As an independent, student-run newspaper, we are committed to freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom to resist oppression. We take seriously the power of discourse in shaping collective consciousness and action for the ultimate goal of social transformation.
In our mission statement, we assert: “More than a paper promoting neutrality and objectivity, we want to be a platform for radical voices, creative perspectives, marginalized identities, and uncompromising activism. Student journalism is crucial in today’s social and political climate and we want to be leading the movement towards truth and justice.”
The Scripps Voice was founded in 1991 by a group of minoritized students to platform student voices for social engagement. As Scripps’ longest-running paper, we remain dedicated to ensuring this legacy through our commitment to student advocacy and amplifying marginalized voices. We have acknowledged our biases since the beginning rather than pretending we can be truly objective, and this recognition bolsters our commitment to truth. We are fortunate to have the space to conduct investigative journalistic work.
The first issue of TSV featured a letter to Scripps stating the newspaper's goals to “let our needs be heard, rather than have them assumed by those who say they are concerned with filling our needs.” This was later reaffirmed by the founding Editor-in-Chief, who wrote for a 2018 issue: “As a feminist, I couldn’t stand the thought of how we could be so silenced. That we had to rely on others to tell our stories rather than speak for ourselves [...] So in the Spring of 1991, I gathered together a group of young women to create The Voice. We were made up of a diverse group of individuals… and mostly of minorities — women of color, women of differing sexual orientation, diverse religions, and non-traditional age students [...] Still, it is important to remember that it was the most voiceless in the Claremont community that gave Scripps its voice.”
Therefore, we cannot stand idle as our administration attempts to suppress our student body’s commitment to principles of liberation and solidarity. We cannot limit our reporting to news as usual while our peers are being systematically silenced when they attempt to voice their vision for change. We refuse to allow our administration to force us into complicity in genocide.
NO BUSINESS AS USUAL.
Israel has killed countless Palestinians with billions of dollars of U.S. ammunition in the escalation of the genocidal project over the past year after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It is easy to become numb to the constant slew of graphic images and inconceivable statistics of death and destruction emerging from Palestine. Still, it is crucial to remember that behind every number, there is a person and a story. We mourn each known and unknown life lost and recognize that nothing can encapsulate the absolute devastation and dehumanization Palestinians, Lebanese, and Southwest Asian and North African people have faced in the last year and decades before.
Students across The Claremont Colleges mobilized to protest Israel’s intensified assault on Palestine and demand divestment from the apartheid regime, often met with unprecedented and disproportionate repression and retribution. Pomona College administrators called the police on students engaged in a peaceful sit-in on April 5, 2024, labeling them as dangerous outside agitators. Police arrested 20 students, eight of whom were from Scripps College. We have seen further militarization of our campuses and the deployment of a military-grade weapon on students. On Sept. 11, a Scripps College dean delivered an ultimatum to The Motley Coffeehouse, a student-run business, that their opening was contingent on removing a Palestinian flag hanging in the space. Three weeks after The Motley’s opening with the Palestinian flag, President Amy Marcus-Newhall sent an email on Saturday, Oct. 5, announcing The Motley’s immediate and indefinite closure, revoking work authorization for 50+ student workers, leaving their jobs and financial stability uncertain.
In its mission statement, Scripps College declares that the liberal arts education its students receive empowers and equips them to think critically and stand up for their beliefs as they lead lives of “leadership, service, integrity, and creativity.” Scripps administration claims that the hanging of a Palestinian flag in The Motley “inadvertently” creates an unwelcoming presence. Yet, when Scripps College faced challenges to the academy’s alleged bastion of free speech, it chose to disregard community discourse and disempower its students. In the past year, Scripps College administrators have caved to prioritizing wealth and discarded its student body.
We aim to share the perspectives of the greater student body and community of Scripps College, not of the institution. Scripps College’s neutrality is so removed from justice that we as a publication must actively challenge and question what maintaining neutrality and objectivity, as Scripps College defines it, serves.
We cannot produce a conventional edition while Israel conducts indiscriminate military violence (Human Rights Watch) with the military and financial backing of our government. We cannot report as usual while Israel deliberately targets journalists and their families in Gaza, while attempts to hold mainstream U.S. media accountable for truth are suppressed, and academics are censored and face retaliation for acknowledging a genocide.
To report “neutrally” on the present situation globally and at the 7Cs is to accept the dominant hegemonic narrative, to let those in power silence us, to accept lies and present them on a newsprint platter.
We view this edition as part of our duty as ethical journalists. We are contributing to a history of journalists who have diligently committed to honest reporting to combat in justice and oppression. We echo the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies’ Nov. 2, 2023 Statement as we, “denounce censorship, harassment, intimidation, and repression of any kind, especially targeting Palestinian, SWANA, and Muslim voices who are exercising their right to free speech, academic freedom, activism, and dissent.”
We call on Scripps College to uphold and practice its proclaimed values of intersectional feminism and social change. We recognize the administration's potential to once again fail its students, and we publish this edition knowing that no matter what happens next, raising our voices against injustice is imperative.
This edition focuses on organizing across the 7Cs for Palestinian liberation, resisting suppression of students’ freedom of expression. This edition aligns with what we have always done and is in line with our ethos as a paper. We thank you for trusting us with your stories of joy and struggle, now and over the past three decades. We hope you take care in experiencing this edition of TSV; it was created with the profound love, intention, and courage of those who realize that fighting for collective freedom is worth it.
In Solidarity,
The Scripps Voice Editorial
Disclaimer: This statement does not, nor can any statement capture all views of TSV editors or staff. There is so much to be said and so much that has already been said well. We, as imperfect students, invite you, imperfect readers, to read this statement and the pieces that follow in good faith. Responses and inquiries may go to voicescripps@gmail.com
2 • NO BUSINESS AS USUAL
480+ walk out of classes to demand Pomona divest from genocide in Palestine
By Claremont Undercurrents
On Oct. 7, over 480 students walked out of their classes at 10:07 AM to participate in a rally marking the one-year anniversary of the Zionist entity’s intensified genocide on Palestine. Students walked from multiple locations across campuses before converging at the intersection of College Ave and 6th Street at Pomona College.
The demonstration ended with a takeover of Carnegie Hall, which a banner dropped out of a
window dubbed “Refaat Alareer University,” after the Palestinian poet killed by occupation forces in Dec. 2023, until 4 p.m.
The Oct. 7 walkout was a part of PDfA’s year-long campaign to pressure Pomona College to divest from the Zionist entity and weapons manufacturers.
“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,” a speaker said while students rallied at the intersection.
“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.”
On Sept. 23, 2024, the Zionist entity began a bombing campaign in Beirut and southern Lebanon, killing over 2,000.
“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,” emphasizing the arrest of 19 Pomona student protestors in April last semester as well as the recent shut down and firing of student workers at the Motley for hanging a Palestinian flag on its wall.
Attendees began moving into Carnegie Hall at 11:13 a.m.
Students take over Carnegie Hall, rename it
Refaat Alareer University after Palestinian poet killed in genocide
On Oct. 7, one year after the beginning of the Zionist entity’s intensified genocide in Palestine, student protesters took over Pomona College’s Carnegie Hall for nearly five hours to demand divestment. Students hung a banner out a window renaming the building Refaat Alareer University, after the Palestinian poet and professor killed along with his family by a Zionist airstrike on Dec. 6, 2023.
At peak, at least 200 student protesters were inside Carnegie Hall. The takeover followed a 480-person mass walkout at
10:07 a.m. Students entered Carnegie Hall around 11:13 a.m.
Organizers announced to the crowd that they would vacate the building by 4 p.m.
Almost all students and professors 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.
During the building takeover, students ziptied the front entrance closed, but kept the back doors unlocked for people to
exit through. Some students also spray painted “INTIFADA,” “FREE PALESTINE” and “FUCK POMONA” on the walls and elevator of Carnegie Hall, and left red paint in other places.
At 1:30 p.m., Pomona Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Avis Hinkson sent out an email to the entire student body threatening to discipline all “masked, unidentified individuals…disrupting academic continuity.” While “peaceful protest is allowed within demonstration policy,” they wrote, “this action goes beyond policy.” This was followed up by a similar community alert from Campus Safety posted at 2:29 p.m..
When students attempted to leave the building just at 3:35 p.m., Associate Dean of Students Brandon Jackson physically blocked the back exit, pushing and restraining students while ordering them to show identification. The students eventually pushed through and all students left the building.
At 5:31 p.m., Pomona administration followed up with a third message announcing that all protestors had vacated the building, writing that “the individuals responsible face sanctions that may include restitution, suspension, expulsion, as well as being banned from campus.”
On Oct. 8, Pomona Divest from Apartheid, Students for
Justice in Palestine and HMC Dissenters jointly posted 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.
Another PDfA post advised those contacted by the colleges for student code violations to contact them from a non-school email at pomonadivestapartheid@proton.me
Photo Courtesy of Claremont Undercurrents
Fances Walton ’26 • The Scripps Voice
Photo Courtesy of Claremont Undercurrents
Photo Courtesy of Claremont Undercurrents
By Claremont Undercurrents
By Editorial
“Inclusive for Who”?: Motley Workers Fight Back Against Repression and Closure
Barely three weeks into the opening of The Motley Coffeehouse, President Amy Marcus-Newhall sent an email Saturday, Oct. 5, at 6:01 a.m. to the Scripps student body announcing its indefinite closure. Three minutes later, Scripps Human Resources sent out a separate email to The Motley employees, notifying them that they were no longer authorized to work at The Motley.
With no explicit prior notice, Scripps administration put 50 student workers, the majority of whom are on work-study, under financial uncertainty and physically locked them out of their former place of employment.
Scripps College also hired private security who were stationed at The Motley and its surrounding areas from Oct. 5 to 7.
The Motley first began facing pressure from administration when they were issued an ultimatum days before their opening night: take down a Palestinian flag or remain closed. The staff refused this demand, asking for clarification on what policies they were violating by keeping the flag up. They were given no clear answer.
