Search Results

Claremont McKenna College's fifth president, Hiram Chodosh. (Photo Credit: Jasper Langley-Hawthorne) President Hiram Chodosh is Claremont McKenna College’s fifth president, assuming the position after serving as Dean of the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. After thirteen years in the role, President Chodosh will be succeeded by former Washington & Lee president William C. Dudley. President Chodosh’s wife, Priya Junnar, will also depart as Director of the Athenaeum. In December 2012, the editors in chief of the Claremont Independent, The Forum, and the now-defunct Claremont Portside published an entrance interview with then president-elect Chodosh. Today’s exit interview was coordinated by the Independent and conducted by the 2026-27 editors in chief of the Independent and The Forum. Dhriti Jagadish: Thank you so much for sitting down with us. First question: What is your fondest memory at CMC? President Chodosh: These fondest memory questions are really hard because there are so many. So let's see. There are a number of moments that flash before my eyes. My very first semester, in late September, I was ponded by students. That's probably the first one that comes to mind. The second is the dedication of the [Robert Day Science Center] building and just standing there, looking up at everybody and just taking it all in, like, “How did this possibly happen?” But the reason that's such a hard question is that my favorite moments are the quiet ones — sometimes in this room with students who are trying to get over some big challenge or have some new opportunity that they're trying to think through. It's that moment of both finding within them some capability that maybe they didn't think they had, or a solution to the problem that they didn't think they could create, and at the same time heightening their own expectations of what they thought they could do. Those are the moments that matter to me most, and in some ways are the most memorable. Kendall White: The school has changed a lot over your tenure, and a lot of those changes have been positive. But what is one worrying or negative trend that you've noticed and how do you think the school should address that moving forward? President Chodosh: I think that there are a number of external pressures, specifically, that bear on your generation that are of continuous concern. The first is the ways in which, as precocious young people, you try to decode what success is. Sometimes that leads to benchmarking that then gets internalized as an instrumental and linear strategy of working back from a result. People call this hyper-credentialism, but my way of thinking about it [is that] it's a kind of linear instrumentalism, of feeling that “I have to do this today in order to get there tomorrow.” The problem with that thinking is that the world is way too complex to lay out such a neat linear plan. Often, the people that follow those linear plans don't have as much to contribute to opportunities to lead and have impact. The understandable pressure and stress that's reinforced by parents and employers — and accelerated interview schedules and tracking of early internships — has a corrosive impact on openness, curiosity, exploration, [and] mastery of disciplines that broaden the base of your learning capabilities. In the end, [these] are the most important long-term sustaining assets you can develop. Now, I think we do a pretty good job in our highly dynamic and aspirational environment, mitigating that [linear instrumentalism] with a very strong community ethos of mutual support, friendship, and social warmth. When I had seniors over the other night, no one was talking first about their future plans — I had to kind of tease that out of them. They were talking about the special experiences that they had here, the relationships, [and] the special inflection points [when] taking on big challenges. That [linear instrumentalism] is an exogenous force that bears on all of you in a very significant way, particularly at a time where everyone's telling you that the job that you've been preparing for won't exist — that there's going to be this huge disruption, and that the pressures on the entry-level job market are the canary in the mine. Of course, I want each of you to be fluent in the decoding of the world. I want you to be completely fluent in how the world thinks conventionally about you, so that you can manage and navigate those conventions. But I never want you to substitute that for your own inner values framework and the honoring of your own emotional, intellectual resources. Dhriti Jagadish: Thank you for that response. But just to complicate it a little bit, this hyper-credentialism you speak of — CMC is partly responsible, right? We have 11 research institutes that freshmen, from the get-go, feel like they need to apply to. We have the Soll Center, which emails you throughout the semester saying, “Meet with us, meet with us.” Perhaps the seniors are reflective and maybe a bit wistful, but freshmen, sophomores, and even juniors, are still stuck in this rat race. And of course, CMC’s mission is explicitly forward-looking, professional[ly]-oriented. CMC says that this complements the liberal arts education, but over the past 13 years, have you seen this ethos [of] pre-professionalism detract from the liberal arts? President Chodosh: First of all, the massive opportunities that we provide are not responsible for the rat race that you call it. I think there are aspects of the culture, [such as] when people arrive they're trying to decode what the high-prestige opportunities are. Sometimes they look very narrowly at those and so there's a bit of a feeding frenzy. Then after a while, that kind of calms down [as] people hit a wall here and a wall there. In fact, the second phase of this is that [students] settle down into, “Okay, I'm doing way too much. Where should I focus?” And then they get into a much deeper set of focal points. That's not altogether a rat race in that negative way — that is actually a way of discovering what your inner purpose is. There are things that we still need to work on in terms of making sure that entry points into [CMC’s] channels of opportunity are not too early and that [they’re] not foreclosed. That's something that we've been working on institutionally, but it's hard because a lot of [CMC’s] programs have their own autonomy, which is a good thing. I think that the way that you framed it is inconsistent with my own conception of what we've always been trying to do. We're trying to create a virtuous cycle of liberal arts and leadership experience—not as a balance, not as a competition, even though, in a given moment, things might compete. What we've really tried to do is to create a virtuous cycle in which, yes, you're learning through experience, but then reflecting on [this] experience: “I need to now get deeper into my studies so that the next time I go around this block, I've got more sophistication, more knowledge, more capabilities to offer to that experiential opportunity.” I would say that the research institutes [and] the student organizations — particularly those that are very simulation-oriented — whether it's Mock Trial, Model UN, or the consulting firms that we have — are all laboratories in which students are not just building up their credentials, but they're actually building up their learning capabilities. By the time they graduate, they've had a massive amount of experience and they've also had a level of deep learning through things like a thesis requirement — which far too many universities have relaxed and very few actually take seriously. At the end of that, what I see are students who are deeply and broadly educated, who have a good sense of what gives them joy and what their strengths are, and who are understandably nervous and insecure about what that's going to mean in this future. But [they] are as well prepared as any student body in the country to take those things on without losing themselves in the next stage of competition, [in] the attempt to not only make a living but make a life. Kendall White: CMC has a great reputation for preparing students for fruitful careers, as you just spoke about. Another thing that CMC has a reputation for is its free speech climate. Aside from a couple of blemishes over the past couple of years, the school still maintains a high profile in the world of free speech and open expression on campus. But I guess this leads to a potential contradiction. Does CMC’s desire to maintain this free speech reputation come at the expense of not taking riskier moves, [such as] bringing in more controversial speakers to campus, someone like [Republican gubernatorial candidate] Chad Bianco? Or for speakers on the Israel-Palestine conflict, does the bar for security or ID checks at the door close down opportunities for conversation or prevent those speakers from coming to campus in the first place? President Chodosh: First of all, when you take into account the Athenaeum, Open Academy salons, and the total gamut of guest speakers in classes, I do think we have an extremely wide gamut of voices here. I think that there are limitations to some of the figures that people ask about. One, of course, is whether they're here for educational purposes and whether the programs are designed for educational purposes. That's a really important set of values we have to keep in mind: not just to create controversy or to provoke, but to actually make sure that whatever event we've designed is one that's educational in purpose. The second thing is that security matters. There is this very important relationship between security and safety on the one hand and freedom on the other. I mean, you don't have to think very hard to understand the profound nature of that relationship. If I'm insecure as a person, I'm much less likely to speak up. I'm much less likely to learn from someone else. I'm much less likely to walk across the street if I'm scared of what might occur to me. If I create some level of safety, both physical safety and emotional safety, I have a much better chance of challenging the assumptions that I have, my worldview, [and] my opinions about certain issues. When we have people coming to campus that pose safety or security concerns, we have a very rigorous approach to that. A lot of that you never see; we make [it] as stealth as we possibly can, so there isn't that visibility, always, of the security. And then there are other times where that visibility is very important, and then we take that very seriously. And so I don't see these [values] as contradictory. I see them as integral and in their interrelationships and interdependencies. Some of my colleagues and I wrote a piece years ago on how universities and colleges were responding to sexual assault, and it was called “Safety and Freedom: Let's Get It Together” and you can look back at some of the language in that as evidence of this underlying theory of the relationship between these two things. Dhriti Jagadish: You have spearheaded the college's dialogue programs, namely Open Academy [OA] and the CARE Center. Yet, some believe that the Open Academy's events are catered to conservatives, while others believe the CARE Center is a kind of safe space away from the rest of campus discourse. Are these institutions at odds with each other? And if these are just misconceptions, how do we address these institutional silos in the areas of dialogue? President Chodosh: I think that these are misconceptions [regarding] the origins of both of these institutional efforts. I think that at times, from a sociological or cultural point of view, you can see that people project into these institutions either what they want out of them or a negative view of what they don't want. Sometimes institutions like this are [a] Rorschach test for the community. You'll see someone who's not very well-informed making a projection about a certain political angle of something that's completely uninformed because they're just seeing what they want to see. It's a kind of implicit bias or salience problem. If you actually look at Open Academy programming — if you actually look at the full extent of it — I defy anyone to evidence a political bias in it. If you actually look at what's done in the CARE Center and the difficult conversations that they have, I defy anyone to identify a political, you know, an explicit political bias, in what they're doing. Obviously, everything that we do has a political aspect to it. I'm not saying everything's apolitical. I'm just saying that it's not in that design. This year, I know that there was a very strong attempt to bring OA and the CARE Center together, so let's just reflect on that: To actually have a dialogue about that problem — or that perceived problem — and then also to recognize that the CARE Center is actually leading peer to peer dialogue sessions throughout the community. The first experience that students have when they come [is] dialogue training run by [CARE Center Director] Vince Greer, and Vince Greer and [Open Academy Director] Ioannis Evrigenis are working hand-in-hand in terms of advancing our Open Academy and CARE goals. I would draw your attention back to the fall of 2013 when I started the very first initiative that was the genesis for this: conversations in my living room. I had young