Pomona Today: Hate, Pride and Ambiguity

After enduring a troubling series of events, the College focuses on making progress in building a more inclusive community.

During the first three months of the new year, the campuses of The Claremont Colleges experienced a series of shocks as students, faculty and staff were confronted by a number of racially-charged incidents, the most serious of which is now alleged by the Claremont Police and the FBI to have been a hoax.

On March 10, the five undergraduate campuses cancelled classes and closed ranks to express their horror and outrage over what appeared to be a hate crime aimed at silencing a vocal member of the community. The incident--which involved the vandalism of a car belonging to a member of the Claremont McKenna College faculty and included the painting of racist, misogynist and anti-Semitic epithets on the vehicle--galvanized the campuses in a massive demonstration of support and concern, as well as a day-long series of "teach-ins" and discussions of the underlying issues.

A week later, however, on March 17, with students gone from the campuses for spring break, the colleges again found themselves dealing with the incomprehensible when the Claremont Police Department issued a statement saying that its joint investigation with the FBI had concluded that the supposed victim had staged the entire incident. The statement alleged two eyewitnesses had positively identified the Claremont McKenna College professor as the person they had seen defacing and vandalizing her own car. The police turned the case over to the District Attorney's Office, who subsequently sent it back for further investigation. As yet, no charges have been filed in the case.

An event such as this would be disturbing under the best of circumstances. Following, as it did, hard on the heels of a series of other events that had raised questions about the racial climate on the campuses, it left many--students, faculty and staff alike--troubled and unsure what to believe or feel.

The first of those incidents had taken place in January, during the colleges' winter break, and involved the theft of a student artwork in the shape of a cross from the Pomona College campus by a group of students from three sister campuses. The students took the cross to the largely deserted Harvey Mudd College campus, where they burned it in the middle of the night. The event--as well as delays in notifying the community of what had happened--sparked a series of protests and forums on the campuses dealing with questions of hate speech and hate crime.

Subsequent incidents included a newly formed social club at Pomona sending its new initiates on a scavenger hunt, one item of which was a photograph with 10 Asian American students; a racial epithet scrawled on a calendar in a CMC residence hall; and a homophobic epithet scrawled in a Pomona College bathroom.

By early March, the College administration was engaged in ongoing discussions with representatives of Pomona's minority students, seeking ways to identify underlying problems with the campus climate and to address them in meaningful ways.

In an e-mail to the College community on March 18, President David Oxtoby said the College remains committed to finding ways to improve the racial climate on campus and noted that news of a possible hoax, while shocking, did not lessen that commitment. He added that he was particularly concerned "that some members of our community may feel disillusioned by [these] revelations and perhaps may even feel that their idealism was misplaced."

He concluded that he is proud of the reaction that the College community exhibited in the face of an apparent hate crime. The resulting discussions, marches and speeches "were a wonderful example of the best of education, even though all of our classrooms were closed," he said. "Most fundamentally, I remain committed to the directions of change that we have been discussing over the last several months in order to create a truly diverse and supportive community. I look forward to reporting in the future on some steps that we are taking, and to continuing to explore with all of you new approaches that will lead to real change."

Reactions to the alleged hoax from across the five campuses sounded a common theme: concern for continued progress in dealing with the underlying issues of racism and community-building. Speaking to a range of media outlets, students and faculty expressed a range of emotions, from confusion to concern.

"We've taken our second stab in the back at a time when we thought we were secure," Marc Bathgate, president-elect of the Claremont McKenna student government, told the Associated Press.

"My fear ... is that people will say, 'See, they're blowing this all out of proportion. There are no real incidents of racism,'" said Pomona Professor Sidney Lemelle, also speaking to the AP.

"I'm just afraid that all that community spirit is going to be lost and become cynicism and anger," Warren Katzenstein, student body president of Harvey Mudd College, told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Katherine Lind, chairwoman of the City of Claremont's Committee on Human Relations, told the Times that what the students had done following the apparent hate crime "was really inspiring. Their passion was a lesson for us all."

She added: "I urge the students to continue to articulate their problems and not let this incident dissuade them in any way."

—Mark Wood