Yet, The Motley continued to operate with the Palestinian flag up in the space amidst almost a month of emails and meetings between Motley managers and Interim Special Advisor to the Vice President for Student Affairs Deborrah Hebert, Executive Director of Facilities Management & Auxiliary Operations
Josh Reeder, and Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Dr. Sha Bradley, until their forced closure.
A day after the Oct. 5 email was sent out, The Scripps Voice sat down with four Motley managers and one barista.
The Aftermath
Scripps College’s Oct. 5 emails shocked many managers and baristas who felt blindsided by the administration’s decision.
“To have woken up on Saturday locked out of our place of employment with no notice, having been accused in a schoolwide email of refusing to cooperate with a dialogue that we have been actively engaged with since we got to campus, has done incalculable damage to the trust we had previously been operating with as we entered these discussions with administration,” a manager said.
Scripps College changed the door locks, effectively locking out the managers who held the keys to open the student-run coffeehouse in the morning. To some students, this strategy resembled a union-busting tactic known as a lockout. A lockout involves the withholding of employment, wherein an employer either locks employees out of a workplace, creates a work stoppage, or lays off employees to hinder union organization or gain leverage in labor disputes.
“Our baristas left at 9 p.m. And then sometime between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., they came and changed the locks,” a manager said. “They locked us out. It was a lockout. We have gallons of milk in there. We had a pastry delivery. We have items that we left in there thinking, oh yeah, I’ll go there tomorrow and get it.”
Additionally, managers were aghast by the increase in private security around the space and the implications of this addition. “[They] hired private security ‘cause they clearly see us as a threat,” a manager said. “It’s dangerous to paint this narrative [of] Scripps students, especially Scripps student employees, that [they’re] so threatened by us that [they] hire private security to guard the building.”
Another Motley manager further explained how painting the Motley team as a “threat” contradicts the care the staff visibly upholds towards the space.
“As if we would ever do anything to vandalize our own space that we take care of,” they said. “We clean, we decorate, we fucking screw, screw, screw the espresso machine every day. It’s just wild to think that that’s the space we [take] care of. Like what exactly are they afraid of with that?”
This decision follows a larger trend of increased militarization and security across all the Claremont Colleges this semester, including the use of a militarygrade “sonic cannon” to disperse protesters at Harvey Mudd College on Sept. 25. Baristas initially assumed the Oct. 5 emails meant they were fired and would lose their income.
One barista said that the part of the email from HR that shocked them most was the link to Handshake, accompanied by the suggestion to search for other work-study jobs.
“It was a hyperlink that you could click on, too, so you could go start browsing,” the barista said. “And it just really solidified the degree to which it feels like they do not care about their student workers. And it’s an odd prioritization of donors and the board over the literal lived experiences of your students.“
The Motley is also an uncommon and valuable opportunity for work-study students, as The Motley can pay wages after their allotted work-study runs out.
On Oct. 8, after three days of silence from the administration, Motley staff received two emails clarifying that student employees would continue to be paid until Oct. 20 during this period of negotiating a reopening.
“I think this was probably an attempt to address the significant pushback from alumni and parents of current students,” a manager said. “But I want to make super clear that there was no suggestion that we would be getting paid when they initially delivered the news of closure to us.”
One barista reflected on the situation as a work-study student. “I’m a low-income, first-gen student who was advertised this school so heavily,” they said. “And then to come here and feel like they don’t care once you get past the admissions door is incredibly disappointing. Although not surprising.”
A Motley manager explained how this temporary plan of compensation was not a solution but rather an attempt to appease complaints, highlighting administration’s disregard for the long-term financial well-being of their employees.
“Scripps has clearly demonstrated their lack of respect and consideration for us as students and as employees in the callousness with which they treated our team, many of whom rely on this income,” said another Motley manager. “Their concern for our financial security was obviously an afterthought, still motivated by a desire to protect their bottom line and their image rather than by a commitment to protect their students.” Meetings, Meetings, Meetings Motley managers also expressed their frustrations about the numerous meetings they had with Hebert where she claimed that The Motley was failing to comply with the “Advertising, Publicity, and Solicitation” policy 4.1 from the Scripps Guide to Student Life and Code of Conduct, which specified that only flyers, not flags or other decor, must be approved by the Office of Student Engagement (OSE) before they are posted. The Palestinian flag, which is printed on page 12, would be permitted under these regulations.
“Those meetings [with Hebert] drain the absolute life [out] of you, just talking in circles with administration and them not being able to answer like a fucking simple ass question,” a manager said.
During these meetings, Hebert stated that she would now need to give executive approval for all Motley decor that went up, a system that managers emphasized had never been implemented before this semester.
“There has never been restrictions put on the art that goes up on the walls, the decorations,” a manager said. “Why now? What specifically about this moment in political history means that we have to suddenly restrict all of the things that are in our space.”
After receiving no clear answers, Motley management emailed Bradley for further clarification.
“[Motley managers] decided that we needed to speak to Dr. Sha directly,” they said. “So we met with her and we had this long conversation. Both of us were late to classes. She was late to her own meetings. Like we were in this room for an hour and 40 minutes detailing the things we were confused about.”
In this meeting and subsequent email, Bradley emphasized the need for open call submissions which she defined as, “submissions of visual artifacts representing identities, cultures, home countries, etc., [open] to the entire Scripps community.”
After this initial meeting, Bradley sent multiple follow-up emails to the Motley managers asking them for their availability for future meetings to further discuss this open call for submissions.
The managers emphasized the effect the repeated meetings and communication had on them. “We do not have the energy and capacity to be students, to be leaders to 50 people, and to be successful at all of these things and also be engaging in these tiring, roundabout conversations with administration.”
Because of this, they decided to establish a set of parameters with the administration in an email to Bradley in order to proceed with future meetings more comfortably and productively.
Instead of responding to their parameters, Bradley continued to push for an open call for submissions.
“We were asking very specific questions, which were just met with responses about ‘How exactly is the Motley ensuring that it is inclusive? How exactly is the Motley ensuring that it is making everyone feel welcome?’” a manager said.
One of the managers emphasized that the original purpose of these meetings was to get The Motley to remove their Palestinian flag, not to revise rules regarding the coffeehouse’s policy on inclusivity.
“We cannot forget that this began with them saying that you need to take down the Palestinian flag,” they said. “This did not begin with them saying, you need to be inclusive to everyone. It started off with discrimination. It started off with, there’s a flag on your wall that needs to get taken down in order for this business to open.”
Discriminatory Policing of Political Expression
On Sept. 13, Palestine Legal released a statement regarding the possible legal backlash that Scripps opened itself up to by demanding that the Motley staff remove the Palestinian flag on the grounds that it was “unwelcoming.”
“It is discriminatory and deeply offensive for administrators to claim that the existence of a Palestinian flag somehow makes the Motley unwelcoming to the community—particularly so when Scripps itself is the one being unwelcoming to Palestinians in violation of the law,” Zoha Khalili, a Senior Staff Attorney at Palestine Legal, wrote in a statement.
The managers expressed similar sentiments. “This notion that Scripps is a place where you’re able to freely express yourself. Inclusivity [for] who, right?” they said. “And this, this is what we’ve been asking them since the very beginning, since that first meeting. Why would we take down the Palestinian flag? Why are you saying it’s unwelcoming? Who is it unwelcoming of?”
Another manager contrasted the administration’s reaction to the Palestinian flag to the rhetoric given to other flags, such as the Ukrainian flag.
“I also want to point out that in that first meeting, we had a person on staff who is both Russian and Ukrainian [who] talked about putting up a Ukrainian flag in the space — and there was no issue with that,” they said. “It’s not the fact that the [Palestine] flag is inherently political. Because there are politics surrounding the Ukrainian flag as well. It’s the fact that they want to repress non-white voices. Like that is exactly what they’re doing. And that is exactly what all of the repression around the 5Cs of Palestinian activism is representative of.”
This idea was emphasized by the Palestine Legal statement. “Scripps is sending a clear message to current and future students that Palestinians and students who support Palestinian freedom are not welcome on campus. This is a violation of federal civil rights laws that prohibit the college from discriminating against students and applicants on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”
The statement also outlined how Scripps could be in violation of labor laws. “If Scripps takes action against the Motley, it may also find itself in violation of California labor laws, which prohibit employers from controlling or directing the political activities or affiliations of employees. California law also prohibits the school from punishing students for their free speech activities.”
The Motley managers felt as though they were being forced to choose between their ability to work and their right to free speech and expression. “It sucks that we are in a position in which we have to think about financial security or our other rights that are supposed to be protected, that are supposed to fall under these protections that come with not only employment, but come with going to a historically women’s college,” they said. “I think a majority of us are in a position in which we don’t see the value in giving into administration at the cost of bending our own morals or political beliefs or the right to stand up for humanity and practice all the things that we want to be able to practice as people, as employees, as students.”
History of Motley’s Political Expression
The Motley Coffeehouse has a long
history as a hub for political expression and community engagement. Scripps politics professor Mar Golub emphasized this aspect of the Motley’s history. “One of the things that makes the Motley the Motley – and why it’s so important to a lot of students – is its long tradition of student independence,” they said. “It has always been studentrun and student managed, and it has always been explicitly committed to a set of core values: intersectional feminism, sustainability, social justice.”
Golub continued, stating how administration recognizes the impact of the space, making their decision even more confounding. “The College even celebrates this on its website and in its marketing materials. This is why students love the Motley: not just as a place to hang out and drink good coffee, but as an important space of community –especially so for students who may not always feel at home in some other places on campus,” she said. “That’s part of its feminist commitment. This is why the Motley is so important to our students. And this is what the administration is trying to take away from them.”
Rita Cano Alcalá, a Scripps ChicanxLatinx studies professor, also expressed her thoughts on the history of The Motley. “While I understand that The Motley is housed in a Scripps building and technically a business of the college, since its inception it has been a student-run endeavor, from top to bottom,” she said. “If it weren’t for students, there would be no Motley. Returning alumni from all 5Cs don’t go to The Motley to see what is going on with Scripps officially, institutionally. No, they go there to see what the hubbub is among students. To see what has been happening among the students politically, artistically, musically, socially.”
