Pomona and Campus Safety Chase Seniors Across Claremont to Stop Their Graduation Celebration

Pomona students are are pursued across campus for over 1 mile during the 2025 senior takeback.

A final nighttime gathering of freshly graduated Pomona College seniors was met with swift response from Pomona staff, Campus Safety, and eventually the Claremont Police Department over graduation weekend, leaving many departing seniors with a bitter feeling as their alma mater got in the way of their last night together.

Police were called by the College after Campus Safety and a Pomona staff member failed to shut down the seniors’ impromptu final-hoorah, instead driving them across the 5Cs in a hours-long misadventure. “Six hours after we graduated it was just, ‘You guys can f*ck off, no parties for you guys, no space for you guys to enjoy yourselves and cry together one last time,” one senior reflected to the Independent, adding that “Pomona College’s fun needs saving.”

After graduating in the morning and spending the afternoon celebrating with friends and family, Pomona’s Class of 2026 was invited via email to “one final hangout” at the Clark V dorm by a group of seniors. The Independent spoke to multiple students, who described the gathering as an emotional farewell. Asked whether he would describe the event as a party, one senior answered that it was “just a big hangout…. No one was really even dancing. It was too emotional for that.”

Just before midnight, over 70 seniors had gathered in the courtyard when Campus Safety and a Pomona College Residence Life Coordinator intervened. Residence Life Coordinators are College staff who oversee Residence Advisors and enforce the school’s residential policies. According to multiple students present at the gathering, Campus Safety officers and the Residence Life Coordinator demanded the group turn off the music and disperse. 

Students told the Independent they tried to negotiate with Campus Safety and the Residence Life Coordinator to no avail, and were told there had been a noise complaint. This claim came as a surprise to students, given that virtually the only people left on the college’s campus were the graduating seniors themselves, with almost all other students having moved out by noon the day before. Campus Safety officers and the Residence Life Coordinator reportedly showed students an email describing the noise complaint. Larger parties have previously been hosted in the Clark V courtyards without any intervention by staff or Campus Safety. 

One student told the Independent that they offered to turn off the music and continue the gathering without it. The offer was rejected, the students being told there would be “no unauthorized parties.” The student described the officers and Residence Life Coordinator as being “adamant” about shutting the gathering down.

Another student recalled the Residence Life Coordinator shouting “You all need to get out, you need to vacate. Everyone leave.” She also threatened to call the police if students didn’t obey.

Believing they would be left alone if they moved the gathering, students headed to Bixby Plaza, a large open space in front of Frary dining hall. The seniors gathered around the plaza’s fountain, also settling on the “Frary Steps” which lead up to the dining hall’s main entrance. Students told the Independent that there was no free-standing alcohol present at this point as most of it had been left in the Clark V courtyard. Campus Safety and the Residence Life Coordinator followed, however, one student describing the latter as being “perched up” watching the gathering and again insisting that people disperse.

The Residence Life Coordinator, Kimani Francois, who oversees much of Pomona’s — mostly upperclassman — North Campus, has a known reputation among students as being particularly harsh in enforcing Pomona’s restrictive rules on parties, alcohol and beyond, one student telling the Independent that during a room inspection, she had objected to the him and his suitemates storing an empty cooler in their en-suite bathroom, and implied they would receive a write-up if the cooler was not moved; Francois did not provide any justification for her demand.

Despite this, students continued to try and reason with Francois, arguing that they should be allowed to celebrate on their last night at Pomona. “So many people were trying to like genuinely reason with [Francois] and say like, ‘Hey, it’s our last night,’ and she was saying, ‘just go to CMC.’” Another student also recalled Francois explaining that if the group left Pomona’s campus, they wouldn’t be Pomona’s responsibility. 

“Camp Sec was coming in with flashlights and flashing them in our face and yelling ‘Disperse, disperse,’ so we started dispersing and slowly but surely it became just a crawl,” the student recalled. 

The crowd of seniors first went to Athearn field on the northern end of Pomona’s Campus before again being told to leave by Francois and Campus Safety. A smaller group went down into the underground Athearn Field Parking Structure before being chased back out. 

The seniors were then waved through Claremont McKenna by the college’s Public Safety officers, who operate separately from the Claremont Colleges Campus Safety. One student described CMC’s officers as more sympathetic than Campus Safety and Francois, only asking students to keep moving and not linger.

Walking past Collins Dining Hall, the seniors then headed up to the Nucleus before turning towards Seal Court at Scripps College. As they walked, a Campus Safety vehicle passed by with flashing lights and a loudspeaker, repeating previous warnings to disperse and vacate the area. Ignoring the warnings, the crowd spent the length of a song in Seal Court before Campus Safety officers arrived in greater numbers than before.

