Pomona

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For months this year and last, Hamas supporters disrupted Pomona College, blocking students from classes, occupying professors’ and administrators’ offices, and trashing the campus. At the end of the school year, the college finally called in the cops to clear a tent city erected by the demonstrators, arrested a handful of the rioters, and handed out stern letters of disapproval and a couple of suspensions. This draconian punishment failed to impress the students [sic] and when school started up again this fall, so did they.

Pro-Hamas Activists at Pomona College Take Over and Vandalize a Campus Building

John Sexton

Pomona College in southern California is one of five undergraduate colleges and two grad schools that make up a group called the Claremont Colleges. These schools are very selective with Pomona College accepting a lower percentage of applicants than UCLA or UC Berkeley. But the school has had challenges with a group of student activists who call themselves Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA).

On Oct. 7, PDfA held a student walkout similar to the one held at Columbia University on the other side of the country.

…. The group then marched to Carnegie Hall where classes were being held and shoved their way in past security.

Midway through those two to three hours the school put out a statement condemning the action and threatening consequences.

A 1:28 p.m. email from Pomona College read in part, “What started as a peaceful protest this morning has now turned into a subset of individuals currently taking over Carnegie Hall and disrupting academic continuity. Carnegie Hall is now closed, and all individuals should leave that building.”

The email went on to advise all to “please stay away from Carnegie and its immediate surrounding area, to ensure everyone’s safety. We will not permit the presence of masked, unidentified individuals on our campus refusing to show identification when asked. Nor will we stand for the takeover of buildings and the disruption of academic continuity — all of which happened today. Anyone involved in this disruption is subject to disciplinary action.

“We uphold the right to free speech and to protest within the lines of our long-established Claremont Colleges demonstration policy,” it continued. “As always, peaceful protest is allowed within demonstration policy. This action goes beyond policy.”

Sexton: “If they were serious about consequences, they could have just called the police and asked the to arrest everyone in the building. But they didn't do that. Instead, the activists stayed for another two hours and then just left by the back door without being identified or stopped by security. Once it was over, the school sent out another email claiming to have identified some of the activists.”

We have initial identification of several people involved, including a number of individuals from other campuses. As we identify others, disciplinary letters will be sent on a rolling basis. The individuals responsible face sanctions that may include restitution, suspension, expulsion, as well as being banned from campus. We will not, however, be commenting on individual cases.

Its a pretty good bet that Pomo administrators will not take any serious action against these people — as Greenwich’s own David Rafferty asserted just last week, if there are students at disrupted universities who want to study or feel safe, let them find another school. “Anyone currently on a campus where the protests and counter-protests, violence and fear is still front and center, well, you can’t say you didn’t have options.”

I despise Rafferty’s views, but he’s right on this one; if universities chose to stop these criminals, they could; if they don’t, to quote Rafferty again, “then that’s on them”.

How could these spoiled children be stopped? A commenter to Seton’s article gives a simpe answer to what is really just a simple question:

I worked at the University of Arkansas for six years and have experience with this. Here's what everyone needs to know:
Nothing short of expulsion will stop this. When you're expelled, it's over. You can't transfer your transcripts to another school, and you get no refunds. It's as if you never went to that university. Students, and the parents paying for them to be there, immediately respond to that action and start governing themselves accordingly.
You only have to expel a batch of vandal students once and the message is received loud and clear. There'll be a week of griping and a few demonstrations over it, and then the problem goes away and stays away as "we will not tolerate this" becomes part of the known history of the campus.
You expel them and send their family a bill for repairs. The problem ends in a heartbeat.