A manager echoed Alcalá’s sentiment and noted that The Motley’s importance within the institution may be tied into why the space is being targeted. “I think that’s why they’re pointing a finger at it and trying to restrict it because it’s a powerful place that impacts their admissions, it impacts their money, it impacts their donations,” a manager said. “It worked for them, you know, marketing The Motley as like the central hub of political feminist, intersectional feminist conversations and events and all that stuff. It worked for them until it didn’t.”
The manager elaborated on how the Motley’s active support for Palestinian liberation posed a threat to the college. “You can’t be in an intersectional feminist space without being in solidarity with Palestine,” they said. “There is a tie between capitalism and Zionism. So the people who are in these positions of extreme wealth are probably going to have views that do not align with the voices in support of Palestinian people. Our definition of inclusive is people whose perspectives, ideas, and identities resist and challenge what the hegemonic structures are, right? We’ve always been leftist in our values and to be inclusive has been to include people that are usually sidelined, who are usually marginalized.”
Going Forward
Despite feeling disheartened by administration’s recent actions, The Motley staff highlighted how they have been able to rely on community support to reassure them. “We have a lot of different organizations like Nobody Fails at Scripps, CSWA [Claremont Student Worker Alliance], all of these different organizations that care very deeply for students. It’s beautiful to see that [this] can exist even when we don’t feel institutional support.”
A manager revealed how the empathy and kindness of the community has impacted them throughout this situation. “I’ve never been come up to more and just offered a hug, offered a ‘how are you,’ you know, like people’s sympathy and people’s support has been overwhelming. Not only just through statements, but also in person, just genuinely having that care.”
That same manager concluded that the fight to reopen The Motley is not over and will continue to be fueled by the overwhelming support and love of the Scripps student body. “That is the community that Scripps is harming and that’s the community that they don’t see,” they said. “They’re trying to cultivate this other bullshit notion of community and inclusivity. And it’s like, you don’t even know what you just did. You don’t even know the harm that you guys just caused. But it’s okay because we have support and we will be back and we will fight.”
4 • NO BUSINESS AS USUAL
Admissions
10/5/2024
Dear President Amy Marcus Newhall, Dean Deborrah Hebert, Josh Reeder, Dr. Sha Bradley, and Whom Else it May Concern, As Admissions Ambassadors and valuable front-facing representatives of Scripps College, we find the censorship and violent closing of the Motley Coffeehouse reprehensible and incompatible with our roles as advertisers. We feel we cannot do our job—to present, uplift, and promote our community and institution to prospective students sincerely—when Scripps College has censored our peers and violently revoked their employment. We stand in support and solidarity with the Motley Coffeehouse and the student employees and leaders who work there.
In your initial email to Motley managers, you indicated that the flags and decorations, specifically the Palestinian flag, inside the Motley, violate the “Advertising, Publicity, and Solicitation Policy” in the CoC. This policy states that any flyers for events, commercial offers, or solicitations on campus must be pre approved. Flags and decor do not advertise events on campus or offer commercial interests, therefore not violating the policy.
Beyond the technicalities of our Code of Conduct, further emails cited that removing flags, posters, and flyers at The Motley was “in line” with Scripps College’s “Principles of Community.” As ambassadors to prospective students, we promote the college because of the community that we, as students have cultivated here. The actions of the Scripps College administration, not The Motley, are in direct contradiction with these principles and are advertently “restrict[ing] free expression or creat[ing] an unwelcoming atmosphere.” The only thing unwelcoming about Scripps College is that the Palestinian flag, representing people’s nationality, cannot be hung in our student-run coffee house. One particularly salient line: “Recognizing that such expressions may offend, provoke, and disturb, Scripps affirms its dedication to encourage rather than limit expression. At the same time, Scripps encourages community members to show mutual respect and understanding and to employ reasoned civil discourse.” We have never seen civil discourse from Scripps College surrounding The Motley. Instead, we saw private emails that demanded obedience under threats against student employment. We received emails directed to the entire Scripps community that placed full blame on the Motley managers. Then, you revoke our fellow students’ employment
with no distinct warning. How can we promote Scripps College as a place of learning, diversity, and community when our administrators cannot employ the “reasoned civil discourse” they cite against our student-run coffee house? In our tours, interviews, fairs, info sessions, and online communications, we, as Ambassadors, aim our conversations toward prospective students’ interests, which often include business, entrepreneurship, and oncampus jobs. A focal point among these avenues is highlighting the Motley Coffeehouse. We advertise the establishment, specifically emphasizing its student-run nature. We see how parent and student eyes light up at the idea of a student-run space that fosters campus learning, community, and vibrancy.
Now, our administration has changed the locks to the Motley. They keep student workers, many of whom are on work-study, out of their place of employment as a punishment for not complying with orders to take down a Palestinian flag. How would you like us to frame this on our tours?
Tomorrow, we welcome our Discover Scripps students, mainly first-generation, low-income, and/or students of color, to the Scripps campus. Many current students that Scripps administration chose to abruptly stop employing are from these same backgrounds. There is no honest way to tell them about the Scripps community without telling them this is how Scripps has treated 50+ student employees. Guiding prospective student events this weekend, many ambassadors feel disingenuous and dishonest in promoting Scripps College as an institution that wholly provides a platform for women’s leadership and empowerment.
Last spring, we communicated our solidarity with our peers arrested by Pomona College on April 5th and our peer Pomona Admission Ambassadors. In that statement, we committed to sharing information about the arrests and banning of Scripps students at Pomona College in our tours and activities. As we continue to share this information, we also commit to sharing with prospective students and families the censorship of the Motley Coffeehouse and Scripps College’s revocation of student workers’ employment with no clear warning. So long as our peers at the Motley continue to be restricted in their freedom of expression, we will continue to share student experiences with the administration in their entirety. In Solidarity, 13 Admissions Ambassadors
Students for Justice in Palestine
Claremont SJP Stands in Solidarity with The Motley
Claremont SJP stands in unwavering solidarity and struggle with the Motley Coffeehouse, and its 50 student workers who were abruptly fired yesterday morning with NO notice in an act of retaliation against their principled displays of solidarity with Palestine.
Yesterday, Oct. 5th, at 6:01 AM President Amy Newhall Marcus sent an email to the Scripps College student body declaring that the Motley Coffeehouse will be shut down until further notice. At 6:04 AM Jennifer Berklas, director of HR and Deputy Title lX, sent an email to the student workers who run the Motley, most of whom are work-study and rely on their employment at the Motley, to let them know that they are no longer authorized to be working. We expected administrations across the Claremont Colleges to employ new tactics to stifle student organizing this semester. Scripps’ administration has done just that with their closure of the Motley, acting under the false guise of “upholding the feminist, intersectional ethos” of the establishment, and “ensuring the spirit of access and inclusion and welcoming space”.
The labeling of an expression of Palestinian solidarity as “unwelcoming” is blatantly discriminatory and an example of the Palestine exception to free speech at play. Scripps admin’s decision to leave 51+ student workers jobless without notice to repress free speech and student organizing further contradicts any commitment to creating accessible, inclusive environments.
Scripps College has been overt in its tactics. It is clear what they are committed to: Suppressing all pro-Palestinian organizing and speech, including even the most basic expressions of Palestinian identity.
We affirm and support Scripps Associated Students in their demands that the college immediately rehire affected students and commit to protecting free speech/expression, which includes the right to organize against genocide.
MOTLEY WORKERS, WE WILL FIGHT FOR YOU.
Administration of the Claremont Colleges are scared. They understand the power of our organizing communities. That’s why they keep trying to shut us down.
THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE STRONGER THAN THE PEOPLE IN POWER
Nobody Fails at Scripps
We, Nobody Fails at Scripps, condemn the actions of Scripps College administration, President Amy Marcus Newhall and the Office of Student Affairs including Deborrah Hebert and Sha Bradley.
At 6am on October 5th, Amy Marcus Newhall sent an email to all Scripps students stating that the Motley will be closed until further notice citing a “pending process to clarify the roles and responsibilities, operating protocols, and legal obligations of College administration and student employees.” This email comes after Deborrah Hebert’s September 9th email which demanded that the Palestinian flag in the Motley be taken down in order to open for the fall semester. These demands, however, are not new. Scripps College administration threatened to suspend the Motley Spring of 2024 if they did take down certain posters related to Palestine. The college attempted to enforce a new protocol for the approval of certain “political posters”, and halted the coffeehouse’s opening until they agreed to issue an inclusivity statement.
Amy Marcus Newhall’s email is just the latest iteration of Scripps Administration's strategy of censoring and repressing student voices. The college has a long history of co-opting and quelling organizing spaces, evidenced via the pacification of SCORE through the use of
bureaucratic barriers. This email is less of a surprise, and more of a defacing of Scripps college’s facade of progressive politics and student empowerment.
In the email, Amy Marcus Newhall states it is the administration's “aim to preserve the feminist and intersectional ethos that has shaped the Motley's culture." To that we ask: What is feminist about repressing a space that emboldens the voices of women and other gender minorities? How is intersectional ethos preserved when the administration continues to punish the Motley for opposing a genocide and standing in solidarity with Palestinian liberation? Why does the college’s definition of inclusivity require the oppressed and the oppressor to occupy and share the same space?
The academy can only allow discourses that challenge but not disrupt zionist aims. Scripps has made clear how low its tolerance threshold is when it comes to discussions of colonial violence. To condemn a coffee house before a genocide is not just deplorable, it is also incredibly cowardly. To leave 51 students stranded with no income is nothing short of disgusting. Scripps cares about nothing except its zionist allies.
We stand in solidarity with the Motley – and will do all that is necessary to protect them, and this crucial insurgent space on campus.