The officers’ reinforced presence again spurred students to continue the crawl, the seniors heading across Scripps Bowling Green lawn before arriving at a gateway which separates the women’s college from Harvey-Mudd on Platt Blvd.

Campus Safety officers were waiting for them on the other side of the gate, and a handful of students again tried to speak with them. One senior asked the officers what policy students were violating, to which an officer responded that they were trespassing. Multiple students noted that despite her earlier appeal for the group to simply go to another campus, RLC Kimani Francois had followed the group all the way to Harvey Mudd.

With most of the group gathered on Platt Blvd., word came that someone had called the Claremont Police Department (CPD). According to one of the students who had been negotiating with Campus Safety, when a CPD squad car finally appeared, a Campus Safety officer told her “The cops are here, you guys better run.”

In what one student described as a “light jog,” the seniors headed back down to Pomona through Scripps and CMC. During the escape, some speculated that CPD might be waiting for the group at the edge of Scripps, ready to arrest them. “It’s obviously scary as sh*t,” one senior told the Independent, recalling the confusion. 

Ultimately, fears of CPD intervention were unrealized, and the seniors were able to slip back into their dorms for the night — they would all have to be moved out by noon. 

Seniors who spoke to the Independent all expressed frustration and were genuinely puzzled by Pomona and Campus Safety’s decision making. “I get there are rules that need to be enforced,” one senior said, “but like, come on. There are some times for leniency, and I would imagine the last night for the seniors might be one of those times.”

Another was stunned by just how aggressive Campus Safety and the RLC were in trying to shut the gathering down, noting that Campus Safety’s escalation ironically made the problem worse; the gathering would have died down on its own by 1 a.m. given how seniors still had to finish packing and move out of their rooms. “The intervention just prolonged the problem for them,” the senior said. “We weren't trying to be disruptive, but it probably made people want to be more disruptive just because they felt it was unjust. I definitely think it would not have gone on like super long had they just allowed us to be on the Frary steps for like 20 more minutes.”

“I don’t really understand, because we told them we would turn of the music and stuff and they were just like, ‘You guys have to disperse,’” another senior told the Independent, summing up how many of his peers felt about Pomona’s attitude toward them that night: “We graduated and Pomona was like, ‘Okay cool, we don’t care about you guys having a good time on campus anymore.’”

“It’s such a sour thing. I’ll remember for the rest of my time that my last night in Claremont was tainted by the presence and interference of Campus Safety and housing residence staff and just administration in general. Pomona College is so adamant about fun not being a thing that they're willing to like ensure that their seniors on the last night together don't even have the space to say goodbye and enjoy themselves.”

“Pomona College’s fun needs saving,” he concluded. “You don't have to want to party, but it's just unfortunate that the people who do don't have the space to do it.”

Last year, seniors were similarly chased across campus during the “senior takeback,” a longstanding college tradition in which seniors return to their freshman year dorm rooms a few days before graduation, knocking on their former doors and gathering underclassmen for a final passing of the torch. The group was pursued for over a mile — from Pomona’s South Campus to North Campus, onto and then back off of Sontag Hall’s rooftop, through Claremont McKenna’s campus, through the woods, and finally onto Pomona’s Strehle track, all while carrying kegs and speakers. The group was finally forced to disperse when Campus Safety circled the group with their flashlights shining and attempted to take students’ IDs.

The Independent contacted The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS), who manages Campus Safety, seeking clarification regarding the aggressivity of Campus Safety’s Sunday night response — including examples of officer conduct —, the intervention of CPD, and the origin of the alleged noise complaint.

The statement given by TCCS Assistant Vice President for Communications Laura Muna-Landa reads as follows:

“The Claremont Colleges Services Campus Safety responded to multiple disturbance complaints beginning shortly before midnight on May 17 regarding loud music and alcohol use involving a large group gathered on the Pomona College campus. Officers initially requested that the music be lowered, and the group briefly complied before the disturbance resumed. An additional complaint was subsequently received through dispatch and the LiveSafe system.

“Over approximately 90 minutes, Campus Safety and campus administrators from Pomona, CMC, and Scripps repeatedly advised the group to lower the volume, disperse, and return to their residences or leave the area as the gathering moved across multiple campus locations and grew in size. When those repeated requests were not followed, the Claremont Police Department (CPD) was contacted. The group began dispersing upon CPD’s arrival, and no further action was taken.

“Campus Safety’s response was based on repeated disturbance complaints and ongoing concerns related to noise, alcohol use, and the movement of a large crowd across several campuses.” 

TCCS did not provide any further comment on officer conduct, and declined to respond to further inquiries regarding the nature and origin of the disturbance complaints.

Kimani Francois, Pomona’s Director of Residence Life Erica Little, and Associate Dean of Campus Life Josh Eisenberg did not respond to requests for comment. A Pomona College spokesperson redirected the Independent to the statement issued by TCCS.