Eighteen students at Pomona College in Claremont, California, were arrested on Friday and charged with misdemeanor trespassing, and one student was arrested for obstruction of justice, according to the Claremont police department, during a protest in response to the removal of pro-Palestinian art on the college campus.
Students criticized the heavy police response to the protest, as law enforcement officers from Claremont, Pomona, Azusa and La Verne responded to the scene in riot gear.
Organizers of the protest, Pomona Divest Apartheid, said demonstrators entered Alexander Hall on campus in protest of an “apartheid wall” of artwork from students supporting Palestine being removed after being up since 28 March.
Pomona College student Diana Truong told CBS News in response to the police presence after spending a night in jail: “We believed we were doing what was right, in terms of advocating and supporting each other.”
The student government at Pomona College voted in February 2024 to divest all school investments from Israeli apartheid, which was opposed by the school’s president, Gabrielle Starr. More than 75% of student voters voted in favor of five propositions on divestment at the school, including ceasing all academic support for the state of Israel, and voting for the college to divest from all companies tied to Israel and all weapons manufacturers.
In a letter on Friday in response to the protest, Starr wrote: “Any participants in today’s events on the SCC lawn or in Alexander Hall, who turn out to be Pomona students, are subject to immediate suspension. Students from the other Claremont Colleges will be banned from Pomona’s campus and subject to discipline on their own campuses. All individual participants not part of the Claremont Colleges community are hereby banned from campus immediately.”
The arrests were the latest campus protests where students faced discipline and arrest over the conflict in Gaza.
Meanwhile, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, three students were expelled, one suspended, and 20 were given probation over their involvement in a sit-in protest on 27 March for Palestine at the campus’s Kirkland Hall. The protest was in response to the school administration removing an Israel divestment question from student ballots.
The students are currently appealing the disciplinary actions by the school.
A local reporter for Nashville Scene, Eli Motycka, was arrested during the sit-in protest and has challenged the school’s claim surrounding his arrest and is demanding an apology.
Dozens of faculty members have signed onto a letter criticizing the Vanderbilt administration’s responses to the protest and demanding the school rescind all suspensions, expulsions and arrests.
“We reject the implied characterization of student protest activity as a threat to community or institutional safety,” the letter said. “We call on the administration to repeal all suspensions and criminal charges against the students and immediately reinstate their access to campus housing, meal plans, healthcare, and educational activities.”