alums come back just two weekends ago, say[ing], “Oh, Hiram, we were there at the beginning of both CARE and Open Academy at your living room table.” And these were conversations over race. These were conversations over the Middle East with Muslim students and Jewish students, separately and then together. That created the very first initiative called Personal and Social Responsibility. If you look back at one of the prongs of that initiative, it was free expression and diversity, in one prong. I've always seen these things as vitally interconnected. And so even if there's sometimes drift [in these programs], or if there's a kind of sociological or cultural or political offset, you're always trying to bring them back to that singular lane and common root system. Kendall White: Another thing we were wondering is how CMC, and you, under your tenure, have approached the issue of administrative bloat, which, over the past two decades, has really taken off, and the numbers on this are a little hard to find, but it seems that CMC has experienced some of this, but not to the same degree as the neighboring Claremont Colleges. So— President Chodosh: What's your evidence of bloat? Kendall White: The numbers of administrators have grown, especially, you know, at— President Chodosh: In proportion to what? Kendall White: Pomona and Scripps, in proportion to faculty— President Chodosh: Do you have the data on it? Kendall White: and students growing— President Chodosh: Do you have the data on it? Kendall White: I mean, we've looked through the websites and Internet Archive-d how many administrators were here. It's absolutely the case that Pomona, Scripps, Pitzer, they hire more and more administrators and— President Chodosh: Are you talking about their bloat, or are you talking about our bloat? Kendall White: I'm talking about it as an endemic issue in higher education, so I’m asking how have you approached this as an issue— President Chodosh: Okay. Fair enough. Kendall White: and do you think CMC has bucked the trend or— President Chodosh: I just don't accept the characterization of us as bloat. Kendall White: Yeah, I understand that, I— President Chodosh: That's where you started, though. Kendall White: I said in higher education. President Chodosh: We've managed this very, very rigorously. If you look at the proportion of staff to faculty, the proportion of staff to students as our student body has grown — as our faculty has grown — I think you'll find a proportionate increase of staff. Second, we don't increase staff until we actually have a business model and the resources to increase staff. Third though, I would just bring attention to some of the underlying reasons why staff in higher ed has grown. One, it used to be that faculty, in part, took on a much greater set of responsibilities for student support. We went into an era where we wanted faculty to focus a lot more on their research, their teaching, and their self-governance. As student services increased, [staff] helped faculty alleviate some of those burdens. I think our faculty do an excellent job here in terms of student engagement, care, relationships, and mentoring. But I'm just saying generally in higher ed, that has been one of the factors. The second is that there are a lot of upstream reasons for the need for student services. We have generations of students that have much greater needs in terms of disability accommodation, in terms of support for what has been a pandemic of mental health difficulties, and also a kind of parenting culture, if you will, that I think has in some ways disabled or disempowered [young people’s] self-regulation, self-efficacy, [and] ability to take care of themselves. And so there are some upstream factors that have contributed to what you describe as the growth of the staff burden that that schools have taken on. In comparison to our peers, given the kind of challenges that we've taken on [and] the massive projects we've accomplished, I think that our staff-to-product ratio is extremely favorable. Just in the area of advancement, which includes our development group, our alumni and parent relations group, and our communications group, we were spending three cents on every dollar raised. Three cents — probably the lowest mark in higher education you'd find. Compared to that would be something between six and eight cents. In the nonprofit sector, 20 cents on the dollar is considered still good. If you looked at what we've been able to do — if you looked at our facilities team, and what we're actually spending in terms of managing the Robert Day Sciences Center and the Sports Bowl, and our public art program, [and] the constant improvement of our facilities — I think you'd find that very favorable. If you look at the Soll Center, the internship programs and student experience programs are funded almost entirely by philanthropy, and those staff positions [are] funded through philanthropy. If you look at the support for our research institutes, it's incredibly minimal staff support for the amount of product, the amount of opportunities for advanced research that we support. So I think, yes, there's some upstream drivers for this. We've managed this very carefully in terms of ratios. We've also been very careful to [ensure] that we're not funding staff positions through short-term philanthropy, but through long, sustained philanthropy. Then when you look at what we're producing, what we're contributing, I put our staff investments up against anyone in the country. Dhriti Jagadish: And as we're winding down here, the penultimate question, what's next for you? President Chodosh: I will keep [a] very strong connection here. I have a faculty position that will allow me to teach in the future. I have to take some time off from here next year, but we'll come back — and that is still an open question exactly how I'm going to use that [position]. I have a long-term, multi-year visiting fellowship at Oxford to spread out a little bit and to enjoy the benefits of another learning community. [There are] some projects to potentially do with [Oxford] in connection to an emerging partnership with CMC. Second, I have a number of projects that I want to continue working on. We have a big higher ed collaboration through the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. I will continue to be involved with peers across the country to disseminate a lot of the programmatic investments that we've made here through the Open Academy and other programs. I have some of my three-decade old projects in institutional justice reform, judicial independence, and South Asian mediation that I'll continue to work on. But then, to drive through those projects, I have one idea that I've been cultivating to see if I can attack two pretty significant problems at once in our civic sector. The first is to recognize that our civic sector is very fragmented. We have between 1.6 million and 2 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. They do tremendous work [and] benefit a lot of people, but they also are siloed, fragmented and, [to] some degree, in zero-sum competition with one another for the same financial, human, and reputational resources. The competition is good, but there's tremendous opportunity cost in the lack of collaboration. It's very rare that, given a social or civic problem, an organization that's really good at response collaborates with one that's really good at prevention. It's rare that one that's very good at deep impact collaborates with one that's very good at scaling, and very few have agentic or strong evaluation capabilities. So the first part is to see if I can elevate the very best of those civic leaders or nonprofits to create a fabric of comparative strengths at a higher level of vision, strategy, resources, evaluation, and execution. To do that, there are two major adjustments in the incentive structure that have to be addressed. The first is just ego. You have to convince people that they can have a much greater impact through other organizations than on their own. But second, you have to address the bottom-line financial limitations of each organization and its budgetary responsibilities to itself. And to do that, you need an integrated bargain to come in from some other philanthropic source [and] invest in the collaboration itself rather than in individual institutions. So that's the first problem. The second related problem is that we have a very high accumulation of wealth in society that's not entering the philanthropic sector in proportion. If you look at philanthropy over the last half century on a real dollar per annum basis, we've seen increases in philanthropic contributions of only 2.6 percent. Over the last decade, it's been even less: 2.3 percent. Why? Well, one of the many reasons is that a lot of people in control of this wealth don't see good options in the civic sector. They see the same fragmentation and silo effect and lack of good, common, uniform evaluation methodologies and metrics that I do. The thesis is to offer the potential of bringing that wealth to new models of collaboration in the civic sector as a way of putting it to best use — to actually move the wheel, rather than to just improve some little tread on the tire of the wheel. That idea is something I'm going to try to drive into these ongoing projects and possibly some others that develop, to see if I can actually tackle those two problems with what I call a chicken and egg solution. Kendall White: All right, our last question is, what's next for CMC? What are you optimistic about looking to the future? What's on the horizon? President Chodosh: The first — already baked in and green-lighted — are some very exciting plans for the campus. The Sports Bowl will be done this summer. The next economics building for the Robert Day School, [Records Hall], will be built probably within the next few years. When that's built, we'll probably be able to take down Bauer South and extend the North Mall all the way from Kravis Center to the Robert Day Sciences Center. When the football field, track, and lacrosse fields are built, football will go across, soccer will move down to the football field, the track will go away, the stadium features will go away, and then we'll also be able to build our diagonal mall running from the Robert Day Sciences Center down to Roberts Pavilion. There's a lot more that becomes possible with those infrastructural changes. Second, what I see is growing interest in our humanities programs, political economy and policy groups, our finance and economics cluster for surfacing in more explicit and formal ways: the most cutting-edge pedagogies and experiences for students, project-based learning, [and] collaborative leadership. [We want to] double down in the humanities, on the imagination, on intuition, on creativity, on the things that I think are even more important than ever before, those traditional liberal arts, [to give students the] ability to frame a really good question in a world where knowledge and information, to some extent, is being commodified through AI. And I see this sort of elevation of those laboratories, [that] project-based learning [in] what we've done with the Integrated Sciences curriculum and the Kravis Department. [It’s] just an amazing opportunity for the college, and I can see this in the leadership of our faculty, the interests of our students, and the draw of the attractiveness of these programs to donors. Third, I hope the school will continue to work on some really creative structural thinking about the way we price our education. We've started modeling different approaches that would create a much less asymmetric signal to potential applicants about what [CMC] actually costs and a much more transparent way of pricing out the education — and in my view, a much more sensible way of pricing it against the actual ability to pay, in ways that counter the national perversion of pricing against family income. For Americans making $100,000 or less, the price of education for four-year college programs runs about 77 percent of their income. That's just unsustainable. We have a very generous financial aid program, the Kravis Opportunity Fund, and tremendous social support to make sure that we are continuing to be the best in social mobility for students who are coming from families with fewer resources, to be able to, if they choose, earn a very generous living. But I think we have to face the big challenges with how higher ed has created this system of financial aid. That said, the college is in this extraordinary position to tell the story that [CMC] can do many things that other institutions think you have to make tough choices about. In particular, we can establish an environment that is very strong on free expression [with] a politically engaged and sophisticated student body, and also have a student body that's committed to social warmth and connection. Friendships should be regarded as not the cost of a difficult conversation, but the foundation for one. Telling that story and drawing new and more expansive audiences to that story is going to be an ongoing opportunity and an ongoing dividend for the kinds of investments that we've all made. Kendall White: All right, thank you so much for sitting down with us. President Chodosh: Thank you. This article was published in conjunction with The Forum.

