Claremont Iron Front
This is an incubation project
President Gabrielle Star for her letter of October 2023 condemning the “terrorist attacks”, which aroused the opposition of Pomona protestors. List of Official Statements by Pomona College Letter regarding ASPC referendum on Divestment:
“As this vote unfolds, I call on our community to treat each other with care, and to refuse personal attacks as we affirm who we are at our best.
My concerns about the referendum are deep, and come down to not only who I believe we are, but how I believe we should tackle difficult questions.
The referendum seeks to reduce a complex moral issue to a series of yes or no questions. It threatens to undermine our community in its diversity, and divides us by offering a set of one-sentence litmus tests for justice. The referendum provides no path for informed debate or discussion while offering as settled “definitions” a set of highly debatable and hotly contested propositions, and thus ignores the principles of good governance and the educational mission of our community. For many years now, the only nation on which ASPC has focused its activity is the world’s only Jewish state. This singling out of Israel raises grave concerns about the referendum's impact on members of our community. For this reason, and even though I know our students do not intend this, the referendum raises the specter of antisemitism ..”
The CMC administration declined to make a statement, citing institutional neutrality, We thank the CMC faculty for the letter authored by Lenny Fukshansky and signed by 65 faculty
When asked to explain CMC’s neutrality policy, Chief Strategic Communications Officer Megan Jordan cited the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report. In February 2023, the CMC Board of Trustees endorsed the report, which is supposed to guide the college’s “role in political and social action.” The Kalven Report states that a university “is a community which cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness. There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives.”
Regarding the Pomona faculty-led letter of _ we have three questions:
We call on faculty and student groups to join us in recognizing Nisan/Vaisakha as the first month of Aviv/Spring and an Asian heritage first month of the year
Regarding the suspension of seven students, reported in the NYTimes 19th April 2024: we ask for suspension of at least one faculty member for every three students, for having incited and justified this type of militant intifada, else the students are bearing disproportionate punishment for the historical ignorance, antiJudaism, and moral error that they were taught by their professors. https://tsl.news/20-student-protesters-arrested-at-pomona-college/ 5th April https://tsl.news/pomona-college-faculty-votes-to-pass-resolution-condemning-college-over-250-7c-community-members-walkout-for-divestment/ https://tsl.news/opinion-dear-pomona-college-administrators-masked-protestors-arent-a-danger-to-our-community-but-you-are/
https://www.pitzer.edu/president/decision-on-college-council-recommendation/
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-12/pomona-college-palestine-gaza-activism