SCORE
We, the undersigned groups, stand in unwavering solidarity with the Motley Coffeehouse in light of the administration’s recent decision to close the Motley. The Motley has historically been a student-run safe space for Scripps and other 5C students to gather, workshop ideas, and organize. As the student organizations that make up Scripps Communities of Resources and Empowerment (SCORE), we recognize the importance of free expression on campus. We push back against the administration’s narrative that the Motley’s recent actions jeopardize inclusion on campus. We find it especially harmful to target this center of student life for minoritized, queer, and students of color while the SCORE space remains largely unstaffed and its future unknown. The administration’s surprise decision to close the Motley’s affects not only campus life but the incomes of students who are financially reliant on-campus jobs. Ultimately, Scripps administration is alienating and actively hurting its students, whom the college would be nothing without. We urge the administration to reconsider its choice to shut down a key aspect of what makes Scripps College as we know it, rehire the Motley staff, and commit to protecting free speech.
Signed,
Asian American Sponsor Program
Asian American Student Union
Blend
Café con Leche
Family
Scripps International Community
Scripps QuestBridge Chapter
Watu Weusi
CSWA
CSWA STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE MOTLEY and the 51 student workers who Scripps just stripped of their the jobs in retaliation for Palestine solidarity speech.
On Saturday morning, Scripps President Amy Marcus-Newhall announced that the administration was closing the Motley, after a student put up a Palestine flag.
In addition to being blatantly anti-Palestinian, Scripps’ decision to close the Motley is shamelessly anti-worker, cutting off the incomes of 51 student workers who are mostly on work study.
In light of Scripps’ lockout of Motley workers in retaliation for their organizing, we renew our expression of solidarity with the Motley and its student workers. Scripps’ actions are reprehensible.
WE WILL FIGHT BACK.
7C Staff 4 Justice
7C Staff for Justice in Palestine stands in solidarity with the Motley Coffeehouse and the 50+ student employees who were terminated for their refusal to take down the Palestinian flag displayed on the Motley walls.
On Saturday, October 6th, Scripps President Amy Marcus-Newhall announced the closure of the Motley Coffeehouse. The decision, which abruptly stripped students of their source of income, was carried out to punish and silence current student workers, as well as intimidate those within the Scripps community who stand in solidarity with Palestine. While Scripps administration claims a desire to preserve a “feminist and intersectional ethos,” their actions indicate otherwise. To label the Palestinian flag as “unwelcoming” is discriminatory and an affront to the values of inclusivity and free expression.
As such, we reaffirm the Scripps Associated Students’ (SAS) demands… With unwavering support and love for our students, 7C Staff for Justice in Palestine
Scripps Scrapps
We, the managers of Scripps Scrapps, stand in unwavering solidarity with the Motley Coffeehouse and the 50+ student workers who were unjustly terminated from their jobs by Scripps administration for refusing to take down the Palestinian flag.
The decision to close the Motley was announced to the entire school at 6:01 AM on 10/5. Just three minutes later, at 6:04 AM, the HR Office officially notified the student workers – many of whom have work-study positions – that they would need to seek new employment. In closing the Motley and in announcing the closure to the public and to employees in this way, Scripps College has completely disrespected Motley staff and their rights. The College has also cut off 5C students, faculty, and staff from one of the most important spaces on campus.
We would like to join SAS in demanding…
5C Prison Abolition
This morning, Scripps President, Amy-Marcus Newhall, closed the Motley Coffeehouse, firing their 50+ (largely work-study) student employees. This closure serves to punish baristas and managers for their solidarity with Palestine, which they have maintained despite almost a year of intimidation by admin. LET US BE CLEAR: This is the “Palestine exception” at play Admin has refused to explain to Motley staff how this flag violates a specific school policy. This is not about “noncompliance”. There is no version of organizing for Palestine that the administration finds acceptable. But the community will not back down. Claremont students want to see a Free Palestine and a world without cages.
We support Scripps Associated Students’ (SAS) demands …
Nishmat/Kehillah/JVP
As Jewish students from Scripps and across the 5C community, we are writing to express our support for the Motley Coffeehouse and its student workers after the Scripps administration’s sudden closure of the Motley. This decision, which shuts down an important organizing and gathering space on campus, is deeply harmful to the Scripps and 5C community. The Motley has long been celebrated for their commitment to social justice and intersectional feminism, and should not be punished now for standing by their values and allowing students a space to voice their political beliefs.
As a collective of Jewish students, we wholeheartedly reject the implication that the mere presence of a Palestinian flag in the Motley “may inadvertently restrict free expression or create an unwelcoming atmosphere.” Why do Scripps administrators believe a Palestinian flag exludes or silences?Implicit in the administration’s language is the idea that we, as Jews, are being made to feel unwelcome in the space. But that isn’t true.
We reject the notion that our identities are in opposition to those of the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students on our campus, the idea that comfort for some of us must come at the cost of others’ safety, and the framing that suggests these actions
were taken with our community in mind. Expressions of solidarity with Palestine do not make us feel unwelcome. They are signs of a vibrant campus community that embraces our values of political engagement, diversity, and dissent.
We refuse to be tokenized and unfairly used by an administration that cites our supposed safety as a reason to silence student voices, shut down central community spaces, and lay off over 50 student employees — including Jewish students — without warning or justification. We will never be safe so long as we are singled out and isolated from our larger student community, and our grief weaponized to silence the voices of our peers. Though they may claim to, the Scripps administration does not speak for us.
Our political views as a community are varied, but we stand united in condemning the abrupt closure of the Motley. We join many student groups in calling on the Scripps administration to reopen the Motley immediately, reinstate student workers, and commit to protecting the rights of all our peers to advocate for marginalized people within our own community and worldwide.
Signed: Nishmat
Scripps College Kehillah JVP at the Claremont Colleges
PDfA
PDfA Stands in Unwavering Support of Motley Baristas
Yesterday, Scripps Admin shut down The Motley and fired 51 students in retaliation for Palestine solidarity.
Who did this?
Scripps President Amy Marcus Newhall
What the fuck is she doing?
A lockout (they changed the locks Sat. morning), classic tactic used by abusive employers.
Why is Scripps doing all this?
Scripps + all 5C admin are terrified of ALL anti-imperialist organizing. Well organized, pro-Palestine working class students = admin’s worst nightmare.
The contradictions of Scripps are heightening
Scripps does not give a shit about intersectional feminism because they profit from zionism, imperialism, and the continuation of settler colonialism. ` REPRESSION WILL BREED RESISTANCE.
SAS
We, the members of Scripps Associated Students, stand in unwavering solidarity with the Motley Coffeehouse and its student employees who have had their jobs revoked without warning. These actions are a clear affront and violation of our student body’s Title VI rights and the fundamental values of free speech, student empowerment, and workplace fairness that our institution claims to uphold, and that SAS is committed to championing. The Motley managers are full-time students- many of whom are seniors- who are actively working on their academics while trying their best to communicate with the deans and protect student baristas. Administration’s attempt to regain control over this narrative by claiming that the managers are uncooperative individuals perpetuates problematic ideas about women. Scripps College administration has repeatedly failed to make clear to student managers how they were in violation of Scripps policy on Advertising, Publicity, and Solicitation (4.1) which specifically pertains to flyers, not decorations. We strongly disagree with the decision to place full blame on these students who have had their requests for clarity disregarded.
A majority of these student employees are on work-study and rely on this employment as a financial lifeline and a foundation of their educational experience at this institution. By terminating these positions, the administration is placing the academic and personal well-being of over 50 Motley employees in jeopardy. These individuals are now left without the support of the administration whose job it is to protect and advocate for its students. This wrongful termination sends a disturbing message to all students who wish to feel comfortable expressing their convictions on campus or simply use the Motley as a safe, communal space. We believe that the administration’s demands for the
Motley’s decorations are infringing on the rights of our SWANA students under Title VI.
Scripps College cannot exist without its students. The Motley is the cornerstone of the Scripps community and since its inception has always served as a sanctuary for political expression. The college has violated its commitment to its students by placing a heavy blanket of censorship on this space and its employees. This is especially unsettling to us against the backdrop of Scripps’ position as a historically women’s college as the premise of such an institution is to uplift a marginalized group, and Scripps’ recent actions have strayed from this ethos.
We demand the following:
1. Immediate Rehiring of the Affected Employees: The Motley student employees should be reinstated to their positions without delay, with a formal apology issued for the harm caused to their wellbeing.
2. Commitment to Protecting Autonomous Free Speech and Expression: We call on Scripps College to publicly reaffirm their commitment to upholding autonomous free speech and political expression for all students, especially those employed on campus.
We believe that these steps are essential to restore the trust that has been severed between the student body and the institution, and to ensure that all students feel safe to express their support for oppressed individuals. SAS stands with the affected students and will continue to advocate for justice and equity in all Scripps spaces.
We will be leaving paper hearts outside the Motley along with pens/ pencils for students to share their support and solidarity for the Motley workers during this time. Please take the time to stop by to write your thoughts and feelings.
In solidarity, Scripps Associated Students
Photo courtesy of Claremont Undercurrents
Motley Barista Statement on 10/5 Closure
We, baristas of the Motley, are distraught and devastated by the administration’s sudden closure of The Motley Coffeehouse. In an email sent by President Amy Marcus-Newhall on 10/05/24 at 6:01 am, the immediate closure of the Motley was announced and 50 students were instantly put out of work. Scripps College made this decision without informing any staff members of the Motley before issuing their statement via email, which was sent out to the entire student body.
The administration provided no initial transparency or support for our staff before and immediately following this announcement, despite knowing that the majority of Motley employees are work-study students who rely on this job as a financial lifeline. Scripps did not offer us financial support until Tuesday, 10/08. This only happened after baristas emailed to express our collective fears, confusion, and the negative impact their actions have had on all aspects of our college lives–academic, emotional, and community at large.
We have never been just a coffeehouse. The College itself champions the Motley as a site of feminist political activism, student initiative, leadership, and as a hub for community engagement. The Motley is a key factor in what draws students to apply to this institution, serving as a community space that cultivates the very environment that Scripps promises upon admission. The Motley at its core is a space by and for students, and therefore cannot be that space without the student workers who make it what it is.
Yet, Scripps has shut us out from the place we cherish, the business we run, and the community that we’ve cultivated for 50 years. This closure is unprecedented in the history of the Motley, and it has caused our community great distress to see the dismissal of these years of labor and goodwill that have been developed by students across generations. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive and welcoming community space: the type of space that was needed 50 years ago and one that is equally invaluable right now.
