May 6, 2024
After arrests one month ago, student group Pomona Divest from Apartheid have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on the main quad at Pomona College.
Joining Columbia University, UCLA, Emory College and dozens of other colleges around the country, students with Pomona Divest from Apartheid re-launched a Gaza solidarity encampment on May 6, 2024 to demand that Pomona divest from Israeli genocide.
Israel has killed over 34,000 Gazans since Oct. 7, and is currently targeting Rafah, where 1.5 million Gazans have taken shelter after Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of northern Gaza.
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Pomona Divest from Apartheid previously held an encampment and mock apartheid wall from March 28 to April 5. Pomona administration arrested 20 students on April 5, 19 of whom were conducting a sit-in at Alexander Hall after administration’s forceful destruction of the apartheid wall.
By night, most of the walls had been removed, revealing piles of accumulated supplies as well as various graffiti, including a large painted “WE WILL BE BACK” text on the lawn.
7:30 p.m.: More than 50 LAPD officers and 25 police vehicles arrive on scene. One line of police officers wears riot gear, and two police officers carry green tear gas launchers. After the commencement ceremony starts, LAPD forcibly pushes the crowd off the block, appearing to encircle the crowd during dispersal.
4:35 p.m.: Campus safety sends the following message: “Police activity has cleared”
3:30 p.m.: 100+ students, alumni, faculty and other community members from PDfA, SoCal SJP, USC Scale, USC Divest from Death, Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, UCLA SJP, and Occidental College Students for Justice in Palestine arrive at USC’s Shrine Auditorium to rally outside Pomona’s graduation ceremony. Protestors face brutality from private security officers as well as LAPD.
3 p.m.: Campus Safety and facilities begin deconstructing encampment materials.
2:57 p.m.: Campus safety sends the following message: “Update: Police activity is not releated [sic] to the encampment at Pomona College”
2:41 p.m.: Campus safety sends the following message: “There is police activity in area between 6th street and College Ave. Please stay out of the area.”
2:35 p.m.: CPD leaves. Campus Safety leaves sends a message “police activity has cleared.”
1:12 p.m.: PDFA releases a post announcing decampment.
12 p.m.: At least four CPD vehicles, seven CPD officers, and one police dog arrive at Pomona’s campus and block College Ave. from 4th St. to 7th St. and 6th St. from Harvard Ave. to College Way due to a call about a suspicious vehicle, using yellow “do not cross” tape to block off surrounding sidewalks.
7:28 p.m.: Claremont FJP releases a statement criticizing “the absurd lengths that they [Pomona College] will go to avoid engaging with student and faculty demands for disclosure, divestment, and boycott from Israeli apartheid.”
1:11 p.m.: Palestinian Youth Movement, PYM-LA-IE-OC, USC SCALE, and PDfA announce joint-action at The Shrine Auditorium. The Instagram post announcement calls on community members around Southern California to meet at the Shrine Auditorium at 3:30 p.m. on May 12.
3:20 p.m.: PDfA releases a post criticizing Pomona admin’s decision to move graduation over meeting disclosure and divestment demands with students.
“Admin would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to move graduation instead of engaging with students’ demands. They’re idiots.”
“Pomona BoT uses the tired line that they can’t divest because of “fiduciary responsibility.” Does blowing $100,000s last minute look like fiduciary responsibility to you?”
“Pomona wants to ignore the fact that it profits from a genocide that has wiped out every university in Gaza.”
1:53 p.m.: President Gabi Starr releases an email to all Pomona Seniors announcing the moving of graduation to the Shrine Auditorium on USC’s campus, which is located more than an hour away from Pomona College.
12:30 p.m: CSC calls Campus Safety to the encampment to escort news media off Marston on the grounds of ‘private property’. News media sources have remained parked on N. College Ave. end of Marston Quad intermittently throughout the week.
9:30 p.m.: Claremont JVP releases a statement rejecting Dean Hinkson’s tying of Jewish students to Israel.
4:55 p.m.: Dean Avis Hinkson sends out another email to all students and faculty titled “Community Update.” In the email, Dean Hinkson condemned the use of the phrase “From the River to the Sea” and “Intifada”, which have been displayed in art surrounding the encampment.
Campus Safety officers approached, expressing concern that the expansion was blocking the road. Ultimately, students left enough space between the encampment and the steps for Campus Safety and facilities golf cart-type vehicles to pass through.
In a statement shared with Undercurrents, Pomona Divest from Apartheid said that the expansion was an escalation meant to show Pomona “that WE HAVE POWER to literally stop all of their institutional goings on until they demonstrate good faith and engage in substantive negotiations with us.”
3 p.m.: students expand the encampment to the step of Big Bridges.
12:11 p.m.: Incoming ASPC Senator sends an email to the all-student Listserv. The email, titled “Update on Recent Board of Trustees Meeting”, says that Pomona Board of Trustees want to “buy our silence and complicity in genocide through donations.”
8:55 a.m.: Dean Avis Hinkson responds to the ASPC Senator’s email and hour later promising a response soon. The email is sent to the senior class Listserv.
7:17 a.m.: ASPC Vice President of Finance sent an email to Pomona administration and the Class of 2024 Listserv regarding commencement. “I am writing to urgently request an update regarding the commencement ceremony scheduled for this Sunday.” The ASPC senator calls out a “concerning lack of communication regarding the ceremony, which I find deeply disrespectful to out students and their families.”
~10 p.m.: four Claremont Police Department officers arrive. They come near the encampment, and students react with chants, but appear to just examine the nearby Big Bridges building — which recently bore painted black text reading “DIVEST” — and leave.
~8 p.m.: darkness sets in over the encampment for the first time, as Pomona cut all lights in the area, including streetlights by adjacent walkways. Students inside the encampment appeared to continue distributing food and settling in for the night using portable lamps.
2 p.m.: the lights hanging on the scaffolding above the encampment, originally intended for commencement ceremonies, appear to have been turned off. They had been on continuously, through the day and night, since the encampment started.
Meanwhile, students have began an “Anti-Zionism vs. Antisemitism” teach-in on the grass outside the encampment entrance.
Here’s the schedule for the day from PDfA’s Instagram.
It was a quiet second day at the encampment. PDfA posted a schedule including a 3 p.m. art build and study and prayer times on its Instagram page.
6:10 p.m.: approximately 120 students, faculty and community members gathered on Pomona College’s Marston Quad to rally for the newly-erected encampment. Student speakers gave speeches on the importance of escalation, read poetry, and listened to liberation music.
Inside the encampment, students continued setting up additional barricades and fences. The rally concluded with a series of religious prayers and additional chants in Arabic.
9:07 a.m.: admin has locked down campus buildings. Academic buildings are usually open 9am-5pm. Dean of Students Avis Hinkson sends all students an email titled “Community Update,” says that “an encampment of protesters has returned to campus,” and tells people to avoid it. Suggests that “safety” is an issue and priority.
8:00 a.m.: the sun is up. The fence perimeter is complete. Here’s what the encampment looks like now.
5:25 a.m.: dozens of students pushed through fences surrounding Pomona College’s main quad and lay down tarps, tents and supplies. Students also appeared to move fences from outside perimeter to closer to the encampment area.
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Undercurrents reports on labor, Palestine liberation, prison abolition and other community organizing at and around the Claremont Colleges.
Issue 1 / Spring 2023
Setting the Standard
How Pomona workers won a historic $25 minimum wage; a new union in Claremont; Tony Hoang on organizing
Read issue 1