Students protest at Pomona College on October 7, 2024. Two foundational principles of American law are colliding on college campuses across the country, and the Claremont Consortium is no exception. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin at any institution receiving federal funding. It bans overt acts of discrimination and requires schools to prevent hostile environments that interfere with students' access to education. When a school fails to act, it risks federal investigation, loss of funding, and litigation. The First Amendment prohibits government institutions from censoring or punishing speech simply because it is offensive, controversial, or politically unpopular. That includes student protests, political organizing, and speech that challenges prevailing views on race, religion, immigration, or foreign policy. Private schools are not typically bound by the First Amendment the way public institutions are, but in California, the Leonard Law changes that. The Leonard Law extends First Amendment protections to private colleges and universities in the state, meaning all five Claremont Colleges are legally required to protect free speech to the same degree as public universities. In practice, both public and private universities have tried to navigate this by enforcing 'time, place, and manner' restrictions - rules that govern when, where, and how speech and protest can occur, applied universally regardless of the message. But when those rules are selectively enforced (if one group is allowed to encamp while another is not), or when the content of the speech is what actually drives the university's response, the legal problem begins. Universities are caught in a bind that has no clean legal resolution. Enforce Title VI too aggressively, and you risk silencing protected speech. Enforce it too loosely, and students facing harassment are left without recourse, and the institution risks losing federal funding. This tension is now playing out in Claremont. Pomona is moving slowly to meet its federal obligations, and Scripps remains under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The Pomona Settlement In April 2024, the Louis D. Brandeis Center, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Hillel International, and the law firm Arnold & Porter filed a federal Title VI complaint against Pomona College. The complaint followed a series of campus incidents, including an April 2024 protest in which students stormed President Starr's office and refused to leave, resulting in 20 arrests, and other incidents of alleged antisemitism documented by the Independent. Six months later, on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks, students occupied Carnegie Hall, zip-tied doors, injured an employee, and spray-painted graffiti on the walls. The complaint argued that Pomona failed to adequately address alleged antisemitism experienced by Jewish students in connection with these protests. In December 2025, Pomona reached a resolution agreement with the organizations that filed the complaint, through a mediation process overseen by the OCR. Under the terms of the settlement, the college agreed to appoint a dedicated Title VI coordinator; consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when evaluating discrimination complaints; mandate annual Title VI training for all students, faculty, and staff; update its masking policy so that protesters could be asked to identify themselves to campus officials; and ban encampments. More than four months after signing its settlement agreement, Pomona had still not appointed the Title VI coordinator the agreement required. A student representative from the Associated Students of Pomona College told the Claremont Courier that ASPC had received little communication from the college about any of the settlement's changes. "Nobody in any authoritative position has come to ASPC and been like, 'This is the training that you guys are going to have to do,'" the student said. "Nobody said anything at all." In early May 2026, the college announced it was only beginning recruitment efforts for the position. In a statement provided to the Claremont Independent in March 2026, a Pomona College spokesperson acknowledged the gap and described the work as actively underway. "As part of its recently signed resolution agreement, Pomona is actively implementing a series of measures designed to further strengthen our Title VI infrastructure and practices," the spokesperson said. "This work is already underway and includes appointing a Title VI coordinator, updating policies and procedures, and assembling an Advisory Council on Jewish Life and Antisemitism. We expect to complete this work in the spring, and will share progress with our community in the coming weeks." The statement framed the College's obligations in broad terms. "Pomona College is deeply committed to protecting the rights of every member of our community," it read. "That commitment includes safeguarding freedom of expression and fulfilling our obligations under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act, as well as Title IX." The spokesperson also confirmed that annual Title VI training, covering both antisemitic and Islamophobia-based discrimination, would be delivered later in spring 2026. In early April 2026, Pomona students received an email announcing the mandatory Title VI training, which was required to be completed before course registration. The training consisted of a Canvas module with a short quiz, and students could complete it without reading any of the attached documents. A Jewish Pomona student who spoke to the Independent was critical of the training, saying it "did not feel like it actually sought to address the core issues," though he noted that he believed the administration genuinely cares about Jewish students. He suggested it could have drawn on actual campus incidents to feel more realistic, and doubted training could solve the problem at all. On the College's overall response, he was measured. "Their lack of decisive action in the 2023-2024 school year was disastrous," he said. "It created an environment where many people felt free to harass and intimidate Jewish students without consequence. But I think they learned their lesson from that.” The Scripps Investigation Pomona is not the only Claremont College facing federal scrutiny over its handling of Title VI discrimination complaints. Unlike Pomona, which reached a settlement in December 2025, Scripps remains under active federal investigation with no resolution in sight. On March 6, 2025, the Brandeis Center, the ADL, and the law firm Arnold & Porter filed a Title VI complaint against Scripps College alleging similar failures to protect Jewish students. The complaint alleged that Jewish and Israeli students had been harassed and excluded from campus spaces, including a student who was told to remove her Star of David necklace, and accusations that Motley student employees refused to hire a Zionist student. The Motley Coffeehouse, a student-run café at the heart of Scripps campus, became a flashpoint in the Title VI dispute. The complaint alleged that Motley staff had hung a Palestinian flag while refusing to display an Israeli flag and rejected requests to host Jewish events including a vigil for victims of the October 7 attacks, but closed for a day in solidarity with Lebanon following Israeli military strikes. On October 5, 2024, President Marcus-Newhall shut down the Motley abruptly. The administration cited staff refusals to attend meetings and noncompliance with posting policies. Motley staff denied each claim. The coffeehouse reopened a month later with its walls stripped of all decorations, a condition of the administration's agreement. The closure itself remained contested: some students saw it as overdue accountability, others as an attack on student expression and Palestinian solidarity. The OCR opened a formal investigation on March 18, 2025, which remains ongoing. A Scripps College spokesperson told the Claremont Independent that “Scripps College has fully complied with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) by submitting information and documentation that has been requested. Scripps will continue to cooperate with the OCR throughout the ongoing process.” During the period covered by the complaint, Scripps went without a permanent Title IX and Civil Rights Coordinator for more than a year, a vacancy that began in October 2023 when the previous coordinator resigned. The position has since been filled. Marc Katz, a Jewish professor at Scripps College, offered a stark assessment of the two schools' responses. "The Pomona administration has responded very thoughtfully and very judiciously to the OCR," Katz said. "I wish the same were true of Scripps. But it isn't. The Scripps administration has simply refused to engage with any of the complicated issues raised by the complaint. And that is a huge moral and intellectual failure." Katz said the administration had offered little public comment on the substance of the complaint over the past year. "There should have been open discussion with faculty and with students," he said. "Instead there was stonewalling." He went further, saying he believed the silence was not accidental. "The Scripps College administration actually condones anti-Zionism," Katz said. "That's the bottom line." A Scripps faculty member who asked to remain anonymous described the administration's response at faculty meetings as focused on resistance rather than reflection. The faculty member said President Marcus-Newhall in particular had made clear, at public venues and at faculty meetings, that the administration does not think Scripps has any problem pertaining to Jewish students. The college did take some steps, including temporarily closing the Motley, but the faculty member said these were framed internally not as acknowledgment of wrongdoing but as grudging compliance with federal law. The faculty member said the administration had made clear it intended to do the bare minimum: comply with whatever the OCR required on paper, and nothing more. "The presupposition of every conversation," the faculty member said, "was ‘isn't it a shame we have to deal with these complainers, and that pesky Civil Rights Act, Title VI?’" This posture persisted despite Jewish students transferring away from Scripps, complaints from students, staff, and faculty, and significant negative media coverage. The faculty member added that Scripps had also shielded students who violated campus conduct codes during the takeover of Carnegie Hall from any consequences. "To date, absolutely nothing of substance has been done to acknowledge any problem for Jewish and Israeli community members, let alone make meaningful changes to comply with Title VI," the faculty member said. "And the problems are many and documented." Both accounts point to the same conclusion, and the data appears to support them. The ADL's 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card gave Scripps an F, one of only four schools in the country to receive a failing grade. Where the Law Draws the Line The legal framework governing these disputes is well established in theory, but difficult to apply in practice. Title VI liability begins when harassment is sufficiently severe, pervasive, and targeted based on race, ethnicity, or national origin to deny a student equal access to education, and when the institution knew about it and failed to respond adequately. Courts and the Department of Education have applied this standard to Jewish students, finding that antisemitic harassment can constitute national origin discrimination under Title VI. The First Amendment complication arises because much of what appears in campus protests, including chants, signs, and political messaging, is expression, not conduct. The Supreme Court has long held that speech cannot be punished simply because listeners find it offensive or because it touches on a contested political subject. A university that disciplines students for pro-Palestinian slogans, for example, risks a different kind of legal jeopardy. One of the most contested terms of Pomona's settlement is its agreement to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism when evaluating complaints. Pomona has clarified that its Non-Discrimination Policy has not been amended, but the college has agreed to consider the IHRA definition when determining whether conduct is antisemitic in the context of specific complaint investigations. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil liberties organization in the United States, wrote directly to Pomona President Gabrielle Starr in December 2025 objecting to the term, arguing that the definition has been widely misused in academic settings to suppress political speech. The IHRA definition allows for criticism of national policies of the Israeli government, but as an example, says it is antisemitic to deny Jewish people’s right of self determination. Pomona's spokesperson did not address the IHRA definition’s free speech implications in the statement provided to the Independent. A Pattern Across Higher Education The situation at Pomona and Scripps is not unique. The Department of Education has opened Title VI investigations at institutions across the country in the wake of campus protests over the Israel-Gaza conflict. Harvard, UCLA, Columbia, and Brown have each faced Title VI-related scrutiny, funding reviews, or enforcement actions - with Columbia paying a $200 million settlement and UCLA paying $6.45 million to resolve allegations that they failed to protect Jewish students during campus protests. Brown reached a voluntary agreement with the administration to restore federal funding and resolve pending federal reviews. A common thread across these cases is the same institutional delay that students at Pomona described: federal complaints filed, investigations opened, settlements reached, and then students are left unsure whether anything has actually changed. The anonymous Jewish Pomona student said antisemitic incidents have become less frequent since 2024, though he was uncertain whether the settlement deserved the credit. "The rhetoric that drove those incidents is still quite pervasive," he said, pointing to a recent campus talk that blamed Israel and American Jewish organizations for originating Islamophobia in the United States. "The settlement was a good thing, but the root cause is still unaddressed." Pomona has now committed publicly to a timeline. Whether that timeline holds, and whether students see the policy changes that were promised nearly two years after the original complaint was filed, remains to be seen. What Comes Next Pomona has said it expects to complete its Title VI implementation work this spring. That includes appointing a coordinator, updating policies, and launching the Advisory Council on Jewish Life and Antisemitism. It has already rolled out campus-wide training. At Scripps, the federal investigation continues with no resolution announced. The outcome of these processes will define what civil rights compliance looks like on Claremont campuses for years to come. This will impact Jewish students who filed the original complaints and students who fear that Title VI enforcement could be used to police their political speech. The legal tension between Title VI and the First Amendment does not resolve neatly. What universities can do, and what they are required to do, is be transparent with their students about how they plan to uphold both obligations. Pomona is only now catching up. At Scripps, the administration's response has been dead in the water - no settlement, no resolution, and no public timeline for either.