What We Ask:
1. Immediate reopening of the Motley and restoration of our employment. All 50 Motley student employees should be reinstated to their positions, including our beloved management team. The Motley should be maintained as a student-run and studentstaffed space
2. Motley staff access to the space should be restored. Student managers should be provided with new keys (as the locks were changed), which will allow us to tend to the hundreds of dollars of perishable goods still locked inside.
3. Agreement to engage in good faith dialogue to establish a decoration policy for the Motley, created and put forth by the Motley, which aligns with our mission statement. We will apply this collaborative policy towards current and future decorations.
4. Written confirmation that no individual will face disciplinary consequences or threats to their employment status for the opinions and sentiments shared in these meetings and via email communication.
We reaffirm our desire for genuinely collaborative dialogue with Scripps administration. We ask that both consequences (i.e., shutdown) and timelines (i.e., when employment will be restored) are made clear to our entire team and that we are given sufficient time to respond as a student-run space in which decisions are not solely made by the management team.
We also ask for:
a. Acknowledgment of the Motley’s consistent dialogue with admin until
this point, which includes multiple meetings and repeated — still unmet — requests to specifically articulate how the Motley was out of compliance with Code of Conduct policy 4.1 prior to closing the space, as this still has not been clarified.
b. Meetings requested by admin to be open to the entire management team. Admin should also provide a transparent overview of the agenda in advance.
c. Permission to audio-record these meetings so managers can accurately relay information to the barista team. Recorded materials and/or transcriptions will be sent to admin so they can verify an accurate record of their words as well as ours before being distributed to the rest of the Motley team.
So what happened?
This process began when administration sent an email to the Motley co-heads on September 9th requesting that a Palestinian flag be taken down. In later emails, administration did not name the flag again, claiming that all decorations were out of compliance with Code of Conduct: 4.1 Advertising, Publicity, and Solicitation policy which specifically pertains to the regulation of flyers (which we complied with Spring 2024 at administration’s request by requiring OSE approval for flyers on our corkboard). Now, this policy is being unfairly retrofitted to control decorations, which in the Motley’s 50-year history have never been subject to administrative approval.
In the October 5th email to the school notifying us of the Motley’s closure, President Marcus-Newhall made 3 misleading claims as justification for the administration’s decision to shut down the Motley.
1. President Marcus-Newhall claimed that the Motley managers have ignored the Dean of Students’ repeated requests to issue an open call for visual materials for display inside the business.
In a meeting on September 25th, 2024, Dr. Sha Bradley requested that co-heads bring her suggestion of issuing an open call for visual materials to the collective team for their consideration. Although this was not communicated through email correspondences with administration, co-heads did bring up the request for an open call for visual materials with the manager team. Upon discussion, the manager team collectively decided that before entering another meeting with administration, the Motley team would need to set clear parameters for those meetings in order to feel comfortable expressing our beliefs, as well as to ensure that managers’ and baristas’ perspectives were being communicated with clarity and received in good faith. At the following all-staff meeting on Sunday, September 29th, 2024, the full team discussed and collectively decided on the following parameters: Permission to audio-record our meetings so we can accurately relay information to our barista team. We will send any recorded materials or transcriptions based on those recordings to you so that you can verify they are an accurate record of your words as well as ours.
• Written confirmation from administration that no individual will face disciplinary consequences or threats to their employment status for the opinions and sentiments shared in these meetings and via email communication. Meetings will be open to all managers on the management team, including our barista leads.
• An overview of the agenda for the conversation. An overview of a transparent
proposed list of criteria for how Dr. Hebert will be determining the approval of future signage, posters, materials, and all other decorations on the walls of the Motley Coffeehouse.
The parameters above were communicated to Dr. Bradley via email on Tuesday, October 1st, 2024. Managers agreed to bring Dr. Bradley’s suggestion to the team but did not agree to issue an open call for visual materials for display inside the business.
2. The President claimed that managers refused to attend operational meetings with the Business Affairs team.
The Motley management team met with administration three times to discuss decor in the Motley. September 13th, September 20th, September 25th. The co-heads, as full-time students and seniors working on thesis, declined to meet with administration one time on September 27th due to being overwhelmed with schoolwork, to which Dr. Bradley was sympathetic. At no point during any meeting or correspondence with Scripps administration did managers suggest or communicate that they were not willing to continue engaging in dialogue about the Motley’s decoration policy. In an October 1st email, which was the management team’s last communication with Scripps administration regarding the posting policy, managers wrote: “We are looking forward to continuing this conversation with you and Dr. Hebert and to engage in productive and meaningful discourse about the Motley’s decorations.”
• Dr. Bradley responded on October 2nd affirming her shared desire to continue communication, asking the team to consider an open-call to the Scripps community for decor submissions, and saying that she looked forward to hearing our response to her request.
• On October 5th, with no further communication between administration and the Motley team, Scripps closed the Motley and told us to look for other employment on Handshake.
3. Last, the President claimed that managers closed the business to the public for political purposes.
The Motley closed at 11 am on Tuesday, October 1st because the overwhelming majority of baristas scheduled to work that day chose to participate in a global strike for Lebanon. All Motley shifts have a minimum of 3 baristas, with 1 additional helper during rush shifts from 11-12 and 1-2. Due to the number of baristas who chose to strike, no shift had the number of baristas necessary to operate the bar. The managers were not responsible for closing the Motley on October 1st.
The Motley is Political
Since its founding in 1974, students and administration have upheld the Motley as a student-organized and student-centered political space. A 2022 TSL article encapsulates these elements well, with former Dean of Students Daryl G. Smith “emphasiz[ing] that the coffeehouse has been a student-led establishment from its inception… ‘They really took great ownership and responsibility,’ she recalls, adding that the student’s vision of what they wanted the Motley to be shaped every aspect of the coffeehouse, from its name to the artwork on its walls… [it was] important enough that it has been sustained to this day.’” Before the Motley existed, Scripps students had “no central student gathering place” at all. Yet just two years after the publication of this article, “students’ vision… [including] the artwork on its walls” is
no longer permissible, and our “ownership” of the space is exchanged for an insistence that we are a “college-owned business.” Scripps College celebrates the history and labor of our studentworkers for marketing and admissions, but we feel it has not been celebrated in practice. We understand that the College owns the property. However, it is essential to recognize that the Motley has always been a student-initiated and administered space that uplifts the voices of marginalized peoples to meet the current moment.
Political expression is almost always viewed as controversial and provocative; this was once – and is often still – true of women’s colleges, queer and trans pride, and insistence that Black Lives Matter. With all this said, administration has yet to specify how decorations in the Motley create an uninclusive environment in the first place.
The current Motley decorations do not break with but are a continuation of our fifty-year presence on campus. In the College’s own Guide to Student Life, the Motley has been advertised to students as a “non-profit, feminist organization collectively run by the students of Scripps College since 1974. It is an intersectional, political, and feminist business” (pg. 26 in the 2022-2023 edition). Two things are clear from the College’s own materials:
1) It understands the Motley as a “student-led establishment” whose stances are thus not synonymous with Scripps College as an institution. As part of our next steps, we would be happy to clearly establish that the Motley does not represent the views of all students, administrators, faculty, and alumni. Diversity of thought would make it impossible to do so.
2) The heart of the Motley is its “intersectional, political, and feminist” commitment, organized and enacted by students. Prior to our shutdown, administration’s insistence on systematically approving decorations within the Motley– particularly on the basis of vague and unarticulated policy criteria– completely undercuts this mission. Free expression is not free if it can be denied at whim.
With this said, we acknowledge that the Motley has not yet established a policy and set of criteria against which decorations can be evaluated. We are deeply committed to the Motley’s origins and community, and as we seek a path forward, we will be proposing a policy aligned with our mission statement.
How can the community support us?
As Motley baristas, we recognize the vital role the Scripps community plays in our workplace. We feel the support and love from the community and aim to serve as a place for students and faculty to come together, connect, and find sanctuary within our walls. However, the Scripps administration has claimed and expressed on behalf of the Scripps community, that our operation promotes an unwelcoming environment. We encourage Scripps students, faculty, and families to speak rather than be spoken for by the administration – reach out to Dr. Bradley (sbradley@scrippscollege. edu) and President Marcus-Newhall (amarcusn@scrippscollege.edu) with your opinions and exercise the power of your voices. In addition, please continue keeping the Motley and its student-workers in mind – engage in meaningful conversations by reaching out to alumni and sharing our history, mission, and closure with friends and family.
Finally, we encourage you to fill out our feedback survey (tinyurl.com/ MotSurvs).
Mot love <3, The Motley Barista Team
Community Responses to Motley Closure
The Scripps Voice sent out an anonymous survey open to all Scripps community members through Scripps Associated Students Oct. 6. It was open until Oct. 8 and collected 82 responses. The Voice does not have the print space to publish every statement. The nine selected quotes are not meant to represent the whole of Scripps community opinions and we encourage readers to read the full document of submissions through the QR code.
“Back in 2002, organizing against an unjust war was a central part of my Scripps education. The Claremont community taught us to think critically and to lead, and we did our best to apply those skills to stop the killing of civilians using US tax dollars and the erosion of our civil liberties. I’m proud to see Scripps students standing up again, and I’m appalled at the ways that the administration is pushing back this time, threatening their education and their financial well-being. I won’t be donating to Scripps until the Motley is open and students can speak up freely for what’s right.” - Alum
“When the Pomona Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault organized the Take Back the Night protest, the Motley was there. When I was coming into my own as a lesbian woman and scared of my own shadow, the Motley was there. It was the first place I put my arm around a woman, it made me feel safe to be queer when I didn’t feel that way basically anywhere else. When I needed a shelter, a refuge, a place to feel and be at home at a time of my life when I was so sad, scared, and alone, the Motley was there. It may seem insignificant to some but the Matcha cha cha picked me up from the depths of my college related anxiety and depression and carried me through my entire college experience. I knew that even if I felt the most severe imposter syndrome in the world that the warmth and love of that space would be there. I suffered the first two weeks of the semester when it was closed. I NEEDED that space for reasons that were far deeper than just whatever activism was going on at the time. Please, students are going to do activism always. Shutting the Motley, a place which is so vital for so many of us, is not preventing student activism. Instead, it’s all but ensuring that any student activism which occurs will be MORE public than it would’ve been in the first place. Just let us have our coffee shop please.” - Alum
“It’s enraging to know that supporting the end of Genocide is too much for Scripps. They have allowed the Motley to be completely student run since it’s inception- basically no intervention. This included during times of protesting Vietnam. While students strongly supported Abortion rights (and yes back then conservative students clutched pearls but were told by Admin that the Motley was a space for free speech.)
