Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will deliver the commencement address at Claremont McKenna College’s graduation ceremony on May 16, alongside his wife, Akshata Murty (CMC ‘02). The announcement came in an email from President Hiram Chodosh Thursday morning.

Pomona College’s Black Student Union (BSU) held a town hall attended by hundreds of students last Wednesday night, alleging that black students had been “subjected to hateful experiences on this campus, experiences that range from microaggressions to explicit hate speech to moments that feel like racial violence” and “persecuted in and out of the classroom for simply existing.”

Pomona College will host primary candidates for the California governorship in a debate on April 28, College President Gabi Starr announced earlier this month. 

A recall campaign against the Harvey Mudd College’s student body President-elect has succeeded, with a simple majority of voters choosing to recall the President-elect and hold new elections. The recall was prompted by controversial remarks the President-elect made over a year ago, with the recall petition itself being filed by her opponent after he lost the election.

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, rea

A video showing a man dressed up as a woman to compete in the Women’s 100-Meter Dash at a Pomona-Pitzer track meet went viral on Monday, garnering millions of views across social media platforms. Jonny Curren competed under the name “sara curren” [sic], outpacing 31 female runners to win first place by 0.02 seconds.

In 2025, Pomona and Claremont McKenna Colleges spent $190,000 and $100,000, respectively, to lobby the federal government. Pomona hired lobbying firm theGROUP DC while CMC hired law firm Holland & Knight. According to OpenSecrets, neither college, since 1998, has recorded lobbying activity until this past year. Harvey Mudd, Scripps, and Pitzer Colleges have yet to record any lobbying activity. 

Pomona College administrators are considering closing the Coop Fountain restaurant in order to relocate the college’s catering operations, which will be disrupted by the construction of Pomona’s new Center for Global Engagement. The closure was presented to the student government’s food committee as a done deal, but administrators have since back-tracked, claiming there had been a misunderstanding. 

A Santa Clarita man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to embezzling over $1 million from the Claremont Colleges, where he was employed as an electrical shop supervisor. 

Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University announced in parallel statements Thursday afternoon that they have entered exclusive negotiations on a “potential partnership,” described as a parent-subsidiary structure. Sources familiar with the matter told the Independent that the institutions’ respective boards signed only a non-binding letter of intent, meaning negotiations could be broken off at any point.

Protests held Oct. 7, 2024 at Pomona College. Pomona College resolved a Title VI complaint with the Brandeis Center, Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International on Wednesday, agreeing to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, appoint a Title VI coordinator, and update speech and demonstration policies, among other provisions. “We are pleased to have resolved these important discussions through a thoughtful and comprehe

Pomona College is close to entering exclusive negotiations to acquire Claremont Graduate University, multiple sources familiar with the matter told the Independent. CGU, which announced in April that it was seeking “a strategic partner or partners,” was courted by a pool of suitors including Arizona State University, Loyola Marymount University, and Northeastern University. 

William C. Dudley announced as Claremont McKenna's sixth president. Photo credit: The Columns . Washington and Lee University President William C. Dudley will succeed Hiram Chodosh as Claremont McKenna College’s sixth president, according to a statement from Board of Trustees Chairman Ken Valach on Thursday afternoon. The announcement comes after six months of deliberation by the Presidential Search Committee – a group of trustees, faculty, alumni, and the sitting ASCMC Presi

Nearly three weeks after masked individuals disrupted a Claremont Hillel event marking the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, Pomona President Gabrielle Starr confirmed in an email last week that two of the four individuals have been identified and neither are affiliated with Pomona.

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) men's swim and dive team was temporarily suspended last week as they underwent an investigation by the Claremont McKenna College (CMC) Office of Civil Rights into “some concerns” about the team’s culture, according to an email from Coach Charlie Griffiths obtained by the Independent.

Last week, an Oct. 7 memorial hosted at Pomona College by Claremont Hillel featuring Yoni Viloga, a survivor of the attacks, was disrupted by protestors. Afterwards, an anonymous statement defending the disruption was sent to multiple campus newspapers, referring to Viloga as “Satan” and “the spawn of a genocidal lineage,” and to Zionism as a “death cult that must be dealt with accordingly.”

Masked protestors disrupted an event held Wednesday evening in commemoration of the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, shouting at attendees that they were “all complicit in genocide.” The memorial event, hosted at Pomona College by Claremont Hillel and the Claremont Colleges’ Jewish Chaplain, featured a talk by Oct. 7 survivor Yoni Viloga.

On Tuesday, Oct. 7, students and faculty across the Claremont Colleges participated in pro-Palestine events, including vigils and speaker events, to mark two years of conflict between Israel and Hamas. A point of contention is the decision to host these events on Oct. 7, the day when Israel experienced Hamas’s ambush and had not yet begun its offensive into Gaza.

The U.S. News & World Report released their 2026 rankings for liberal arts colleges on Tuesday. Pomona College slipped down to seventh place, now tied with Claremont McKenna College and Wellesley.

The Equal Protection Project filed a Federal Civil Rights Complaint on Aug. 28 with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), alleging that a number of programs and scholarships at the Claremont Colleges violate Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act.