’t perceive why it was seen as such a risk.”
At round 1:15 p.m., faculty workers started to take aside the wall “in preparation for occasions scheduled on Sunday, and in keeping with our coverage,” wrote Starr in a press release, describing the “occupiers” as masked — which is in opposition to faculty coverage.
It was at this level, alleged Starr, that the scholars “proceeded to verbally harass campus workers” and used a racial slur.
In keeping with a press release from the Claremont Consortium College for Justice in Palestine, faculty workers eliminated half of the set up’s panels, whereas college students “protected the opposite panels from elimination.”
At 4 p.m., 18 of the demonstrators entered Alexander Corridor, “below false pretenses,” based on Starr, and made their method up a staircase and into Starr’s workplace.
In keeping with a information launch from Pomona Divest Apartheid, “the 18+ college students sitting in Starr’s workplace have 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.
In keeping with the Claremont Courier, native police arrived roughly an hour later in riot gear, after which exited with 19 arrested college students.
Social media images and movies of the occasions present police bodily pushing scholar reporters out of the room, and shutting window blinds to stop them from documenting the scenario.
The arrested college students have been taken to the Claremont Police Division, the place an indication rapidly grew.
At 12:20 a.m., the 20 college students have been launched.
In keeping with Oishi, the scholars have been from Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer faculties. She mentioned the scholars have been expelled from campus and “not allowed again into their dorm rooms. A few of them are a month away from commencement. They haven’t any place to to remain. No solution to eat, no solution to get to complete their courses.”
In Starr’s assertion, she wrote that any Pomona college students concerned within the protest can be topic to fast suspension, whiles college students from the opposite Claremont Schools can be banned from Pomona’s campus and “topic to self-discipline on their very own campuses.”
Oishi mentioned college can be wanting into the “due course of insurance policies that the President used extraordinary emergency powers that weren’t merited, given the dearth of group risk.”
She mentioned campus safety had despatched out an announcement saying there was no risk to the group.
“So why have been closely armed and militarized police needed?” she mentioned.