The Motley has seen anti-Bush protests, posters, art work. It has hosted many political positions that have made many people “upset” and the Administration has *never* stepped in or claimed they had rights over the freedom of speech present within the business. Yet, here, as students stand on the right side of history - with a simple yet strong statement. Suddenly, this is too far? It is disgraceful that the Admin stands with genocide, how embarrassing for them.
It’s also quite fascinating that now students are Scripps staff- I wonder where my (and all previous employees) benefits are? As a Scripps employee I was never offered retirement, health care or even over time. If students are in fact employees- Scripps better be ready to support them with all the same benefits that other employees receive. None of this - limited amounts students can earn (ie work study) nor should they be exempt from providing Health care, retirement and even vesting opportunities.
Lastly- Marcus-Newhall what a disappointment you have become.” - Alum
“The closure of the Motley by Scripps administration is disheartening, and will leave a mark on this administrations legacy. There are other signs in the Motley that one might deem controversial, “BLM” and “Abolish ICE” to name a few. Even then, the students did not face as much backlash that resulted in termination. A Palestinian flag hung up with the Mexican flag and other countries should not result in these extreme consequences. Terminating 51 students without warning is a form of violence, leaving students without income is VIOLENCE. It is a shame to see the steps the administration is taking to silence students. This sends the message that Scripps supports intersectional feminist frameworks, unless you are Palestinian, or you believe that Palestine should be free. Do better Scripps.” - Staff
“It is hypocritical that in the statement that President Amy Marcus-Newhall made, she cites that “It is our aim to preserve the feminist and intersectional ethos that has shaped the Motley’s culture and ensure that it also embodies the spirit of access and inclusion we strive to create on Scripps’ campus.”. How is advocating for the liberation of Palestine not feminist? How is limiting mostly work-study femm students of their free speech feminist? How is restrciting income of mostly work-study students feminists? How is restricting students feminist? I understand the concern of anti-seministism, but advocating for the liberation of Palestine is not the same as advocating for the genocide of Jewish students. This school teaches us about past genocides and structural inequities, but when one occurs in our present time, the elites and this school sides with the oppressor. If you truly wish to advocate for the “spirit of access” and “inclusion”, why limit student expression?” - Faculty
“The closing of the Motley is not just a clear statement of Zionist sentiments, a repression of student voices, and a disgusting misuse of “”feminist and intersectional”” values, it is a violation of trust and a clear mistreatment of Scripps student workers. Even if we look past the fact that Scripps admin is supporting a genocide and standing against the fight for Palestinian liberation by closing the Motley, they still fired 51 student workers with no notice and left them without what is, for many of them, an essential source of income.
The ability to organize in a safe, inclusive student space is essential to productive political discourse on a college campus, and the Motley has existed as a space for that since it opened. The ‘feminist and intersectional ethos that has shaped the Motley’s culture’ must be protected, and the wishes of the majority of Scripps students for Scripps admin to immediately reopen the Motley and apologize for all harm done should be honored. ” - Student
“I’m honestly embarrassed. I chose Scripps because as a historic woman’s college I expected better from our administration, I expected to be informed and cared and out and valued as a student. I assumed our mission was to uplift our students and teach them how to be active roles in society, and instead Scripps is being another vessel where women are told all the things they cannot do. I am so disappointed and embarrassed of our school right now, especially when the world needs our help more then ever.” - Student
“I have felt increasingly unsafe with the increased police presence and surveillance tactics utilized by Scripps and now prevalent in my daily routine walks to class and meals. The immediate implementation of these policing bodies after the Motley closure/ firing of 50 student-workers confirms my belief that the school does not trust their own students and ultimately see us as potential threats to be neutralized.
I am disappointed that, in the name of intersectional feminism, Scripps College locked up a beloved community space that housed many FGLI BIPOC at-risk students, such as myself. It is clear that this decision was made without considering any student input; rather, it was an action complicit in furthering the settler colonial, genocidal occupation of Palestine, funded by the dollars of the Scripps College endowment. Instead of heeding community calls for divestment, our President sided with the profit-motivated Board of Trustees.
As a senior on this campus, I am appalled at the actions of President Marcus-Newhall and all other assisting administrators and I am ashamed to receive a diploma from this school in the spring. “ - Student
“The closing of the Motley is incredibly disappointing. The Motley is the heart of campus in so many ways, and I remember when it reopened after the pandemic how excited and joyful we all were to have that space back. Its role in student activism is something I’ve always been impressed by even as a prospie, and closing it completely shuts down students’ first amendment rights. It’s obvious that administration is uncomfortable with pro-Palestinian anti-genocide activism, and by shutting down the Motley, admin is shutting down any other type of activism too. I don’t understand why the admin would do this--they know students are unhappy with their efforts to censor them, and this is just going to make it worse. It seems like admin only wants to placate unhappy alums and parents and they don’t care about listening to current students. As an alum myself, this action by admin makes me lose pride in my school and faith that the administration is actually making the best choices for Scripps. Sure, we won “Best Student Experience” from the WSJ, but that means nothing when students are being censored and cannot access one of the best spaces on campus. And just a couple days before the shutdown, the Scripps Instagram was bragging about the Motley for International Coffee Day! So hypocritical.” - Alum
“As an alum who also works in higher ed, I’ve watched how campus climate has shifted during the last year both at my current institution and in reporting from Scripps and other schools around the country. There’s a lot of justified fear around speaking out in support of Palestine and I commend the students and Motley staff who have continued to do so even in the face of an administration that seems determined to shut them out. History will not look kindly on those who chose to ignore or deny the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and based on its current actions, that includes the leadership of Scripps College. As an alum, I cannot in good conscience continue to donate to an institution that tries to limit free speech of students through a Palestine exception, and by extension of that, deny an ongoing genocide. I would encourage my fellows alums to consider withholding their donations as well, until these practices cease.” - Alum
“As a Jewish student, and as a person, I have been feeling consistently stressed about the tension on campus relating to the Israel-Palestine conflict. I think there is often a lot of harm done any time people speak louder than the amount they educate themselves, which seems to frequently (though certainly not always) be the case here. I think Scripps admin (alongside the administrations of many other American universities) has consistently failed to open up space for thoughtful conversation and education, silencing disagreement rather than fostering it, or fostering openness through it. The Motley closure is only the most recent example of that. It is a disservice to everyone in our campus community that the President’s statement disguised her message behind platitudes. It would serve us better to know specifically why the Motley was closed when it was closed and in the way it was closed—I have now heard a variety of accounts—and to discuss more openly and respectfully the ways our community has fractured and what we can do both to heal and to be responsible citizens of a country that wields enormous economic power on the global stage.” - Student
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Genocide On Livestream
By Claremont Undercurrents
On Oct. 7, 2023, armed groups led by Palestinian Islamicist resistance organization Hamas broke out of the Zionist-blockaded Gaza Strip, launching an unprecedented attack on Zionist military bases and settlements.
The Zionist regime responded by killing over 186,000 Gazans, according to a Lancet study’s estimate — almost 8% of the total population of Gaza. The regime carried out and continues to carry out the genocide through aerial bombardment and land invasion, targeting aid convoys, hospitals, refugee camps, and schools. It has also accelerated land seizures in the West Bank, including the largest seizure since 1993 on July 4. Many Zionist regime officials — and their allies in legislatures across the U.S. — openly called for exterminating and driving out Palestinians from Gaza.
The U.S. has provided $6.5 billion in military aid to the Zionist regime since Oct. 7, including the transfer of more than 10,000 MK-84 “dumb bombs” used to bombard Gaza. The Biden administration, along with Democrat and Republican leadership, have steadfastly stood by the Zionist regime, denying the genocide and repeatedly approved new military aid measures, despite overwhelming popular support for the U.S. to call for a ceasefire. The U.S. has provided more than $310 billion in aid to the Zionist regime since 1946, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
As millions took to the streets in the U.S. in protest, students across the country pointed out their own colleges’ complicity in the accelerating genocide and moved to disrupt business as usual and demand divestment from companies profiting from the occupation and weapons manufacturers enabling the genocide.
Claremont Escalates for Gaza
I n Fall 2023, a broad coalition of student groups coalesced to demand that Pomona College, the wealthiest and most prestigious Claremont College, divest from the Zionist genocide. Facing Pomona’s steadfast defense of its institutional support of the genocide, students mobilized for escalating mass and direct actions to push the college to act.
Pomona has explicitly disclosed at least one direct investment in a company targeted for profiting from the genocide by PACBI* and has im -
plied that it has other investments in complicit companies and weapons manufacturers.
Some student actions targeted the school’s reputation, like the disruption of President Starr’s Family Weekend address; some targeted moneymakers, like Frary’s Harry Potter dinner; and others hit both, like the spring encampment that forced Pomona to move commencement and lose hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in the process.
In the spring, the campaign named itself Pomona Divest from Apartheid, and demonstrated overwhelming community support for divestment. In a February ASPC**
referendum, 86% of students voted in favor of disclosure 82% in favor of divestment from companies complicit in the Zionist apartheid. In April, Pomona’s faculty senate voted over 64% in favor of divestment, one of the first faculty bodies in the country to do so .
The campaign follows years of Palestine solidarity organizing in Claremont. In 2021, ASPC voted unanimously to prevent its funding from being spent on “companies involved in the creation of illegal Israeli settlements.” In 2019, after a yearlong SJP campaign, Pitzer College’s College Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution to suspend the school’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa in Israel, the self-proclaimed “backbone of the IDF’s elite training program.” ThenPresident Melvin Oliver vetoed the resolution.
