Two of Four Hillel Event Disruptors Identified, Banned from Pomona’s Campus

Hillel's October 15th memorial talk.

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.

Starr wrote in her email that Pomona College had opened an investigation the day after the disruption to “pursue appropriate disciplinary action.” After reviewing “hours of event video and security footage in an effort to identify the individuals involved,” and pursuing “a promising lead,” two of the disruptors were identified.

According to Starr, neither student attends Pomona, and the Claremont College that both implicated students attend aided Pomona in positively identifying the two disruptors. Starr did not reveal in the email which college the identified students were from.

“Given the gravity of the alleged offense — and the published statement that has raised significant concerns about similar disruptions in the future — I have initiated an interim campus ban for both individuals, pending further inquiries, and in line with our policy,” Starr wrote.

The email also noted that Pomona is still attempting to identify the two remaining anonymous disruptors.

Interim campus bans were previously placed on dozens of Claremont students after the takeover of Carnegie Hall by protesters last year. Campus bans are the only disciplinary measure Pomona can take against students at other Claremont Colleges. Students are subject to disciplinary proceedings at their home college, not at the college where their offenses were committed.

The Hillel memorial took place on Oct. 15, the disruption occurring shortly after guest speaker Yoni Viloga, an Oct. 7 survivor, concluded his presentation. The disruptors, wearing keffiyehs, shouted repeatedly “Zionists not welcome here” and claimed attendees were “all complicit in genocide” before retreating through the same fire exit they entered from. They were not pursued by attendees or the security guard present at the event.

Campus publications later received a letter justifying the disruption, which likened Viloga to Satan and claimed that “zionism [sic] is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly.” Starr condemned the letter as “threatening, dehumanizing and antisemitic,” and emphasized that the “sentiments expressed have no place in a community dedicated to teaching, learning, and respectful dialogue.”

Starr again urged members of the Claremont community to share any information about the disruption by emailing oct15disruption@pomona.edu.

Scripps College and Claremont McKenna College declined to comment.