Harvey Mudd College. (Photo credit: CampusGrotto) On April 29, Black Lives at Mudd (BLAM) emailed a resolution to the Harvey Mudd (HMC) community “demand[ing] that the institution be held responsible for the harm caused to the Black student body of Harvey Mudd College.” The email, cosigned by the Associated Students of Harvey Mudd College (ASHMC) — Mudd’s student government — and other affinity groups was sent to the entire student body and Division of Student Affairs staff. BLAM listed a number of grievances and made six demands of college leadership and faculty, which included making “one use of a racial slur” grounds for probation. The email begins by pointing out the decreased number of black students at HMC since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions. BLAM alleged that because the black population at Mudd has shrunk, “black students who remain face increasing vulnerability, urgently needing even more protection.” The black population at Mudd has fallen since 2022, when there were 54 black students enrolled (representing just under 6% of the total student body). In 2025, meanwhile, there were 32 enrolled black students, representing 3.5% of the total student body, the lowest rate since 2018. The number of students’ races marked as “unknown” increased from 45 to 60 during this time period. BLAM also criticized HMC’s bias incident reporting policy and the administration’s handling of alleged racist incidents. The email says that “when students experience racism from a dorm-mate, the victim is expected to move out…isolating the victim from their direct community,” and “a microaggression and calling someone a slur are treated as equal” by the bias reporting policy, which “dilutes the capacity to respond to flagrant acts of racism.” BLAM further condemned the “ignorance,” “silence,” “apathy,” and “neutrality” from HMC administration, citing examples from past and current presidents and deans. This included reference to then-president Maria Klawe's response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, which BLAM and other groups considered inadequate and a “minimization” of the movement. The email ends with six demands of HMC administration. This includes a formal condemnation of on-campus racism from HMC President Harriet Nembhard (herself a black woman) signed by all faculty members; the introduction of critical race theory into HMC humanities courses and the hiring of an Africana studies professor; and greater funds for black organizations on campus (i.e. BLAM and National Society of Black Engineers), as well as mandatory minimum funding for other affinity groups. Further, BLAM proposed yearly diversity training for “Professors, Deans, Coaches” and other faculty, as well as diversity training during orientation for “student leaders,” including “Resident Life Proctors and Mentors, ASHMC Leadership, Club Presidents, Athletic teams, and all other student leaders.” It is unclear if this would be implemented with non-Mudd athletes given the consortial makeup of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletics program. BLAM also called for HMC to amend the Bias Incident Reporting policies so that racial bias incidents automatically place the student on Probation levels. BLAM urged for “one use of a racial slur” to place a student on Probation I, an additional racial-bias incident to lead to Probation II, and a third to result in suspension. Under Harvey Mudd's Honor Code, Probation Level I represents a Code violation of a “serious nature,” without formal consequence except for it being “stressed to a student that this is a time for contemplation about what they have done and what it means to live and abide by the Honor Code.” Probation II “is the highest sanction a student may be issued and still actively attend the College,” with consequences including the loss of “the privilege of membership in campus clubs or organizations, the ability to study abroad, the ability to hold a campus leadership position or the ability to participate in intercollegiate athletics.” Currently, under the Bias Incident Reporting policy, “a bias-related incident,” including the use of a slur, “may not be a crime and may be protected speech,” and incidents are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. When asked for comment, a representative of HMC directed the Independent to a message from the president that was sent the day after the original BLAM email. In the message, President Nembhard reiterated that “racism and discriminatory behavior have no place at Harvey Mudd College; they are antithetical to the shared values our community identified through our strategic planning process.” Acknowledging the list of demands from BLAM, she stated that she could not “provide an immediate answer to all of the points raised in the resolution,” but assured that she is “engaging with the Cabinet, faculty, and the board to evaluate these requests and determine appropriate steps to address the concerns that were shared.” The email comes after a number of alleged incidents of racism at the Claremont Colleges. Nearly a month ago, hundreds of Claremont students attended a town hall hosted by Pomona College’s Black Student Union, who similarly accused Pomona’s administration of failure to address campus racism and laid out reform demands. Only weeks before the town hall, the ASHMC president-elect was recalled in a student referendum after past controversial remarks resurfaced and she was accused of racism and transphobia by her opponent. The email also refers to other unspecified racist incidents on HMC campus, alleging that faculty have reported “many more Black students coming to them with incidents of racism.” BLAM did not respond to a request for comment.

Canvas shutdown just days before finals week. Claremont Colleges students lost access to Canvas, a learning management software used by roughly half of American colleges and universities, for several hours during a nationwide cyberattack targeting the website’s parent company just a few days before finals week. The alleged perpetrator, ShinyHunters, is a data theft and extortion group that has been active since 2020. The group has previously been linked to several high-profile breaches, including those involving Ticketmaster and PowerSchool. An initial breach reportedly occurred in late April, but after Instructure, the company that owns and operates Canvas, declined to respond to the group's demands, ShinyHunters defaced login pages and escalated pressure. This prompted the company to temporarily shut the site down on May 7. Among the roughly 15,000 institutions affected by the data breach are Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and Harvey Mudd College. Students at all seven Claremont Colleges were affected by the shutdown due to their reliance on the software. Canvas, which is a platform the Claremont Colleges use to manage and access online course materials, assignments, and grades, was down for roughly four hours Thursday afternoon. While the full scope of the breach remains unclear, Instructure has confirmed that names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and private messages between users were taken before the breach was contained. Claremont McKenna's Chief Information Officer assured students in an email that “Social Security numbers, passwords, or other highly sensitive information are not stored in Canvas.” Instructure also stated that, based on its investigation to date, “passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, and financial information do not appear to have been exposed.” They further noted that "because CMC passwords are not stored in Canvas, there is no risk to the credentials students use to access email and other College resources." Pomona’s Chief Information Officer emailed students around 4:30 p.m., informing them that the College’s legal counsel continues to monitor the situation and remains in contact with the cybersecurity team. Absent a response from Instructure, ShinyHunters has asked individual institutions to contact them for negotiations. In a statement on Ransomware.live, the group asserted: "The Company seemingly does not care about all the students affected and the institutions impacted by this data breach," and "Not paying will only worsen the situation." ShinyHunters has set a deadline of May 12, 2026, after which they threaten to leak the stolen data publicly with no further negotiation opportunities. Canvas came back online around 8 p.m. Thursday, but data from Claremont McKenna, Claremont Graduate University and Harvey Mudd remain under ransom threat. Claremont McKenna later emailed students that the platform was “fully operational and safe to use,” while advising them to report suspicious emails and contact the college if they notice “anything unusual.”

