REFAAT ALAREER UNIVERSITY: 480+ walk out, dozens take over Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7 anniversary

On Oct. 7, 2024, over 480 7C students walked out of their classes at 10:07 AM, gathering at Pomona College to demand divestment on the one-year anniversary of the Zionist entity’s intensified genocide on Gaza.

Students also eventually took over Carnegie Hall until around 3:30 p.m., renaming the building “Refaat Alareer University” after the late Palestinian poet and professor, who was killed by occupation forces in Dec. 2023. At peak, at least 200 students were inside Carnegie Hall.

480+ Students Walk Out for Divestment

In July, an article in the medical journal Lancet estimated that the Zionist entity had killed over 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, around 8% of Gaza’s population. On Sept. 23, Zionist forces also began to bombard Beirut and southern Lebanon. Zionist airstrikes have killed over 2,968 people in Lebanon sonce last October, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The Oct. 7 walkout was a continuation of PDfA’s ongoing campaign to pressure Pomona College to divest from the Zionist entity and weapons manufacturers.

Students from across the colleges walked to Pomona’s gates, shouting chants including “Claremont Students do not hide, Come walk out for Palestine!”, “Down down with occupation, up up with liberation!”, and “From Palestine to the Philippines, Stop the US war machine!”

At 10:50 a.m., PDfA organizers gave a speech to the gathered students, faculty and local news media. 

“We are here today to mourn the 118,000 plus Palestinians who have been Martyred by the Zionist entity, and to recommit to the fight for Palestinian resistance,” the rally speaker said. “We are part of institutions who are not only watching the same genocide unfold as us – they are funding it, and none of these appeals to human life have moved them.”

The speaker also pointed out heightened repression of Palestine solidarity protests at the Claremont Colleges and on campuses across the country.

“Over the past year of the Zionist Entity’s intensified genocide of the Palestinian people, these colleges and other universities across the United States have revealed to us who they really are, and who they are willing to protect,” the speaker said, highlighting Pomona’s arrest of 19 students participating in a sit-in on April 5, as well as Scripps College’s recent shut down of the Motley Coffeehouse in retaliation for baristas putting up a Palestinian flag in the space.

Students take over Carnegie Hall and rename it Refaat Alareer University 

Following the speech in front of Pomona’s gates, organizers led students in attendance to Carnegie Hall. The students entered and took over the building for around 4 hours. Organizers announced to the crowd that they would vacate the building by 4 p.m.; they ultimately left around 3:30 p.m.

During the building takeover, students ziptied the front entrance closed, but kept the back doors open for exiting. Some students spray painted “INTIFADA,” “FREE PALESTINE,” and “FUCK POMONA,” on the walls and elevator and hung a banner out a window renaming the building Refaat Alareer University.

Protestors also taped Alareer’s poems “I am you” and “If I must die” to windows on the building.

Almost all students and professors previously inside the building left through the front and back doors shortly after protesters entered, including a group of high school students participating in Pomona’s fly-in program.

In the then-empty classrooms, students hosted teach-ins on Palestinian resistance, medical skills and protestors’ rights, as well as distributed food and water to attendees.

One professor refused to leave the building, stationing himself on the staircase for over four hours before leaving Carnegie around 3:45 p.m. During this time, student protestors offered multiple times to escort the professor to his office to gather his belongings. Students also brought chairs for the professor and a Campus Safety officer accompanying him to sit on.

One student on the staircase held up a handwritten sign addressed to the professor stating “You are free to leave at any time” and “exit downstairs.”

During the building takeover, students ziptied the front entrance closed, but kept the back doors open for exiting. Some students also spray painted “INTIFADA,” “FREE PALESTINE” and “FUCK POMONA” on the walls and elevator of Carnegie Hall.

Administration Response

At 1:30 p.m., Pomona Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Avis Hinkson sent out an email to the entire Pomona student body threatening to discipline all “masked, unidentified individuals…disrupting academic continuity.” This was followed up by a similar community alert to all 5Cs from Campus Safety sent out at 2:29 p.m.

Pomona Associate Dean of Students & Dean of Campus Life Josh Eisenberg and Associate Dean of Students Brandon Jackson recorded students as they exited the building throughout the day.

When the remaining students attempted to leave the building at 3:35 p.m., Jackson, Eisenberg, and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students for Academic and Personal Success Tracy Arwari physically blocked the back exit, restraining students while ordering them to show identification. The students pushed through and left the building.

As students left, Pomona Assistant Vice President of Facilities and Campus Services Robert “Bob” Robinson, Campus Security Director Mike Hallinan, and CEO of Claremont Colleges Services Stig Lanesskog also followed several students to a nearby bathroom.

At 5:21 p.m., Pomona administrators Avis Hinkson, Jeff Roth and Melanie Wu sent an email to the student body titled “Community update,” confirming that all students had left the building, and condemning the action.

“We have initial identification of several people involved…the individuals responsible face sanctions that may include restitution, suspension, expulsion, as well as being banned from campus,” the email read.

The administrators also announced that Carnegie Hall would be closed until further notice “due to extensive damage.”

On Oct. 8, Pomona Divest from Apartheid, Students for Justice in Palestine and HMC Dissenters jointly made an Instagram post titled “Dear Pomona College: Carnegie was not under occupation, Palestine is.”

“Today, we built a community space that allowed for the radical transfer of knowledge between students from different walks of life. We are stronger than ever. We will not stop, we will not rest,” the post read.

Immediate suspensions and bans, and ongoing disciplinary cases

On Oct. 11, Pomona College informed 18 Pomona students that they were being charged with policy violations related to their alleged participation in the protest.

12 of these students were placed on immediate “interim suspension,” and told to leave campus indefinitely on the same day that they received the letter. Pomona also delivered ban letters to dozens of non-Pomona students banning them from Pomona’s campus.

On Oct. 23, President Gabi Starr announced that she was exercising her authority to directly suspend 10 Pomona students for full academic year. On Oct. 25, she suspended an additional two students. The 12 students were originally on interim suspension, awaiting fact-finding meetings and Judicial Council hearings to receive their final sanction. Starr’s decision cancelled the meetings and hearings, instead giving students only five days to make an appeal directly to the Dean of Students.

Administrators did not initially provide any specific evidence of conduct violations to any of the students facing charges. Undercurrents has verified through our own reporting and photos that at least one of the Pomona students placed on interim suspension was never inside Carnegie Hall on Oct. 7, 2024.

At the current moment, Pomona College has banned at least 36 non-Pomona students from campus for the full academic year. In an FAQ linked from a Nov. 1 email, Starr announced that these students would also be withdrawn from their Pomona classes for the semester, and be prevented from registering for Pomona classes in the spring.

This article was published on Nov. 3, 2024, and backdated to Oct. 8, 2024 to reflect when we first published these photos and much of the text on Instagram.