At Pitzer, SJP re-launched the Suspend Pitzer Haifa campaign in early 2023, organizing through Pitzer’s governance structure as well as through direct actions, like delegations, admitted students day disruptions and an encampment set up on the commencement lawn, for academic boycott. Despite another veto by Pitzer President Strom Thacker, the campaign successfully pressured the school to cut its Haifa program in April 2024.
The spring also saw the launch of the Mudders Against Murder campaign which demanded that Harvey Mudd cut ties with defense contractors, especially through its engineering and computer science clinic contracts. A campaign petition gained signatures from a third of the student body within a month, and pressured administrators and trustees through delegations and disruptions.
*PACBI: Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
**ASPC: Associated Students of Pomona College
Pomona represses divestment movement with police, disciplinary sanctions
On April 5, riot police from five neighboring police departments — 26 vehicles worth — flooded the blocks around Alexander Hall. At the request of Pomona administrators, who students later learned through a public records request had met with the Claremont Chief of Police two days earlier to plan the “intervention,” dozens of riot police carrying riot shields and crowd control weapons marched into President G. Gabrielle Starr’s office and arrested 19 students quietly sitting on the ground. The students were handed suspension and campus ban letters in jail, where some students were held until midnight, apparently at the request of the Director of Campus Safety — former LA sheriff’s deputy and police officer — Mike Hallinan.
This wildly disproportionate use of police force on April 5 was the most visible incident of repression of the divestment movement at Pomona, but it followed a long pattern of attempts. Pomona administrators and trustees met demands for divestment by closing ranks to defend their investments in the Zion-
ist regime, refusing to acknowledge Palestinian humanity and smearing anti-Zionism — and solidarity with Palestine in general — as antisemitic and terroristic, even when Jewish students visibly led the charge.
Just days after the first Pomona action for divestment, the school adopted a new Demonstration Policy that restricted allowed protest actions and targeted tactics used in the first action. On Nov. 8, Pomona threatened to have Campus Safety officers remove the masks of protesters — just a day after the Zionist organization StandWithUs sent Pomona a legal memo recommending that they do so. On Nov. 26, Campus Safety called Claremont Police to isolate and arrest a Pomona professor playing Palestinian music on a sidewalk.
Like at Pomona, at other campuses across the country, administrators abused disciplinary processes to surveil and punish students who participated in actions for divestment and militarized their campuses with police, leading to waves of mass arrests in the spring. Arrests at Columbia, Vanderbilt, Brown, UCLA, and USC, in particular, informed Claremont organizers’ understanding and tactics.
We Will Not Stop, We Will Not Rest
The end of the year sees Palestine solidarity campaigns having built and showed overwhelming popular support for divestment across multiple campuses, and mobilized hundreds of community members to strategic direct action against campus administrations and trustees.
“Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!” So rang the chant at campuses across the country in the face of brutal encampment sweeps and mass arrests. At Claremont, students left campus — many joining the movement in their new local communities — as the Pomona divestment movement escalated to its highest point yet, taking over Marston Quad with a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Besides its visibility and direct occupation of space, the encampment cost Pomona upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, as it was forced to move commencement at the last minute.
Despite this, the genocide rages on, and the Claremont Colleges — and other higher education institutions across the imperial core — continue to contribute to and profit off of the Zionist project to colonize Palestine. Organizers continue to develop the movement and its strategies. At the UCs, and more recently, Columbia, organizers have looked to labor power and Unfair Labor Practice charges as a tactic for pressuring for divestment.
This second issue of Undercurrents documents the past year of Palestine solidarity organizing at the Claremont Colleges, especially focusing on the Pomona divestment campaign. This magazine, rooted in rigorous on-the-ground documentation and reporting, seeks to be a resource for future information, inspiration, agitation and mobilization to action — whatever the strategy and tactics maybe to meet the urgency and possibilities of the situation.
Zionism and Anti-Zionism: The Student Movment in Context
Contribution by Claremont
Undercurrents
Staff Member
It is easier to be anti-genocide than anti-Zionist. However, an antigenocidal or anti-apartheid stance ultimately requires one to fully confront Zionism itself and the fact that, as is often said, the story of the genocide in Palestine did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023.
The History of Zionism
Where did Zionism come from? European colonial powers had been engaged in projects of dispossession and dehumanization abroad since the early 1500s and were well-versed in a set of myths designed to legitimize violent expulsion and eradication of people from their land—such narratives claimed that the “found” land was unused and empty (terra nullius), that European settlers had the absolute right to claim sovereignty through colonization (manifest destiny and the doctrine of discovery), and that the existing inhabitants, when acknowledged to exist at all, were savage and uncivilized (scientific racism).
Many of these tropes are replicated in Zionist narratives, such as the idea that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land” and that Israel “made the desert bloom.” Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, wrote that “the native [Palestinian] population was akin to ‘the rocks of Judea, as obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path.’” Despite rhetoric denying Israel’s colonial past and present, Sumaya Awad and Annie Levin emphasize that “every Zionist knew that the main obstacle to founding their state was that the land they wanted for themselves was already inhabited.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Palestine was “a thriving Arab society—mostly Muslim, predominantly rural, but with vibrant urban centers” under Ottoman rule. Historian Ilan Pappe describes how, well before European powers carved up the Levant following World War I, Palestine was a “geographical and cultural entity” with a distinct “unifying sense of belonging.”
According to Ella Shohat, SWANA Jewish communities were “generally well-integrated and indigenous to their countries of origin, forming an inseparable part of their social and cultural life.”
Meanwhile, anti-Jewish hatred and racism in Europe became increasingly widespread towards the end of the 1800s. This culminated in violent persecution in the form of pogroms, mob attacks on Jewish communities largely in the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century, and the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in France involving the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of a Jewish officer. It was in this context that political Zionism eventually emerged to assert that European Jewish people would only be safe with the establishment of a sovereign nation-state of their own outside of Europe.
The writings of journalist Theodor Herzl, such as his 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State, helped consolidate
and popularize Zionism as a political project. The place of said nationstate was up for consideration. According to Herzl, options included Argentina, Uganda, Cyprus, a couple of midwestern U.S. states, and Palestine. Palestine’s religious significance as “the holy land,” of course, made it a particularly strong candidate: as put by Herzl, “the very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency.”
Herzl strongly advocated for a collaboration with European imperial powers, who he believed “would have to guarantee our existence,” by bringing to life the Zionist colonial project. In fact, Herzl envisioned that a Zionist state would “form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” Herzl acted on these ideas by establishing the Zionist Organization and the first Zionist Congress in the late 1890s, which included the creation of “the instruments of systematic colonization” such as the “‘Jewish Colonial Trust’ (1898), the ‘Colonization Commission’ (1898), the ‘Jewish National Fund’ (1901), the ‘Palestine Office’ (1908) and the ‘Palestine Land Development Company’ (1908).”
Zionism soon found its European ally in British imperialism. In the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Britain pledged to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine following the end of World War I and the dissolution and distribution of the Ottoman Empire. At the time of the establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1919, Jewish immigrants made up 3% of the population of Palestine, a number which rose to 33% by 1947 due to British facilitation of Jewish immigration to Palestine.
On May 15, 1948—the day the British Mandate was set to expire and transfer control to the UN, which planned to establish a two-state solution and give 55% of the land to the Zionist state—David Ben Gurion and the Jewish Agency declared the creation of the State of Israel. While this date is memorialized as Nakba Day, the campaign of expulsion and ethnic cleansing, in fact, began earlier in 1947, when the British announced the intended transfer to the UN.
Throughout the campaign, Zionist paramilitary groups committed a series of massacres according to Plan Dalet, which called explicitly for “destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris)... [and] in case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.” By 1949, Zionist militias displaced at least 750,000 and killed between 8,000 and 15,000 Palestinians. The newly created State of Israel also controlled 78% of Palestinian land.
In light of these histories, Zionism cannot be understood as an abstract project of Jewish nationalism or sovereignty—instead, it is a particular historical form of European ethnonationalist ideology that developed as inseparable from a colonial project.
Rabea Eghbariah similarly suggests in his paper “Nakba as a Legal Concept”
that we should understand Zionism as Nakba and that “the Nakba, which is the material corroboration and culmination of the ideals espoused by Zionism, leaves no room for doubt as to Zionism’s key feature.”
Settler Colonialism and Anti-Zionism
Israel is commonly analyzed in mainstream media through the frameworks of military occupation, international law, and human rights. While sometimes necessary to engage, these frameworks avoid the root cause of the “conflict” and make forms of liberal or “left Zionism” appear possible or acceptable. Settler colonialism, on the other hand, allows us to draw connections between Zionism and other European projects of genocide and the attempted replacement of Indigenous people from Tovangar (Los Angeles) to Aotearoa (New Zealand).
Settler colonialism, opposed to other forms of colonialism that rely on economic or political control through a native comprador class, aims to entirely destroy and replace the native society. Settler colonial powers achieved this through various tactics, from forced assimilation and cultural genocide (such as the Canadian and American boarding schools) to forced relocation and dispossession (such as the Trail of Tears in the U.S. or the Nakba in Palestine). Genocide, then, is not a fluke of settler government. Genocide is at the heart of settler colonialism.
Naming Israel as a settler colonial project allows us to make those connections of solidarity across geographies and histories. “The strength of using a settler-colonial framework in Palestine Studies,” as Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah write, “is precisely its ability to historicize the colonization of Palestine as a process that began long before the 1948 Nakba”—let alone, of course, before October 7.
A proper understanding of settler colonialism instead allows us, settlers or not, in and outside of Palestine, to join the resistance movements (such as Hamas in their 2017 charter) in realizing the enemy as the ideology and structures of colonization. The question of resisting the Zionist entity is less a question of who deserves to live on the land or has the right to establish a state but who is fighting (and how) for the preservation and reconstitution of respectful, reciprocal, and decolonial relations to the land, the people, and the non-human/more-than-human worlds of Palestine.