Pomona's Big Bridges auditorium. Eight candidates took to a crowded stage at Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium Tuesday night, discussing California’s affordability crisis and trading jabs over the gas tax, public healthcare, and blame for the Golden State’s woes. The event was an unusual step into the limelight for the small college, and comes amidst a wave of major projects and initiatives. Former Congresswoman Katie Porter, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, billionaire Tom Steyer, and five other candidates, including Republicans Chad Bianco and Trump-backed Steve Hilton, competed for airtime in the 90-minute debate, cohosted by CBS California, Pomona College, and Asian Pacific American Public Affairs (APAPA). A previous gubernatorial debate, scheduled for March 26 at USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences was canceled over a lack of diversity after only the top six candidates, all of whom were white, qualified. This debate, billed by Pomona as “the most inclusive debate of the 2026 race for California governor,” featured eight candidates, including state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Some audience members felt that the increased number of candidates was unwieldy and prevented nuanced conversation, with one student attendee telling the Independent, “The large number of candidates made each candidate jostle for time and sound bites, making it less about the candidates’ policies and more about getting in catchy one-liners or sniping at the competition.” California uses an unusual “top-two” primary system, in which the top two candidates from the primary advance to the general election regardless of party. Given the large number of competitive Democratic candidates, some commentators have noted the possibility that Republicans Bianco and Hilton may benefit from a split Democratic vote and end up on the general election ballot together. The debate did not feature former Democratic frontrunner Eric Swalwell, who dropped out two weeks ago in the wake of sexual assault allegations and days later resigned from Congress. Three Pomona students were chosen to put questions to the gubernatorial candidates. One of them, a U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate and Pomona junior, remarked “Wow, that was a bit of a mess,” before asking candidates, “As governor, what steps would you take to tackle the rising cost of education and bring jobs back to the state of California?” Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa answered first, reflecting on his own education and how costs had skyrocketed “sixty percent,” citing $85,000 tuition at Stanford and USC, and adding, “in fact probably here [at Pomona] as well,” getting a laugh from the audience. The total cost of attending Pomona will be $95,670 for the upcoming academic year. California Superintendent of Education Tony Thurmond promoted his proposed legislation to make college in California free, which he planned to fund with a “pay it forward” tax. Other candidates did not have the opportunity to answer, as the broadcast went to commercials. After the debate, the Pomona junior reflected on the responses to his question, telling the Independent, “California is a mess, and our candidates were all over the place. The American dream in California is dead, and no candidate seemed strong enough to bring it back.” Many Pomona students were recruited to staff the event, acting as ushers and videographers, as well as media and candidate minders. Students drew from a hat to find out which candidate they would be shadowing around campus during the day, one student telling the Independent she was fearful of drawing Republican Chad Bianco’s name. The most prominent Sagehen of the night, however, was not a student. Pomona Assistant Professor Sara Sadhwani, who teaches in the college’s Politics Department, was one of five debate moderators rotating between commercial breaks. Asked what the debate might bring to Pomona and its students, Sadhwani told the Independent via email that “Bringing a gubernatorial debate to Pomona gives students direct access to the democratic process, turning politics from something abstract into something immediate and real.” In a statement to the Independent, Pomona’s VP of Communications Eric Abelev credited Sadhwani with drawing the debate to Claremont: “Pomona College's opportunity to host a gubernatorial debate grew out of the work of politics professor Sara Sadhwani and our distinguished Political Science faculty—world-class teachers and public voices whose relationships with media partners and viewers across California helped make this event possible.” Security around Big Bridges ramped up in the hours before the debate, with measures heightened in light of the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner over the weekend. Pomona’s Vice-President for Communications Eric Abelev reassured students in an email that the college had a “robust, layered security plan” in place. Abelev also noted that in anticipation of student-activism and Pomona’s commitment to “political expression across a wide spectrum,” the College had created a “designated zone to accommodate protest” near Big Bridges. The Claremont Student Worker Alliance, which planned to protest the college’s firing of longtime dining hall worker and union leader Rolando “Rolo” Airaza, announced on their story that they would be protesting in the designated zone. Only a small number of students participated. On College Avenue, unaffiliated protesters held a large sign reading “TRUMP MUST GO NOW,” while supporters of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Butch Ware held posters promoting the former vice-presidential candidate and handed out flyers to passing students. Inside the auditorium before candidates took the stage, debate host Suzie Suh reminded Pomona-affiliated attendees that they had agreed to a code of conduct, warning, “no outbursts, no disruptions.” From the debate stage, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr welcomed attendees including national media, candidate families, as well Pomona students, staff, faculty, alumni, and trustees. Starr touted Pomona’s over 100 year history of “educating leaders for public service,” noting that students’ futures were on the ballot this election. Starr used the context of debate to emphasize that Pomona encourages “students to be curious about the world, to listen, to engage across difference.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives Pomona an F “Speech Climate Grade,” and ranks the college 247 out 257 for free speech. Starr also nodded to Bridges Auditorium's history of hosting important speakers and musicians, citing past headliners Amelia Earhart, Sandra Day O’Connor, Muhammad Ali, Bono, and Taylor Swift. Bridges Auditorium, better known to Claremont locals as “Big Bridges,” is coming out of a period of relative disuse. The 2,494 seating-capacity auditorium used to be a tour stop for major musical artists and speakers, but since Covid has only hosted a handful of Pomona events, Shen-Yun, the local Nutcracker production, and small concerts. The gubernatorial debate is one of the first steps in a plan to revitalize the auditorium, whose age and years of neglect show. Built to a grandiose standard, the auditorium’s ceiling depicts the constellation in silver and gold leaf, though a large crack juts out from the proscenium, whose own paint is peeling off. Wear and tear impacting Big Bridges. “Although nearly 100 years old, Bridges’ IT infrastructure, coupled with a host of other upgrades at the historic venue over the years, gives Pomona College the ability to host what is ultimately a presidential-debate-level production right here on our campus,” comms chief Abelev told the Independent, adding that “Bridges will embark on a planned summer renovation, complementing the continued upgrades that have strengthened [Pomona’s] ability to support complex, high-profile events.” The debate took place during an ambitious year for the College. With only a few months’ notice, Pomona undertook to organize the debate alongside CBS California and the APAPA while it continued conducting due diligence on its potential acquisition of Claremont Graduate University, preparing to demolish its ageing Oldenborg Center and break ground on the Center for Global Education, and readying to unveil a new capital campaign to grow its over $3 billion endowment. The state-level debate fits haphazardly into the Global Pomona project, the College’s guiding strategic initiative which hopes to mobilize “a community that is ‘engaged, curious, and prepared to act with courage and self-awareness in an ever-changing, interconnected world.’” Abelev told the Independent that “Because of California’s importance on the world stage, this week’s debate allowed students to engage firsthand with complex societal issues of local and global consequence—exactly the type of experience the Center for Global Engagement will provide to our community as our liberal arts laboratory.” The California state flag flies over Marston Quad. It is unknown whether consortium-member Claremont McKenna College, which hosts the Rose Institute for State and Local Government, had been a candidate to hold the debate, though the Rose Institute did co-host a watch party in the Consortium’s Honnold-Mudd Library. Pomona offered a limited number of tickets to the debate for the other Claremont colleges to distribute to students. From Marston Quad’s flagpole, the iconic bear-adorned California state flag flew under the star spangled banner. A picture of just how extraordinary the event was for Pomona, the state flag had not flown over campus in recent memory.

The March 10 recall forum. (Credit: Sarah McPeek) The newly elected president of Harvey Mudd College’s student government (ASHMC) is facing recall over a comment she made during the Spring 2025 election season. Though the president-elect issued multiple apologies, the incumbent student government leadership has withheld constitutionally required onboarding training and worked with Mudd’s Dean of Students to organize a public March 10 forum where the president-elect and her accusers, including the candidates she defeated, read brief statements. The controversy began during last spring’s ASHMC election, when the current president-elect—then a dorm president—was assisting in campaign efforts for the current 2025-26 ASHMC president and senate chair. The alternative candidates, the current ASHMC challenger and his running-mate, had not held an ASHMC position in the past. The president-elect's preferred candidates, now serving in office, had over two years of experience. The current president-elect approached a friend to ask about her vote. The friend explained her intention to vote for the ASHMC challenger and his running-mate because, “They’re black and I wanted to support them.” Both the friend and the president-elect confirmed this account to the Claremont Independent. Specific details of the interaction at the core of the controversy vary. However, a preponderance of sources the Independent spoke to agree that the president-elect, a student of East Asian descent, responded by asking, “Would you vote for a qualified person or a black person?” The friend told the Independent that she responded to this question with, “‘A black person,’ because why would she ask me that?” The Independent verified that the president-elect subsequently apologized to the challenger and his running-mate for the hypothetical question she posed, both in-person and through email. The challenger and his running-mate lost the Spring 2025 election. Upon launching her campaign for student body president this spring, the president-elect expressed concerns to the incumbent ASHMC leadership that the 2025 incident would follow her into her candidacy. The past year’s ASHMC challenger was running again, now against her. Leadership insisted that the proper proceedings had taken place and had been settled; the challenger and his running-mate had tried and failed to petition the ASHMC senate in Spring 2025 regarding the president-elect’s comments. The contents of the petition remain private, but the Independent was informed that the petition was rejected by the senate chair. In early February 2026, before the issue was raised again, the president-elect sought advice on whether to run from incumbent ASHMC leadership. She was told “we can’t ask you to drop or anything,” leading the president-elect and her running mate to feel that the incumbents opposed their campaign. They claim they were told by the incumbent after the election happened that “in [her] ideal world, [another student] ran and won and none of this was happening.” Still concerned in the run up to the ASHMC election scheduled for the last week of February 2026, the president-elect emailed the challenger and his running mate to ensure that the matter was settled. The email, obtained by the Independent, includes the president-elect stating, “I am sincerely sorry my words made either of you feel invalidated or disenfranchised.” The president-elect then met with the challenger and running-mate in-person, telling the Independent, she recalled that she asked them, “How can I alleviate [this] and what are things I can do to show you that this is not who I truly am?” to which they responded, “We don’t really want to brainstorm solutions.” During this meeting, the president-elect questioned what the response would be if she had made reference to “any other group.” She maintained that she would have the same concerns if someone were to vote for a candidate just because they were white or transgender. The president-elect told the Independent that, regarding her reference to a hypothetical trangender candidate, “the idea was to clarify.” She described it as part of her general approach of writing problem statements, a typical set-up in engineering problems, for issues across her life. She described the entire controversy as broadly arising from “mismatches in communication style.” A second meeting was proposed to discuss possible solutions. This meeting was canceled over email by the challenger and his running-mate, who notified the president-elect, “We generally think that a second conversation would not be productive.” Despite the race having been two-way, the president-elect and her running mate were announced as winners of the election two days behind schedule on February 25. Presidents-elect have historically shadowed the incumbent leadership of ASHMC in the weeks following their election. Indeed, the ASHMC constitution requires onboarding training for newly elected leadership. However, neither the president-elect nor her running mate have received any onboarding training, though two onboarding documents from last year—an advice guide and onboarding spreadsheet—were sent to them after multiple email requests. The president-elect confronted the incumbents over this delay, accusing them of violating ASHMC’s constitution. She alleged to the Independent that the incumbents promised to amend the ASHMC constitution to retroactively permit their actions. The president-elect's running mate told the Independent, “I almost forgot we were elected because they’re not treating us like we’re going to be here much longer.” The running-mate has received no training or shadowing despite not being included in the recall petition. She also claims that she was confronted by ASHMC leadership outside the Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons on Thursday, March 