Problems at the Claremont Colleges

The Claremont Colleges are a conglomeration of universities in the Claremont area of Southern California. Recently, several of the campuses have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. If you were to guess that the problems are connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Gaza, you would be spot on. 

On November 29, 2023, a Pomona College professor, not further identified, was arrested for trespassing by Claremont police in front of Smiley Hall as he was participating in an anti-Israel demonstration. The above link is from the campus newspaper, The Student Life.

On April 5, 2024, a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Pomona College verbally insulted staff and others and refused to identify themselves to police. 18 people were reportedly arrested, and the university has announced that there will be suspensions.

Now, another Claremont campus, Pitzer College, has decided to end its study abroad program with the University of Haifa, caving in to pressure from the BDS mob. That has led to a letter to the university from the Amcha Initiative, which can be accessed here. 

While I applaud the announcement of suspensions for the April 5 incident(s), I still think it falls short. I understand the concept of free speech, and academia over the decades, has come to view protest as part of what it wants to impart to students. At the same time, there should be behavioral boundaries, and when those boundaries are crossed, when protest becomes insults, threats, disruption, blocking of access, refusing to cooperate with police, and hateful rhetoric- let alone physical violence, then the universities need to take action.

Festering for decades, the tensions on our campuses over the Middle East conflict have been heating up to an all-time high since October 7. Is it so far-fetched to predict that someone is going to die on one of our campuses?