We can now distinguish two shades
of meaning within the term “antiZionism.” First, anti-Zionism is a political position that asserts that Zionism is problematic in and of itself. While mainstream or liberal Zionist narratives might portray all issues with the Israeli state as ultimately the fault of a particular leader or faction (in this moment, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the government he represents), anti-Zionists hold the colonial ideology of Zionism itself responsible for its ongoing genocidal manifestations.
In a broader context of Palestinian resistance, anti-Zionism is a movement for decolonization. Leila Shomali and Lara Kilani describe this commitment to anti-Zionism as follows: “if we accept that zionism is an ongoing process of settlercolonialism, then the undoing of zionism requires anti-zionism, which should be understood as a process of decolonization. Anti-zionism as a decolonial ideology then becomes rightly situated as an indigenous liberation movement.”
Anti-Zionism in the Student Intifada
This analysis of Zionism and anti-Zionism is not an abstract theoretical framework we are imposing without prior research or application. Rather, it has arisen from the critical study and consciousness of generations of Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish scholars and organizers.
The student organizing documented in this issue is no different. For example, SJP hosted teach-ins highlighting settler colonialism as the key framework for understanding “the historical processes that produced our current conditions,” and Pomona Divest from Apartheid centers anticolonialism and anti-imperialism in their Points of Unity, rejecting “attempts to place colonization in the past.”
This introduction to the ideological positions and practices of Zionism and anti-Zionism is given as a cautionary reminder: do not substitute anti-Zionism for less oppositional ends. Do not assume activism is or should only be concerned with unjust arrests, or with repressive university administrations, or with the genocidal actions of the IOF. When you read the following stories on direct action and community activism in Claremont and beyond, understand that a worldhistorical movement—one that began with Palestinian resistance to the ideology driving paramilitary settler violence, alongside a parallel Jewish rejection of all-encompassing and racist Zionist rhetoric—is unfolding.
Photo courtesy
Campus Safety or PD?: 5C Prison Abolition Speaks on the Call to Get Cops Off Campus
By Editorial
Within the last year, there has been an increase in violent tactics employed by Campus Safety, including racial profiling and assisting with the detainment and arrest of a Chicanx Latinx studies professor, helping facilitate the arrest of 19 5C students, and physically assaulting a student press representative. These acts of repression have been in the context of student protesters fighting for 5C divestment from Israel.
This increase in militarization correlates to the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Lebanon since Oct. 7 of last year. Around 186,000 Palestinians have been martyred due to the ongoing genocide, according to an estimate by the Lancet medical journal.
In the wake of this violence both at home and abroad, The Scripps Voice sat down with three 5C Prison Abolition Collective steering members to discuss Campus Safety’s role at the 5Cs. They addressed the history of campus security at universities, Campus Safety’s ties to the larger prison industrial complex, and how the fight for prison abolition ties into the Palestinian liberation movement.
A member of PrisAb steering said students are often confounded by Campus Safety’s role at the 5Cs due to the contradiction between their advertisement and their subsequent actions towards students.
“One thing that's really annoying about campus security, as an organization, is that the types of officers and the types of roles that people play in the office are absolutely not clear,” they said. “I think a lot of people do not really understand when they're interacting with a member of campus security [or] whether or not they're a trained sworn officer or if they're someone who was just hired off the reserves for event staff.”
Campus Safety’s mission statement states they are “[committed to] protecting individuals and property to the best of [their] ability while striving for excellence in all [their] endeavors.” Campus Safety’s website also describes their working relationship with the Claremont Police Department: “Campus Safety also takes reports of crimes and incidents for Claremont Police Department investigation and assists law enforcement and other emergency service providers.”
A member of PrisAb steering said the relationship between Campus Safety and Claremont Police Department (CPD) has become much clearer in the aftermath of the arrest of student protesters.
“Ideologically, for a really long time people have given campus safety a lot of grace and criticized students for affiliating them with the police in their mind,” they said. “But I think a lot of that has changed after the arrest [of 19 students] that happened last year. I feel that made [it] abundantly clear that there is a working relationship between the two organizations and also that campus security sees themselves as a policing force who's not here to keep students safe.”
One member of the PrisAb steering committee said that students have a common misconception when thinking about the dynamic between the two entities. “I think what a lot of people miss out on is thinking that because they [Campus Safety] are not the Claremont Colleges PD, that they do not have an active working relationship with [the] LAPD with the Claremont PD. They have what's called a memorandum of understanding, which is like a legal document which lays out what is and is not the jurisdiction of Claremont PD versus campus security.”
A document like this facilitates the jurisdiction and communication between Campus Safety and CPD. In line with this cooperation, a meeting between the Director of Campus Safety Mike Hallinan, Pomona Dean of Students Avis Hinkson, Pomona Vice President and Treasurer of Pomona College Jeff Roth, and Chief of Claremont PD Aaron Fate took place on April 2; three days before the arrest of 19 student protesters last semester.
“They're here to police picket lines,” a PrisAb member said. “They're here to remove students from buildings. They're here to take photos of students' faces [of] people trying to cover up so that [protesters] could be prosecuted within the university for crossing that ideological line [of liberal discourse to] being proPalestine or being pro-worker.”
This conflation between Campus Safety and the police has become further evident this semester, following the increased working relationship between the two organizations and Campus Safety’s police-style strategies to surveil, repress, and punish student protesters.
Over the summer, Pomona College employed five additional Campus Safety officers. Earlier this semester, Campus Safety deployed an LRAD (long-range acoustic device) at a Mudders Against Murder action at a Harvey Mudd career fair. LRADs are specialized loudspeakers used by police for crowd control at protests and can be loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Most recently, there was an apparent increase in Campus Safety before and during the Oct. 7 walkout and sit-in at Carnegie Hall.
This repression and aggression toward student protesters at the 5Cs have brought to light campus security’s deep-rooted history as policers of student activism across college campuses. The PrisAb steering member highlighted how campus security began “as night watchman and then shifted specifically at Columbia University during the protests against the Vietnam War.”
“There were student movements that were happening on campuses and that was becoming a problem,” the same PrisAb member said. “Student bodies were becoming increasingly diverse. It wasn't just rich white guys who were going to university. What universities realized was that it was inefficient to rely on outside police departments to control their student body. So that's when campus security becomes a professionalized bureau within the
university.”
The steering member said this was the “turning point in history when campuses started to police their own students as opposed to having campus security to keep poor people off of their campuses while they were encroaching and gentrifying surrounding areas.”
Throughout Campus Safety’s history at the 5Cs, they have attempted to reframe their image from “night watchmen/security guards” to “professional purveyors of services both service and law enforcement related,” according to a 1999 email announcing the immediate name change from Campus Security to Campus Safety. It states, “Campus Safety more accurately reflects the inherent combination of services but also to increase the level and quality of services given to the community.”
In the past two years, Campus Safety has changed their blue uniforms, which resemble that of police, to a gray polo and khakis.
Students are unconvinced by these superficial changes, a steering member explained. “[They] just blur the lines,” they said. “It’s like ‘we’re police because we carry pepper spray but we're not police because I'm wearing a gray shirt and not a blue shirt.’ It makes it so nobody knows what their jurisdiction is and so nobody knows what their rights are.”
The most notable contradiction to Campus Safety’s attempted shift in image is the hiring of Hallinan, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff and graduate of the FBI National Academy.
A member of the steering committee noted that Hallinan’s presence on campus has abated students’ trust in Campus Safety. “He clearly has a vision as to how the Claremont Campus Safety office should operate and we're feeling it. He's bringing his prior experiences to campus. The relationship between students and Campus Safety has only gotten worse, it has only become more agitated because they've become a militaristic policing operation.”
The PrisAb member added, “It's another indication of the colleges putting their money where their values are, which is about like policing their students and like giving campus security a brand new building, brand new cars, brand new uniforms, and changing the name from campus security to campus safety instead of actually reacting to the structural problems.”
A steering member added that Campus Safety’s continued adherence to The Clery Act, a law that requires Campus Security to inform their community of crime statistics and potential threats and dangers, contributes to the criminalization of unhoused people and student protesters.
They mentioned a Sept. 10, 2023 Campus Safety message, which described a subject “prowling through windows at Pitzer College,” as an example of how Campus Safety utilizes “crazy racialized language.”
The steering member cited the Oct. 7 Campus Safety message regarding
the “taking over [of] Carnegie Hall” as one such incident. “The [student protesters] said everybody had a right to come and go as they pleased and we will be done at 4:00 p.m. Is that what you see reflected in that text blast? Absolutely not,” they said. “It's crazy the way in which they are able to criminalize student activism, peaceful student activism by using that system [...] That's when the real crackdown and intimidation occurs because of this conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism and because of people being racist towards black and brown people.”
PrisAb members shed light on how Campus Safety’s response to student protests for Palestine is an example of the larger ways the prison industrial complex upholds colonization. “The prison industrial complex is a set of interests that are the [same] state set of interests [used] to control people of color, poor people, and queer people. One could argue that Israel as a Zionist imperialist state has a similar set of interests [and] is also backed by the US and the US military.”
They also highlighted how the police are trained alongside the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces), which establishes a larger connection between the United States prison industrial complex and the ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine, specifically referring to Gaza as the “biggest open-air prison in the world.”
Although Campus Safety’s ongoing actions against the work and voices of student activists may be despairing, a member of PrisAb imagined long-term abolition as a creative and continuous endeavor.
“It's about accepting that maybe we don't have a complete vision for the future, but that we know what's happening right now doesn't work.”
TSV Editorial Staff 2024-2025
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Reclaiming and Reframing the Narrative: An Annotation
By Staff Contributor
The Motley Archives and the Palestine Exception
By Guest Contributors
Against Scripps administration’s attempts to subsume the Motley’s history into their own political narrative, we, an autonomous group of Scripps students, intend to demonstrate that the Motley has always been a space of political expression and independence from the Administration. We reject the Scripps Administration’s attempt to whitewash and dilute this political history. Dive into the archives to see for yourself.