5. Leadership brought up resigning, to which the running-mate expressed a desire to “just finish my exams and go home for break.” The running-mate told the Independent that the incumbent ASHMC president told her “you can’t wait. You have to make a choice or it will all become public.” This alleged verbal ultimatum was delivered 15 minutes prior to a private ASHMC executive board meeting where the challenger proposed his recall petition. The executive board voted to proceed in launching recall efforts without inviting the president-elect, as ASHMC’s constitution would require. The current ASHMC president, along with the senate chair, asserted this was done under the assumption that the president-elect’s removal was inevitable due to the recall petition. The minutes of this March 5 meeting were erroneously placed in the public record for the entire school to access. They have since been returned to the private record. Harvey Mudd’s Associate Deans of Students, Chris Sundberg, reacted to the recall effort by requesting that the president-elect and the challenger both write 250-word statements to provide context for the motion. The president-elect told the Independent that she objected to the length, feeling that it inhibited the opportunity for nuance, but agreed to the format regardless. She told the Independent, “Honesty seems like it’s been harmful for me, even if it was the right thing to do.” ASHMC leadership also organized a forum on March 10 where the president-elect and the ASHMC challenger could each read their 250-word statement aloud. Dean of Students Cindy Martinez advised the process; administrators are prohibited by ASHMC rules from involvement beyond advising. Participant availability was not solicited prior to the scheduling of the forum on March 10. As a result, the challenger’s running-mate was unable to attend the forum due to a class commitment. Participants were not given any opportunity to provide feedback on the forum's format, which denied attendees the opportunity to ask questions. In the run-up to the forum, students sent reminders regarding the event’s time and location to dormitory-wide email lists. One dorm president wrote to the Atwood Hall email list, “hoch aviation at 6.15pm. make sure to hydrate.” “Hydrate” is campus slang for drinking alcohol. The dorm president later apologized to the residents for the “tasteless email,” but said that “We stand with [ASHMC challenger].” Another student serving as a residential mentor sent an email to the Drinkward Hall email list, writing “Let’s get down to business and defeat the Han,” referencing the film Mulan with regards to the president-elect’s last name. The student subsequently apologized. At 6:15 pm in the Aviation Room of the Hoch, the ASHMC challenger opened the forum. Recalling the president-elect’s comments in spring of 2025, the ASHMC challenger announced: “we’re here because [the president-elect] believed my only justification for being upset was the fact that I was black.” The challenger has continued to deny that any apology was given. At the forum, he claimed the president-elect never “once…[admitted] regretting her actions,” alleging “she never apologized to me, [and] couldn't even see why she should apologize.” The ASHMC challenger ended his speech stating that “[president-elect] tried to justify prejudice,” bluntly asking his peers: “how many of you are willing to try to do the same?” Expressing regret for her actions, the president-elect stated she was at the forum to “acknowledge and apologize for [her] mistakes, [and] take responsibility for the insensitive statements [she] made regarding the qualifications of black and trans candidates.” She said she had engaged in “transformative and restorative justice” since the initial incident, and spent time “examining and unlearning biases.” The president-elect ended her speech by emphasizing the work she has done as a “community member” and for the HMC Advocates, encouraging audience-members to “contact her” with any “further questions.” On the night of March 10, the recall ballot was sent via email to the Harvey Mudd student body as a Google form. Though ASHMC elections have recorded notably low turnout rates compared to other student governments at the Claremont Colleges, the president-elect and her running mate observed to the Independent, “at Mudd, gossip travels really fast and really viciously.” They feel the issue is compounded by Fizz, the Claremont Colleges’ anonymous discussion board, where anonymous posters spread malicious statements and false information. Most posts on Fizz’s front page on Tuesday were back-and-forth disputes regarding the controversy. Additionally, while it is common for dorm presidents to circulate notes after meetings, this forum lacked official ASHMC minutes, leaving students to rely on unofficial recounts. Several Mudd students expressed concern to the Independent that voters would be insufficiently informed. One Mudd student, who is voting to recall, told the Independent, “I genuinely don’t think [the president-elect] is racist,” but admitted “there were better ways to phrase that comment.” An ASHMC senator remarked that the petition sent out to the student body was “very one-sided” for stating the president-elect’s comment but lacking the context leading up to it. “It feels like a giant game of telephone,” the senator observed. The heat of the controversy has torn through Mudd’s community, polarizing friend groups and dividing dorms. One student, who is voting to recall, told the Independent that it has “become a bit of a race war on campus” since the forum brought the dispute into the public. Voting will remain open until midnight on March 17. The challenger did not respond to a request for comment. This fall, the challenger filed a complaint against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s swim and dive team alleging a racist culture, resulting in the team’s temporary suspension and investigation. Shelby Tang contributed reporting.

(Photo credit: Anqa) For many students, college opens the world of sex and birth control to them. During Claremont McKenna’s freshman orientation, they learn about the plethora of campus resources available for any of their sexual desires: flavored condoms, dental dams, and miscellaneous other contraceptives. Orientation leaders are excited to tell freshmen about Sex Week in mid-Spring, hosted by the CMC Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. During Sex Week, which just concluded, students attended sessions on how to make sex more pleasurable, courses on “rizz,” and a poetry workshop to explore feelings of intimacy. The week culminated in the Advocates Sex Fair in Valach Courtyard on Friday afternoon. There’s an irony to the “sex-positive” culture championed by CMC Advocates and analogous groups across the Claremont Colleges. On the one hand, they are zealous in their support for sexual intimacy and promiscuity. On the other, their enthusiasm wavers when dealing with the natural consequence of sex — pregnancy. This flippant attitude is indicative of broader campus culture, and extends to the resources offered by Student Health Services. Organizations on campus offer free contraception, but those are never 100% effective. If contraceptives fail and a student ends up pregnant, Student Health Services does not offer any prenatal support for students, instead referring them to “local services.” However, if a student opts for an abortion, the SHS website provides direct links to abortion finder websites. They remind abortion seekers that on the student health insurance plan, individuals “who live in abortion-restricted states” can “seek reimbursement for travel and lodging when traveling out of state to receive covered, legally permissible abortion services.” These students can receive up to $3000 per year. In the background of main events on everything from masturbation techniques to STI bingo, Sex Week includes intermittent sessions on healthy relationships or the abuse inherent to the sex trade. At an “Ethics of Porn Consumption” event last year, an anti-sex trafficking activist recounted visiting pornography conventions where men publicly tortured naked women. Minutes later, a CMC Advocate raised his hand and asked the speaker if she was “anti-pleasure?” The Advocates would be truer to their principles if they made a greater effort to care for students affected by pregnancy. Recently, pregnancy-friendly student group Cradling Love tabled and held a fundraiser to support local pregnant students. While nearby churches and organizations donated to the cause, the club has failed to pick up much traction among Claremont students. When Cradling Love tables on campus, students tell club members that they don’t support women and want to take away their autonomy. While Claremont students champion sex-positivity, they fail to support sexual wellness initiatives that actually help students dealing with pregnancy. Sex Week reflects the internal contradictions of the Claremont Colleges’ supposed sex-positive culture. Events like these trivialize sex as a consequence-free means for pleasure rather than aiding students who are actually affected by its physical and mental consequences. If student groups want to remain true to their mission of supporting students and survivors, they should care about students at every point on their sexual journey – including pregnancy. Editor's note: This article was updated to clarify that Cradling Love is not a pro-life club.

Entrance to the Forbidden City, Beijing. (Photo Credit: calflier001) “You met me at a very Chinese time of my life.” The phrase has taken over social media since it was coined by Chinese-American TikToker @sherryxiiruii, who uses her platform to share cultural insights about China. Her primary business is advertising traditional Chinese medicine practices to her audience, such as avoiding cold foods and wearing house slippers for winter. In a video from early January, Rui detailed small “Chinese” habits while telling viewers they were “turning Chinese” and shouldn’t fight it: “Tomorrow, you’re turning Chinese. I know it sounds intimidating, but resisting it now is pointless.” Overnight, Americans ran with it. Videos of Americans practicing qigong stretches in pajamas purchased at TJ Maxx and eating congee for breakfast to attempting gua sha facial scraping or tongue diagnosis for the "health vibes" spread all over the internet. Over 1.5 million TikTok videos now carry the phrase. While seemingly harmless, this trend reflects something more troubling: the CCP's steady expansion of soft power into Western culture. The United States cannot allow this influence to quietly erode the freedoms Americans have defended for 250 years. The contrast is striking. During the pandemic, Americans worried about anti-Asian hate crimes. Now, a new generation is embracing Chinese culture as a trend. What Americans treat as a passing meme, Chinese state media has welcomed as a cultural victory. China’s state-run news channel CCTV hailed it as proof of growing soft power in a January 17 editorial: “Many young people abroad hold a favorable view of China.” However, this is not new. The “turning Chinese” trend first gained traction through Labubu, the bug-eyed stuffed creatures that racked up over $500 million in sales in 2025. Before “Chinese time” went viral, commentators argued Labubu represented China's growing cultural influence and a threat for the next chapter of geopolitics. In the past, Western brands would look East for new markets and growth opportunities. Today, Eastern brands are forcing Western companies to defend their home markets, which were once taken for granted. The flow of cultural influence and capital is reversing. A bug-eyed creature and TikTok terminology are accomplishing what China’s leaders have long coveted: genuine, unforced penetration into Western cultural consciousness. These small encroachments may represent China's first authentic soft power win of the modern era. Add TikTok — owned by Beijing's ByteDance — and Genshin Impact's hundreds of millions of players worldwide to this picture, and the pattern becomes clear. Many Americans overlook this: TikTok remains tethered to a Chinese company based in Beijing, despite its global facade. As in most cases, the problem starts at home. Americans are developing friendlier attitudes toward China than in previous years, according to Pew Research Center's polling. Fewer now consider China an enemy or say it poses the greatest threat to the U.S., dropping from 81% in 2024 to 77% in 2025—the first significant decline in five years. Negative attitudes toward China are softening even among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents—82% of Republicans/leaners find China unfavorable, down 8 points since 2024. Unfavorable views among Democrats declined by 5 points. This shift did not emerge overnight, nor can it be pinned on the current administration alone. The warming toward China began around 2023, the tail end of the Biden administration, when Americans’ faith in their own government was already eroding. Biden's decision to seek reelection robbed voters of a Democratic primary, exacerbating feelings of alienation from a political system that was failing them. These frustrations have persisted into the current administration. With President Trump's approval rating at historic lows, disillusionment has only worsened. But dissatisfaction with transient political circumstances should not prevent Americans from celebrating and identifying with their country. Turning to Chinese culture and adopting it as a kind of substitute identity is not protest. It is surrender to our enemy. We must remember that what surfaces on our social media feeds is a curated sliver of a country that censors its own people on a massive scale. Do not forget the mass censorship of the Hong Kong protests in 2019. China censored over 10,000 WeChat accounts, the main communication app for Hong Kongers, and utilized artificial intelligence to automatically block imagery of protest videos and keywords such as “Hong Kong extradition.” In addition, mandatory apps like Xuexi Qiangguo track an estimated 1 billion users' reading behavior for social credit scores and penalize disloyalty with travel and job bans. Beyond surveillance, the persecution of over 1 million ethnically Uyghur detainees in 380+ self-proclaimed reeducation camps in the province of Xinjiang is one of the most egregious human rights abuses of our time. These camps have been accused of using forced labor and engaging in sterilization practices. Americans take media freedom for granted, seduced by the aesthetic highlights of a political system that stands in direct contradiction to our Constitution and insults the very liberties and democratic values America was built upon. As a Taiwanese-American, I have seen the best of what the United States can offer: economic opportunity, humanitarian outreach in the face of natural disaster, and true freedom. Yet proximity to these gifts can dull our appreciation for them. It is easy to take these positives for granted, blinding us to the strengths that define our democracy. Dissension with those in power is an American constant. However, we cannot allow disagreements among ourselves to make us lose track of our real adversaries. Communist China is an authoritarian state that has spent decades carefully polishing its image abroad, precisely because it cannot afford for you to see what it actually is. You are not in a Chinese time of your life: we are free and they are not.

Pomona's Smith Campus Center. Pomona College’s student government, the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) Senate, is facing a sudden $10,000 demand from the student software developers behind its ridesharing service. The graduating developers are asking ASPC to buy the software, after originally agreeing to develop and maintain it for $700. The matter has created confusion within ASPC and between the outgoing and incoming Senate leaderships, as concerns arise about a lack of planning, unclear funding mechanisms, and a potential conflict of interest. The outgoing Senate leadership raised the issue of the software developers’ demands during the last 15 minutes of last week’s Senate meeting, the final meeting of the outgoing Senate’s tenure. Presenting in front of a slideshow, the developers asked the Senate to purchase the software or lose access for the upcoming year. The developers valued the software at $12,000, arguing that this amount was roughly equivalent to the commission ASPC paid their previous rideshare provider. The old service operated through Connect Shuttles, providing Pomona students wholly ASPC-subsidized transportation to the Ontario and LAX airports at the beginnings and ends of academic breaks. “PICKUP,” developed by two Pomona students as part of P-ai, a Claremont Colleges-based tech incubator, matched students with one another and allowed them to book Ubers to and from the airports with ASPC footing the bill. The new platform was introduced in the fall of this academic year as part of ASPC’s revised “RideLink” program. A person familiar with the matter told the Independent that the Connect Shuttles service had cost ASPC $65-70,000 last year. ASPC meeting minutes show that the new RideLink service cost $64,000, and that the same amount was being budgeted for next year. The outgoing ASPC President told the Independent in an interview that the RideLink costs were high due to it being the first year of the program, and that process automation would lower staff labor costs in the future. The outgoing ASPC Director of Operations, who manages the RideLink program, told the Independent in a statement that the cost-per-ride decreased substantially with the new program. The developers have offered ASPC two pricing models: a lump sum $10,000 payment, or a $12,000 payment split between the outgoing and incoming Senate budgets. In exchange, the developers would give ASPC full ownership of the software, as well as training for future developers and operating the software for summer break departures and arrivals. According to the Director of Operations, the developers had raised the possibility of an eventual sale in the fall semester, but it was not until after spring break that they officially told the Director they would have to sell the rights to the software. Both developers, who are graduating seniors, had been hired by technology companies that contractually forbade them from owning or working on PICKUP. The split payment option was given due to concerns that ASPC might not have sufficient funds in its remaining budget to pay the lump sum. The outgoing President explained to the Independent that this uncertainty was due to a number of events still being planned for the end of the year, as well as still-ongoing Club Funding hearings for next year. Promoting the $12,000 split option, outgoing leadership explained during last week’s meeting that the outgoing Senate would spend whatever its actual remaining unallocated budget was on the payment, with the remaining balance being paid off by the incoming Senate. The Vice-President for Academic Affairs offered to fund part of the payment out of her own budget, but the offer was declined. The Senior Class President then motioned to allocate an undefined sum of money from any funds left over at the end of the year for the software purchase—a breach of the Senate’s usual procedures, which require allocations to be in defined amounts, according to multiple former and current ASPC senators and staff. The motion was passed, however. Various outgoing and incoming members of Senate who spoke to the Independent also expressed concerns about the conflict of interest between the outgoing President and the developers. One of the developers is the President’s longtime boyfriend, while the other is a close friend. The President explained to the Independent that she was aware of the appearance of impropriety and had effectively recused herself from the matter, and that all communication between the developers and ASPC had been entirely through the Director of Operations. Both outgoing and incoming Senators expressed concerns to the Independent about the apparent lack of effort by Senate leadership to negotiate on the purchase price. The Director of Operations told the Independent that he had estimated the value of Pickup to be $20,000 before receiving the developer’s price, and that the developers originally asked for $14,000, which he negotiated down to $12,000. The Director further explained that the developers could have sold the software to a 3rd-party for far more money, given that the software was a “high value tool” that could be used by student governments across the country. The developers had originally signed a contract with ASPC to operate the software for a $700 license fee. Email communications obtained by the Independent from summer 2025 show that prior to signing the contract, the developers had estimated their total cost for “running and maintaining PICKUP” over the 7 months for the 2025-2026 academic year at $938, though the itemized cost breakdown does not include labor costs. The outgoing President confirmed that the developers had only been paid for “bare-bones costs” and not for labor, because they still owned the underlying intellectual property. The President explained in the interview that if ASPC had known about the demand sooner, they would have been able to pull from fiscal reserves, which currently amount to over $500,000. The process requires at least a few week’s notice, however, which is why ASPC chose to use the budget allocation process instead. Asked why a sum was not pulled from reserves in anticipation of the request since the developers had notified the Director of Operations before Spring Break that they might need to sell the software, the President told the Independent she didn’t have an answer as she was uninvolved in the process, saying, “Great question, I want to know as well.” ASPC meeting minutes from early April show that leadership, including the VP of Finance, were aware of the potential purchase. During the meeting, the incoming President referred to a conversation with the outgoing President about “talks on possibly buying [PICKUP]” as ASPC discussed next year’s budget. The VP of Finance acknowledged this but tabled the matter before moving on to other budget decisions. Earlier in the meeting, the VP of Finance encouraged all Senators to fully spend down their remaining budget. According to members of both, the outgoing and incoming Senate leaderships have been in close communication over the issue. The incoming Senate is in theory not bound to the motion passed by the previous Senate, and could opt to pay the lump sum, or even decline to purchase Pickup. In an email statement to the Independent, the incoming Senate leadership wrote that they planned on paying the lump sum. “The current senate is confident in their EOY balance, providing funding to completely cover the purchase,” they wrote, “but in the event of insufficient funds, we would consider pulling the remaining from reserves.” Multiple outgoing Senate members who spoke to the Independent did not express the same confidence in their ability to fund the purchase with unallocated funding from this year’s budget. A separate statement from the outgoing leadership and Director of Operations, however, noted that “No agreement has been finalized or signed,” and that “ASPC is currently evaluating whether a purchase would be appropriate and in the best interest of students.” The statement did not address the motion passed last week to allocate funding. Responding to questions about how the incoming Senate would work to avoid similar situations in the future, the email from its leadership stated that “the nature of this situation was very particular, and [incoming Senate leadership] don’t think it will happen again.” “We are already taking provisions against conflicts of interest to avoid personal bias in our current decision-making processes,” they continued. “We will carry this attitude forward for other decisions, and we will look into creating more formalized guidelines for situations that might include conflicting interests.” Statements from both the outgoing and incoming leadership emphasized that whatever money was used to purchase PICKUP would not come from funding allocated for another purpose, especially club funding. Regardless of whatever the incoming Senate votes to do, the final decision power lies with the outgoing President and VP of Finance, who still hold signatory power for ASPC bank accounts. According to a person familiar with the matter, the handover process is lengthy and may not yet have begun. The incoming Senate is expected to vote on the matter during the first meeting of their tenure this Thursday, April 23. Only one of the developers could be reached for comment. They did not respond. Editor’s note: PICKUP started as a P-ai project but emerged as its own service. ASPC started conversations with PICKUP in Spring 2025 before the now outgoing ASPC President was in office. The article originally stated that the developers agreed to develop and maintain the software "before passing it on to younger students." At ASPC’s request, the article has been updated to remove this specific phrase. The article formerly stated that RideLink "was introduced in September of this academic year." Upon request of ASPC, this was updated to "last fall." A link to the presentation made by the developers to ASPC was also added.

Claremont McKenna College students at the Kravis Center. (Photo Credit: CMC comms) Fizz is a mobile app that lets college students post anonymously to their campus community, verified only by a school email. The app sells itself to students as a fun, casual campus-exclusive feed to share jokes, memes, and gossip. However, Fizz quickly becomes a place for targeted bullying, false accusations directed at students and staff, and pile-ons that spread rapidly. Unverified information about campus events can be misleading and even dangerous. The lack of identification absolves users of responsibility, emboldens them, and empowers scapegoating. Screenshots from the Claremont Colleges' Fizz feed during the March 13, 2025 shooter hoax incident illustrates just how rapidly anonymous false information spreads and builds off of itself. Within minutes of Campus Safety's first message alert, posts claiming the shooter was “contained between Bauer and Roberts,” that Campus Security had confirmed “an active shooter,” and that “multiple corroborating stories” of gunshots had been heard were gaining attention in the main feed. The posts racked up hundreds of upvotes, with one post reaching 1.2k. None of the content had been verified. Claremont Police Department Lieutenant Jason Walters later confirmed the incident was a “swatting” hoax, with officers finding “no signs of any crime” after sweeping the entire campus. Yet on Fizz, anonymous accounts had already constructed a detailed narrative: accusations about the supposed shooter’s appearance, real-time accounts of events on campus, instructions on where to go and what to do—spreading false location details and intensifying student panic. Because no one could be identified or held accountable, there was nothing to stop the misinformation from compounding. Claremont Colleges Fizz feed during the March 13, 2025 swatting incident. Fizz also emboldens students to express their resentments and transforms the campus feed into a digital stage for conflict. Fizz claims “any hateful speech or content that threatens the real-world safety of anyone is not tolerated and will be strictly removed,” but its content monitoring is ineffective. There may be a deeper reason these conflicts erupt so easily. The philosopher René Girard observed that premodern societies contained collective violence by uniting against a chosen victim. In The One by Whom Scandal Comes, he argues that when people can’t express anger at its source, they often redirect it toward a scapegoat: “Everywhere and always, when human beings either cannot or dare not take their anger out on the thing that has caused it, they unconsciously search for substitutes, and more often than not they find them.” Fizz gives the college community an anonymous way to do exactly that—scapegoat students. Fizz says it has guardrails. The company trains student moderators and lays out clear rules on its website. Fizz insists that harmful content “will be strictly removed.” But the Claremont experience shows the real difficulty of keeping anonymous spaces civil, and harmful content often stays up long enough to do real reputational damage. Girard’s insight is that communities cannot resist scapegoating; Fizz removes the only thing that might slow it down: accountability. When our own desires are unclear, we interpret others’ pursuits as evidence of genuine desire and adopt those desires as our own, regardless of whether they are truly ours or even theirs. Algorithms that govern visibility on social media amplify what has already been socially validated. Girard put it simply: “people often don’t know what to desire, so they imitate the desires of others.” On Fizz, posts rise or fall based on upvotes and downvotes, and the crowds follow. According to Girard’s mimetic theory, human desire is not instinctual but learned through imitation. We want what others want, and the rivalry itself outweighs the value of the object. Think of the scramble for Taylor Swift tickets or a J.P. Morgan internship: the frenzy is partly about the thing itself, but mostly about the crowd wanting it. Anonymous voices shape the narrative of an entire campus. Even with campus email verification, readers rarely know who posted what, a student, a troll, or someone with a grudge, and that uncertainty is itself destabilizing. When the crowd joins in, the scapegoat effect kicks in: a community vents its frustrations by focusing on one unlucky person or group. Fizz intensifies the scapegoating already present on social media, while raising serious ethical concerns, including the risk of doxing someone based on unverified accusations. Some may argue that misinformation would have spread through other platforms regardless, or that responsibility lies with campus institutions to communicate clearly during emergencies. That is fair, and institutions should absolutely provide timely, accurate guidance. But the Claremont Colleges community comprises over 8,500 students across five campuses, and in a crisis, official channels will compete directly with the noise of anonymous feeds. All it takes is one misinformed post and one student, who sees it before an official update, to make a decision. This issue raises bigger questions. Where should we draw the line on anonymous speech? Perhaps we should not extend First Amendment protections to Fizz and similar apps, to what is merely binary coding, ones and zeros, and not actual people. Should online platforms protect anonymous accounts the same way the First Amendment protects individuals? In the digital age, these are complex dynamics without easy answers. Fizz’s promise of a humorous and carefree anonymous space may sound appealing, but anonymity often brings out the worst in people.

Angela Davis meeting East German dictator Erich Honecker in 1972. (Credit: Peter Koard) Pitzer College is widely understood to be the most uniformly left-wing of the Claremont consortium. This morning, they announced a commencement speaker who celebrated border guards and shook hands with dictators.  On Tuesday, an email to Pitzer community members announced that Angela Davis, Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, would serve as the commencement speaker for its class of 2026. Davis previously served as Pitzer’s commencement speaker in 2012. The choice pays undue honor to a figure with a record of apologizing for violence in the United States and despotism abroad. In a 1969 speech, Davis told assembled Black Panthers that “sisters and brothers in Connecticut are still in jail.” Davis’s reminder was on behalf of several Black Panthers arrested for torturing and murdering 19-year-old Alex Rackley after suspecting him of espionage. In 1970, Davis purchased the weapons used in the takeover of a Marin County courthouse and murder of its judge. The incident ended with four deaths and Davis on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.  Under California law at the time, Davis was charged directly with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy instead of being an accessory to the crimes. She was acquitted of these charges, though she had procured the perpetrator’s firearms.  Following her acquittal, Davis engaged in a global tour that turned her into a political celebrity in the communist world, meeting Marxist-Leninist leaders from Cuba to Czechoslovakia. She paid particular attention to East Germany, where she jubilantly met with dictator Erich Honecker. Honecker was responsible for a “shoot-to-kill” policy for those attempting to flee his regime through the Berlin Wall, resulting in hundreds of deaths, and oversaw torture-filled political prisons. After years of denouncing the United States as authoritarian, Davis posed in front of the Berlin Wall and chatted with its guards. She left a wreath at the grave of a guard who had been killed while trying to prevent a family from fleeing across the wall to the West. Davis even told state media that “we mourn the deaths of the border guards who sacrificed their lives for the protection of their socialist homeland,” words widely distributed in propaganda pamphlets. Had Davis done this at the United States-Mexico border in 2026, she would likely be rendered persona non grata for most Pitzer students. Indeed, she is a vocal opponent of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.  Angela Davis has long advocated for prison abolition, even writing a book titled Are Prisons Obsolete? in 2003. Yet, in 1972, she declined when Czech democratic socialist Jiří Pelikán called on her to denounce the imprisonment of political dissidents in the communist Eastern Bloc.  Davis’s confidant Charlene Mitchell responded to Pelikán in a statement to The Times on Davis’s behalf. Mitchell claimed that those incarcerated in Eastern Europe were only there for “undermining the government” and clarified that Davis did not lend support to those taking the “retrograde step” of fleeing communist nations for capitalist ones. The Reverend Jim Jones ruled the Jonestown commune in Guyana for his People's Temple, a totalitarian cult. In 1977, Davis broadcast a message to Jonestown to say that “we are with you” against “a conspiracy.” She even wrote to the White House on Jones’ behalf, calling him “a humanitarian.” Six months later, his spiral into insanity left over 900 dead. Angela Davis went on to accept the Soviet Union’s Lenin Peace Prize in 1979 and serve as the Communist Party USA’s nominee for vice president in 1980 and 1984. The CPUSA was a recognized financial and political front for Soviet influence. Davis has not offered a word to recant her support for a rogues’ gallery of 20th century human rights abusers. Instead, she has co-signed statements blaming NATO expansion for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continued to champion Cuba’s blood-soaked communist regime.  Opposition to American border policies and support for prison abolition are positions anyone has a right to hold, including students and staff of Pitzer College. Davis has not, however, applied either principle consistently.  Pitzer has defined itself by its progressive values. Angela Davis’s career has been distinguished by inconsistent adherence to her own left-wing beliefs. Pitzer’s decision to celebrate its graduates with such a fickle advocate of its professed worldview reflects poorly on the College’s moral consistency.

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty walk to G20 dinner. (Photo Credit: Simon Walker) Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty (CMC '02) will deliver the commencement address at Claremont McKenna College’s graduation ceremony on May 16. The announcement came in an email from President Hiram Chodosh Thursday morning. Sunak served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. During his tenure, he worked to stabilize the economy after the UK’s 2022 financial crisis and negotiated the Windsor Framework, a post-Brexit agreement with the European Union on trade rules for Northern Ireland. Prior to his Premiership, Sunak figured prominently in the UK government's financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before entering politics, he worked in finance at Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds. Murty graduated from Claremont McKenna in 2002 with a BA in Economics and French. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees and previously as an adviser to the Berger Institute for Individual and Social Development. She is a fashion designer, businesswoman, and venture capitalist. The couple has supported Claremont McKenna over the years, including through the founding of the Murty-Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab and endowment of a philosophy professorship, which doubled the size of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program. They also recently established The Richmond Project, a charity aimed at breaking down barriers to numeracy.  “ We are moved by their selfless leadership, generous support, and close friendship to so many throughout the CMC community. It is an honor that they will be joining us for this special Commencement celebration,” President Chodosh wrote in an email to students.  The announcement comes nearly one year after Salman Rushdie stepped down  from his role as graduation speaker in 2025 after outcry from Claremont Colleges Muslim Student Association. Sunak is one of the only conservative commencement speakers in CMC’s recent history. Past speakers have included feminist Cheryl Strayed in 2024, political scientist Robert Putnam in 2023, and violinist Vijay Gupta in 2021. California Supreme Court Associate Justice Goodwin Liu, humanitarian worker Jane Olson, and Harvard Professor Daniel Ziblatt (PO ‘95), author of How Democracies Die , will speak at Pomona’s commencement. Sources tell the Independent that Marxist feminist scholar Angela Davis may speak at Pitzer College.